Carole King's "Tapestry"

I was permanently soured on Tapestry as a teenager, not because of the music but because the most brutal, schizoid high school English teacher I ever had was a BIG fan of the album (had a portfolio with the album cover on it). Said teacher took delight in ripping up students' essays and messing with the minds of even the best writers in my school. I never had my writing ripped so mercilessly, and for such poor reasons (at least until I went to law school) -- it still pisses me off, more than a decade later.

Indeed, such appears to be the case -- lessee, "I Feel the Earth Move" I know via Belinda Carlisle (I think), "You've Got a Friend" via James Taylor (I'm assuming it's the same song), "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" via Bryan Ferry and "You Make Me Feel" via Aretha Franklin. So I know it only through other people. ;-)

At the ILE Picnic In The Sky my walkman had The Carpenter 1968-1972 on one side, and Tapestry on the other. If only you knew....

Only album, played repeatedly by friends when visiting, thats ever come close to 'Tapestry' type-levels of insipidness: Paul Weller's 'Wild Wood'.

Oh no wait, I like GOOD music, so I don't.

Fotheringay's version of "The Way I Feel" by Gordon Lightfoot, David = GRATE for the fade-in (it's Flying Saucer Attack, it is!) alone.

The dance version of "If You Could Read My Mind" by Lightfoot that circulated a few years back = pretty boring.

Cuz it's too late, baby Yeah, it's too late Though we really did try to make it Something inside has died And I can't hide And I just can't fake it

(cue soppy strings)

anyone who doesn't like it is a twenty genitiled motherfucker with no dick.

Dontcha love it?

But apart from that..... I mean Carole was a grebt songwriter...but she doesnt hold a candle to Joni or Laura Nyro....

Blue is a zillion times the album that Tapestry is....

When I feel alone and let down by love I listen to "The Last Time I Saw Richard"...and blub my eyes out!....ahem....not very manly of me ...but there ya go...

"Richard married a figure skater
he brought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolater"

....Carole King never wrote anything that grebt.

word up

But, beware: Big Statement coming! Her later single 'Jazzman' (which I only ever heard on Kasey Kasam's American Top 40 show, where from memory it reached no 7 sometime late in 1974) is one of the best of all time.

Re Gordy L: Loved 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'. Didn't mind 'Read My Mind' or 'Sundown'.

There's a guy called Cliff Portwood whose albums I have ONLY EVER seen in thrift shops, and who I have otherwise never heard of.

I think it's crap.

I do have to admit my own cringeworthy experience of a Carole King live show video I saw once, which cut to her Big Chill audience mouthing the words along to "You Got A Friend", clinging like shellshocked life-victims to a guru's every platitude. epitome of singersongwriter blahness! I thought - ha, how radical was I ? (this is the enemy?)

Carole King is on my mind though, cos "Snow Queen", in both the Roger Nichols & the Small Circle Of Friends and Carole King & The City versions, is one of my new favourite songs.

interesting parallel with Judy Henske too - both of them left their husbands for new bandmates.

After a decade of launching other people's hits, she got the itch to sing again. Bad choice. Some good songs, though.

you say this like it's a bad thing

it's a good album, really good

not neccesarily. But it's sheer ubiquity is pretty mind-boggling. I prefer The Carpenters, myself.

my mom likes this record a lot. i stole a copy of it since she hd two. i never listen to it. it's just there. i listened to it a few times when i first found it. then like... no. never.

Ned, if you're still on this thread: For chronological reference, Maggie May and It's Too Late were huge AM hits at the same time in the spring of 1971.

i'm not sure how anyone could call this rubbish?

short, sweet, tuneful songs, nice nasal voice, and that beautifully dry '70s piano-and-drums sound that i can't get enough of these days.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Sunday, March 28, 2004 9:29 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"i'm not sure how anyone could call this rubbish?"

At least sometimes, terminal rockists feel an insatiable need to flash their credentials.

Having never encountered it (to my knowledge), nothing has died since of course it never lived. The quandaries of existence set free!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, September 20, 2002 9:25 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

REALLY?

Other hypothetical Ned posts:

Having never encountered it (to my knowledge), no one has strummed my pain with his finger, so I have never been filled up by anyone's words.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, September 20, 2002 9:26 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Having never encountered it (to my knowledge), I am proud of not being vain, so yes, I do think that this song is not about me. ;-)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, September 20, 2002 9:28 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I have never encountered it (to my knowledge), but I can certainly empathize with the notion of paradise being paved and turned into a parking lot.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, September 20, 2002 9:30 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sorry. Ned knows his shit, but I can't get over anyone my age not having a passing knowledge about Tapestry.

Sunny would get on to me for being a music snob right now, but fuck.

my boyfriend started playing it in the house and i was like who is this?

and then he told me. it was carole king.

I went through a huge Tapestry phase last semester. I went into a record store hoping/expecting to find it used, and I did, for like 5 dollars, and then it defined the next month of my life. J'adore.

i saw carole king in a supermarket a few years back. (no, she wasn't playing the dairy aisle). she looked good for a sixty something. late goffin/king tunes that showed up on notorious byrd brothers & head are like the pinnacles of psych pop imo. so for that she will always be classic. tapestry is alright, i can see how it got played out back in the day but that shouldn't count now.

Carole King?!?! Tapestry?!?!? O come on peeps. Carole King was a great songwriter among the ranks of Paul anka, JT and Carly simon. She was an icon in her day and everyone knew and could sing along with her lyrics no matter if it was your parents playing it or you were a teen or adult listening to it voluntarily at the time. I cannot believe that any one of you; especially you Ned, who is so savvy and knowledgeable in musicology, claim you have no remembered knowledge of her, Tapestry or her other stuff. Like manilow and anka, she has a huge catalog of songs although she herself may not have recorded them commercially herself. She wrote scads of songs that either she herself recorded or were recorded by others of her contemporary musicians. In fact, Tapestry was on the top of the Billboard charts for over 6 years in the mid '70s and won at least 4 Grammy's and was again up for album of the year in '82 against MJ's "Thriller" to which it finally lost and fell from the charts AFTER SIX YEARS. King, along with others like Neil Sedaka, James Taylor, and so many others were legendary fellows of the '70s songwriter genre. How can anyone be ignorant of this fact whether or not you're a fan? The album "Tapestry" was re-recorded in the early '90s covered by artists like the Bee Gees, Amy Grant, Celene Dion, Rod Stewart and Faith Hill to mention a few. If there wasn't some significant value to it, then I question why anyone would bother to re-record and release the same album. But this is just me, and just sayin.

I even did this one time:

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/6256/tarexjpgdg8.jpg

watched tv with a cat?

</slocki>

carole is laughing at us all right to the bank. She has a steady income from music rights/royalties and doesn't have to do a thing she doesn't want to do. All this at only 66 years old. I don't know about the rest of you, but it sounds pretty effing awesome to me. My life should be so easy! <sigh> maybe in my next life. Ill be taller then too more than my current 5' 4".

i remember reading this thread the day it went up, it was not long after i began reading ilx and a while before i posted, and saying to myself, "who are these jokers".

yeah, ignorance is never a good starting point

12 Carole King Songs Every Gay Man Should Know

1. I Feel The Earth Move
2. So Far Away
3. It's Too Late
4. Home Again
5. Beautiful
6. Way Over Yonder
7. You've Got A Friend
8. Where You Lead
9. Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
10. Smackwater Jack
11. Tapestry
12. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman

this album is great.

new deluxe version about to drop, with live voice/piano demos of eleven of the twelve songs...

love this album muchly.

Aw yeah. People be goin' crazy an' shit when that Carole King drops. Sheeeeit.

the first post is perplexing, carole king is obv great.

Carole talked to Obama supporters in my town today. I reported on it. I asked her a question about the difference between campaigning in 2004 and in 2008. Then I had her sign my copy of Tapestry because i'm a music reporter, not a news reporter.

you are the coolest

Well Tape....share for pity's sake. Waddid you ask specifically and waddid she say specifically. She's a Dem, I used to rep her and her kid Louise Goffin who was involved and had kids with a Oscar winner, Steve Gaghan, but that's another story.

Do tell....

You lucked out, TS. The only celebrity I saw campaign there in '92 was Fonzie standing on a tree stump in Peace Park.

(And Al Gore too, on the quad.)

she sang You've Got a Friend with the crowd

mccain was here yesterday

he ate ribs or some shit and then left

She came to my hometown four years ago, campaigning for John Kerry in the Iowa Caucus. At a meet-n-greet prior to her talk & brief performance, people were getting records autographed, invariably "Tapestry". I was standing in line with a copy of "Writer", my personal favorite, and when she saw me like five people away, she stopped in mid-sentence, looked at the record and said, "Duuude!" Then she was very cool about taking a break to talk songs with me & my daughter for a couple of minutes.

Anyway, Tapestry classic, Carole King classy.

Fuck the (mostly British) haters, I had a cassette version of Tapestry and played it in my car all through late high school. She sings in the perfect register for me to squack along since I have one of those dusty alto voices, and "Smackwater Jack" is my karaoke stand-by.

"Home Again" makes me cry every time, like clockwork, and "Where You Lead" firmed my resolve to someday throw my lot in with the man of my heart and fit my dreams to his. Which hasn't quite worked out and chances are I'd stab him with a grapefruit spoon in that scenario but hey, I was 17.

i apologise on behalf of the british haterz, they know not how wrong they are

Like Tom I prefer Martika's version

ffs

I was standing in line with a copy of "Writer", my personal favorite

i love writer! "spaceship races"... sigh.

it's too late just came on the radio. wows

YOU'VE GOT TO GET UP EVERY MORNING WITH A SMILE ON YOUR FACE AND SHOW THE WORLD ALL THE LOVE IN YOUR HEART.

i can roll with tapestry.

YOU'VE GOT TO GET UP EVERY MORNING WITH A SMILE ON YOUR FACE AND SHOW THE WORLD ALL THE LOVE IN YOUR HEART.

otm

I didn't know how much I liked this album until I was in Japan, far far away from my parents' record collection, and was seized by the desire to listen to it so so strong that I could almost not bear it. And then I went to a record store and discovered there was some fancy new edition so it didn't feel too redundant to be buying it again. But it was weird to hear it again - the way it's arranged, in my head, is a hell of a lot better. Plus the version in my head doesn't have the title track or 'smackwater jack' on it because they're laaaaaaame.

I guess it's a comfort album for me? 'so far away' and 'it's too late' make me ridiculously sentimental, they're so simple and her voice is at its best, and they seem... rooted in an adult world? I get that sense of reality that I get from, uh, Luomo's 'the present lover' or something (...i don't know, i can't really explain it, there's this feeling of: this is, genuinely, what people do with their emotions in order to understand them. which isn't a feeling I get from a lot of records).

"So Far Away" gets me misty

Another reminder of the mythical i.e. non-existent golden age of ILx.

There was a golden age.

It was in 2005.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb5MORLi8K0

RIP photographer Jim McCrary - the photographer who took the cover picture.

http://devonrecordclub.com/2014/06/27/carole-king-tapstry-round-69-nicks-choice/

Naysayers are daft as hell re: this record. It's wonderful.

The songs on Tapestry are definitely better than the singing. King has a pleasant voice, but it is nothing special and she doesn't do many interesting things with it. The arrangements on the album are quite simple, even slight, mainly because her voice wouldn't be able to stand out against something denser or more complex. All that vocal simplicity and artlessness do add up to something rather charming, but when the material falls flat (e.g. Smackwater Jack) there's nothing much left to listen to.

she's 75 today

this record is so good

I think Carole King's "Tapestry" is RUBBISH and I believe it may have led me to use uncouth language on Friday night*.

I wonder if Tom still thinks this. Tapestry was so ubiquitous in early 70s central California - every adult whose house I found myself in played it, it felt & feels to me like an emblem of that time and place: of adults newly divorced and living in houses with batik hangings on the walls, out on the back patio drinking wine and talking with my tee-totaling (but "grass"-indulgent) Dad while I explored the living room stereos with their big woodgrain-exterior speakers atop shag rugs -- that it feels like something I can barely have an opinion about; but it was also an album that older grown-ups (my Dad, as opposed to the younger company he often kept in the wake of the divorce) accepted as worthy, took seriously.

Today I am hearing Thoroughbred from '75 for the first time: it feels like something of a masterpiece, really. It is much less intense than Tapestry -- but it's beautifully written and arranged and played. And engineered. Outstanding, really. Anybody know this one?

Lol at Olde ILX opening of thread. Don't know from Thoroughbred. Really came to post about (one of the) drummer(s) on this, Joel "Bishop" O'Brien, Geoffrey O'Brien's brother. He always seems to pop up in interesting places, some kind of half-hidden behind-the-scenes hipster.

My voice didn’t enter the story until 1975, when I met Dexter in France, the year before he returned to the States. Mine is quite a loud voice (as I have often been told) that was formed by jazz from the late 1950s when we teenage jazz fans had a little listening club (mainly boys) that would get together at Joel O’Brien’s house and listen to the latest LPs. Joel’s father was a well-known morning radio host who received DJ copies of all the latest albums.

Gordon, Maxine. Sophisticated Giant (p. 7). University of California Press.

I just somewhat randomly saw of picture of him with some of the cats in the band mentioned here: https://www.dailyfreeman.com/2000/11/24/the-kansas-city-sound-is-the-real-deal/

released after 50 years: https://www.caroleking.com/news/home-again-live-central-park-concert-documentary-be-released-feb-9-coda-collection

(... but ILM doesn't seem to like her. I only know 2 or 3 songs I think)

Is that true? I always thought Tapestry and "It's Too Late" were revered here, there, and everywhere. It was he birthday yesterday.

"her"

ILM doesn't seem to like her.

waht

Going by the early posts in this thread, I see what you mean...Not reflective of the general view of both her and the album, though.

Like I need an excuse--I only post this 17 times a year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKTIxP54-54

Thanks for the reminder, by the way, StanM--I'm going to use this today teaching.

Here's something: it's also the 50th anniversary of her BBC show, which you can either watch piecemeal or in its entirety on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqwLrJ6QWho

So that was recorded on the same day Tapestry was released.

my pleasure! :-)

Opens here next week:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26420051/

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQHR1J9i8tI

"Locked in a vault for 50 years" sounds so much more impressive than "collected dust on a shelf in a storage room".

I wish the show were two years earlier, the actual year of Tapestry, but I'm still excited to see it. The horn section all wearing St. Louis Blues jerseys made me laugh.

"Locked in a vault for 50 years" sounds so much more impressive than "collected dust on a shelf in a storage room".

If Geraldo taught us anything about vaults it's that they raise unreasonably high expectations.

Jeez, the album even has a cat on the cover. What the fuck sort of bug crawled up ILE's ass 20 years ago?

back when the album came out it had its share of haters. they were a minority, but not a tiny one

IIRC the same group of early ILXers despised Joni Mitchell, so

I wish the show were two years earlier, the actual year of Tapestry

There probably would have been a lot less people there.

Looks great but trailer has an SNL type feeling

surely this thread should be moved to ILM ?

i have a 2cd reissue, and dont think i have ever listened to it.
so, cos of this revival i suspect it's time to dig it out

checks discogs ..
turns out i have a bit of a rare reissue

https://www.discogs.com/release/2307068-Carole-King-Tapestry

Do they still have big free shows in Central Park? I know they have smaller-stage things throughout the summer, but are those 100K+ events a thing of the past?

dont think i have ever listened to it. it's time to dig it out

I'm genuinely interested in reading the first take of anyone who's not heard this album before. If that's you, plz let us know what you thought of it.

There probably would have been a lot less people there.

For sure--you can't really have both, the moment and the massive crowd. The BBC show above would almost certainly be better performance-wise, I'm sure (still haven't gotten around to watching it).