Carole King and Paul Simon’s incredible college connection
Modern pop music owes a lot to Carole King, a singer and songwriter responsible for writing over 100 chart hits during her career, from ‘(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman’, made famous by Aretha Franklin, to the iconic track ‘The Loco-motion’.
It wasn’t until 1971, when King released her second solo album, Tapestry, that she became a recognisable household name, boasting popular tracks such as ‘I Feel the Earth Move’ and ‘It’s Too Late’. The album remained on the charts for six years – a testament to its enduring nature, and she has since released many more successful records.
King began playing the piano when she was four, and it didn’t take long for her to become addicted to learning the instrument. She recalled: “My mother never forced me to practice. She didn’t have to. I wanted so much to master the popular songs that poured out of the radio.”
After spending her childhood honing her musical talents, she found a chance to collaborate with her peers in high school. It was during her time at James Madison High School she formed a band called the Co-Sines, a doo-wop group that provided her with the basis of her early career. Realising that she enjoyed songwriting, she decided to pursue it professionally, and soon enough, she was getting paid to pen hits.
She told NPR: “At that time, the record industry was established, but record executives were actively looking for acts that would resonate with teenagers. And there weren’t a lot of them out there, so the doors were wide open.”
King attended Queen’s College in New York after graduating high school at 16. Here, she met her future husband and collaborator Gerry Goffin and also Paul Simon, who would soon become one half of the highly successful duo Simon and Garfunkel.
In Paul Simon: The Life, Robert Hilburn writes, “During a demo session his freshman year, Simon met another talented young singer and songwriter, Carol Klein [she soon changed her name to King], who was also a first-year at Queens College […] The teens became friends, and King even helped him with one of his math classes. In the spring of 1959, they worked together on a demo for ‘Just to Be with You’.”
King and Simon recorded music together; little did their classmates know they were in the presence of future music royalty. They even charged $25 a session while recording demos. However, King would soon drop out of college to pursue songwriting with Goffin, and the pair scored their first hit with The Shirelles’ ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow?’, which reached number one.
It took Simon a few more years to achieve success, but once he teamed up with his childhood friend Art Garfunkel, the duo found themselves earning countless hits, such as ‘Sound of Silence’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’.
