The artist Carole King was “terrified” to play live with: “I could not talk him out of this”
By the time the end of the 1970s rolled around, Carole King‘s impact on the music industry didn’t need debating.
From the beginning of the decade, she delivered fans an album that would go on to pioneer an era of songwriting and what could be achieved as a fronting or backing presence. Her vocals glided across delicately arranged piano melodies and allowed her deeply poignant songs about the trappings of personal relationships to resonate across generations of listeners.
Amidst this decade of musical diversity, Tapestry remained one of the most treasured albums, and King became a sought-after writer. Of course, she was at her very best when her writing focused on her own arrangements, but that didn’t stop her from gifting her works to other artists, namely James Taylor.
The song most famous in this regard is undoubtedly ‘You’ve Got A Friend’, which featured on King’s 1971 record, but is perhaps more widely associated with folk legend Taylor. However, it was another song of King’s that he took and put onto his 1979 record Flag that enjoyed commercial glory.
‘Up On The Roof’ was originally written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and then recorded by The Drifters in 1962, before Taylor took control. Since the successful days of his touring career, he never wanted the music industry to lose sight of King’s importance in writing the track, and so he forced her to join him on stage and perform the song as a duet.
“He tells me I’m going to sing it […] I could not talk him out of this,” King modestly explains, recalling the 2007 show at Los Angeles’ The Troubadour, where the pair played.
She continued, “So when he introduces me…normally he introduces his band. He’s very gracious and generous that way… So he did that night just before ‘Up On The Roof’, and I knew he was going to ask me to sing it by then. It wasn’t like, ‘Come onstage’. Although I felt that way anyway. Introduces everybody, saved me for last, and then says to everybody, ‘This woman has written blah, blah, blah’, and he ticks off all the songs that I’ve written that you all know. Then he says, ‘And I’m going to ask her to sing this tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, Carole King!’”
Despite the fact that in 2007, Carole King’s legacy in the pantheon of musical greats was already cemented, she still felt that sense of terror that comes with live performance. She was absolutely “terrified” with the lights taking on an interrogative bend, attacking her. The stage fright pushed her to reevaluate her motions before an audience and no less alongside James Taylor, who, in her words, “just knows what to do”.
“I don’t know what to do. I start singing the song, and as I worked my way through the song, people aren’t sure what to expect. They know that I wrote the song, but suddenly I feel this infinitesimal, yet huge shift. Suddenly, I’m not sure, and then you’re with me. I’m taking it in, and you’re with me, and I go through it. From that time forward, I was a lot more comfortable onstage, but there was one other transition, and if you want to lead into it, or I can,” she laid it all out.
King may not know it, but it’s that attitude in which her greatness lies. Her deeply human and vulnerable approach to music, offering her talents as a gentle guide or someone who simply keeps up, is what has made her work and, in particular, Tapestry, so acclaimed.
