The singer who made Carole King want to become a musician: “Be yourself”
Although it’s clear that Carole King was always destined to become a legendary musician in her own right, she didn’t always see it that way. In fact, King was the most sought-after hitmaker long before her magnum opus, Tapestry, and so taking the plunge to become a solo star likely felt like the most daunting task in the world.
After all, with hits like Aretha Franklin’s ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ and The Shirelles’ ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ already up her sleeve, singing her own material also probably didn’t feel like a very natural progression, at least not until a few events later pushed her to consider a much-needed career shake-up. Following her split from Gerry Goffin, King moved to Laurel Canyon with a view to starting afresh, though not without the difficulty of overcoming her own insecurities.
After facing a few fairly brutal setbacks, like a lack of commercial success with her new band, The City, and waning self-confidence as a result, along with a stark lack of label exec support and constantly facing harsh criticism about the marketability of her voice and talent, King was just about ready to give up entirely. But then, lo and behold, the world sent her James Taylor.
The pair performed one night after Taylor encouraged her to sing her own songs and helped her to create her first solo record, Writer, in 1970. The album wasn’t exactly what you’d call an everlasting smash hit, not even close, but it did lead to the most significant project of her entire career, Tapestry, which served as the ultimate proof that King always had the potential to make it; she just needed the right backing to realise it herself.
According to Taylor, though, the nature of King’s potential was never even a question. After all, it was never that King lacked the talent to become a star; it was that she didn’t believe that she could. But Taylor saw what so few refused to acknowledge, which was someone who had the power to lead and redefine the entire 1970s singer-songwriter boom. She just needed to combat that initial fear.
It makes sense, then, why King credits Taylor with her going out there and doing it in the first place. “I have James Taylor to thank for nudging me out in front,” she later explained. Explaining how he gave her that nudge, she recalled his wise words: “All you have to go is go out there, be yourself, sing your songs, and everything will be fine.”
Along with these all-important pearls of wisdom, there was also one other singer who gave King enough reassurance to believe that all wasn’t lost when things got particularly hard. Paul Anka also helped her maintain that base ambition, especially after listening to his song ‘Diana’, which motivated her to go and visit his producer, Don Costa, who she already knew from his work with industry heavyweight Frank Sinatra.
“[‘Diana’] had this kind of hooky thing, and I couldn’t tell what instrument was playing that,” King later told Tom McNaught. “So I was motivated to go see his producer, who also did a lot of work with Frank Sinatra in his later years, and many, many famous artists.”
She added, “So not having run into Paul Anka, but I saw myself as, ‘Well, he’s only seven months older than I am. If he can do it, I can do it.’”
Thus, King was comforted by the fact that there was someone else around her age who was following a similar path, reminding her that there was no set rule for achieving success. And when she finally did feel strong enough to make a go of it on her own, all her patience paid off, cementing her as one of the leading forces in modern music.
