Carole King

Carole King, born Carol Joan Klein on February 9, 1942, in Manhattan, New York City, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and Broadway performer. Her parents, Eugenia, a teacher, and Sidney N. Klein, a firefighter, settled in Brooklyn after her birth, where King grew up. Her mother, who had learned piano as a child, began teaching King basic piano skills when she was three years old. By age four, King's parents had identified her absolute pitch, and her mother began giving her formal music lessons. King entered kindergarten at four and was promoted directly to second grade after her first year.

In the 1950s, King attended James Madison High School in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, where she formed a band called the Co-Sines and adopted the stage name Carole King, having been born Carol Klein. During this period she made demo recordings with her friend Paul Simon for $25 a session. Her first official recording, the promotional single "The Right Girl," was released by ABC-Paramount in 1958, arranged by Don Costa. King then enrolled at Queens College, where she met Gerry Goffin. The two married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island in August 1959 and left college to pursue songwriting, with Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary while they wrote songs together in the evenings.

Throughout the 1960s, King and Goffin composed music and lyrics, respectively, for a wide range of artists, producing songs that became pop standards. Their credits from this period include the Shirelles' 1960 Billboard number one hit "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," the first number one by a Black girl group; "The Loco-Motion" and "Keep Your Hands off My Baby," both recorded by their babysitter Little Eva; "Up on the Roof" for the Drifters; "Take Good Care of My Baby" for Bobby Vee; "One Fine Day" for the Chiffons; "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the Monkees; and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" for Aretha Franklin. King also recorded "It Might as Well Rain Until September" herself in 1962, which charted at number 22 in the United States and number 3 in the United Kingdom. The pair worked at 1650 Broadway as part of the Brill Building songwriting community and served as the songwriting team behind Don Kirshner's Dimension Records.

By 1968, Goffin and King had divorced. King relocated to Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, with her two daughters and formed a music trio called The City, which included bassist Charles Larkey and guitarist Danny Kortchmar. The group released one album, Now That Everything's Been Said, in 1968, before disbanding in 1969. Living in Laurel Canyon, King became acquainted with James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. She released her debut solo album, Writer, in 1970 on Lou Adler's Ode label, with Taylor contributing acoustic guitar and backing vocals; the album peaked at number 84 on the Billboard Top 200. That same year, King played keyboard on B.B. King's album Indianola Mississippi Seeds.

King's sophomore album, Tapestry, followed in 1971 and topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks, remaining on the charts for over six years. Across her solo career she released 25 albums and sold over 75 million records worldwide. She wrote or co-wrote 118 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 during the latter half of the 20th century, and 61 songs that reached the UK charts, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts from 1962 to 2005. Her honors include four Grammy Awards, induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, once as a performer and once as a songwriter. In 2013 she received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, becoming its first female recipient, and in 2015 she was recognized with the Kennedy Center Honors.

King's connection to Broadway spans both performance and authorship. Originally from Brooklyn, she appeared on Broadway in 1993 and has credits that include Blood Brothers and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, for which she also served as book writer.