CAROLE KING: WRITER (1970)
1) Spaceship Races; 2) No Easy
Way Down; 3) Child Of Mine; 4) Goin' Back; 5) To Love; 6) What Have You Got To
Lose; 7) Eventually; 8) Raspberry Jam; 9) Can't You Be Real; 10) I Can't Hear
You No More; 11) Sweet Sweetheart; 12) Up On The Roof.
Popular perception of Carole King: Nice lady
composer, wrote some cool hits for (mostly) Afro-American singers in the
Sixties, then sang most of them herself in 1971 on her only album Tapestry, spent the rest of her time
living somewhere in California raising a family and stuff. It was so nice of
the President, too, to get her out for the Kennedy Center Awards in 2015, where
she spent most of the time smiling at Afro-American performers singing Tapestry almost in its entirety. Oh
yes, and she's besties with James Taylor, too. They sing ʽYou've Got A Friendʼ
together and all that. Was he there at the ceremony as well? He must have
been.
There is little reason to doubt, of course,
that Tapestry is King's highest
point, just out of sheer consistency, but somehow the popularity of that record
has eclipsed everything else — most importantly, that for a short, but
significant period in the early 1970s, Carole King was one of the leading
figures in America's «singer-songwriter» movement. In the 1960s, she had
neither the self-confidence nor the proper opportunity to emerge as a
self-sufficient artist in her own rights: her voice was considered weak, her
looks were way too unglamorous, and her «stage image» was non-existent. But as
standards began to shatter and shift, and as a small, but stable market demand
was formed for «sincerity» and «integrity», Carole finally took the opportunity
to go public — an opportunity made easier by her divorce from husband-lyricist
Gerry Goffin and subsequent relocation to California — and, after an
unsuccessful attempt at working within the framework of an actual band («The
City», whose only album will be taken care of in an appendix), finally emerged
as a solo recording artist in 1970.
On Writer,
she is backed by the same musicians who formed «The City» (Charles Larkey on
bass and Danny Kortchmar on guitars), with the addition of a couple
keyboardists, drummer Joel O'Brien, and some backing vocalists. With two
exceptions, no new songs were written for the record — almost everything is credited
to Goffin/King, as the lady is struggling to take back possession of all the
hits, semi-hits, and non-hits that she earlier wrote for other people; only a
very few of these tunes come from the vaults, like the album opener ʽSpaceship
Racesʼ, which I do not think was covered by anybody prior to this release
(although one year later it was successfully covered by folk-rocker Tom
Northcott). However, it's not as if we could or should blame her for this
decision — imagine, say, a Bob Dylan prevented from releasing his greatest
songs under his own name for more than half a decade, and having to watch
helplessly as The Byrds and Manfred Mann reap all the glory!..
Anyway, most people's reaction to Writer will probably depend on what
they value most about art — deep feeling and sincerity or immaculate
professionalism. When you listen to ʽUp On The Roofʼ as performed by The
Drifters, and then compare it to this version, the difference is striking: the
1962 recording is bouncier, the brass and string overdubs perfectly emphasize
all the vocal hooks, and although lead vocalist Rudy Lewis was no Clyde
McPhatter or Ben E. King, his technical abilities were still way above
Carole's weak, trembling nasal delivery. But on the other hand, for The
Drifters singing the song was just business — the 1962 tune had one overriding
purpose, to make a shiny optimistic statement to brighten the record buyer's
day, and everything there, including the fantastic string solo, is focused on
that statement. For Carole, though, the song is much more than that — it is a
psychological tour-de-force, a confession of shyness, lonerism, and humility
where "there's room enough for two", but there most definitely
wouldn't be enough room for three or more (which is why entrusting the song to
a vocal band was an odd decision in
the first place, ensuring that its full potential could never be realized). And
in this context, her vocals are a perfect match for her personality as
expressed in the song — as long as she does not hit any bum notes or anything,
the «weakness» of the voice emerges as the strength of the song, and I'll take
King's version over The Drifters without blinking an eye.
On the whole, there isn't a single true clunker
on Writer, because of the
awesomeness of Carole's backlog — and there's another point, too, which speaks
very much in its favor: compared to later, post-Tapestry albums, which would lean too far in the direction of corny
sentimentality and mushy MOR arrangements, Writer
has a bit of a rock bite to it. After all, ʽSpaceship Racesʼ does open with a
distorted electric guitar lick and is ruled over by an intense, almost
hard-rocking bass line — not to mention a sarcastic, almost sneering vocal
delivery as the singer jabs her imaginary boyfriend for "spinning around
in a Busby swirl" and "living off dreams stored up in film
cans": it's almost like a feminist reversal of some typical Rolling Stones
misogynist slam, and we get to see a cool rational angle of somebody who, not
so long ago, was "made to feel like a natural woman", probably by the
exact same guy who she now wants to "take to the Spaceship Races".
Another forgotten, but totally real highlight
is ʽRaspberry Jamʼ, one of the two compositions that were specially made for
the album with the lyrical participation of Toni Stern. It is not so much a pop
song as it is a jazzy waltz whose title is a pun — the mid-section is a jam, with brief guitar and keyboard
improvisations; certainly not a masterpiece of jazz-pop, but a very nice, moody,
soothing piece of music all the same, and I am very glad it's there, because it
introduces an element of complete spontaneity — breaking away from the image
of Carole King as a calculated, smoothly running hit machine. She would rarely,
if ever, allow anything like that on her records again (probably because she
rightfully felt improvisational music would not be playing to her major
strengths), but there's nothing like a little extra freedom of flight for
somebody who is only just beginning to secure one's position as an independent
artist.
Elsewhere, she bravely recaptures her own
subtlety from The Byrds (ʽGoin' Backʼ) and Bobby Vee (ʽSweet Sweetheartʼ, one
of her catchiest upbeat pop-rockers); shows great depth of feeling on the
ultra-slow soul ballad ʽNo Easy Way Downʼ; and flashes a bit of idealistic
political creed on the equally slow folk ballad ʽEventuallyʼ, all of which, as far as I'm
concerned, are every bit as poignant and memorable as almost anything on Tapestry. Top prize, however, goes to
ʽChild Of Mineʼ, a McCartney-style piano ballad (or would it rather be accurate
to call all McCartney piano ballads Carole King-style? he did take quite a few
songwriting lessons from the lady in his youth, you know) that extols the joys
of motherhood with endearing and totally disarming simplicity — and just a
small, barely noticeable, drop of melancholy and lonerism in the "oh yes,
sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine" refrain, a drop that is
still enough to wrench the song out of the generic corny ballpark and put it in
the realm of true artistry (although we could certainly live without the tune being appropriated by
hundreds of people on YouTube who just want to use it as a background for
photos of their toddlers).
All in all, there may not be enough «cumulative
hit power» on Writer to match the
impact of Tapestry, but in all
honesty, owning a copy of the latter without complementing it with a copy of
the former should be considered a gross violation of the ethical code (on
RateYourMusic, for instance, Tapestry
currently features 168 user reviews, while Writer
is graced with a measly four: imagine
the same proportion for, say, Revolver
vs. Rubber Soul, and share my
indignation). As far as singer-songwriter albums from 1970 are concerned, this
is one of the strongest, and it does have the distinction of positioning Carole
King as an independent, self-sufficient solo artist in her own right, taking
back what's hers and, even more importantly, bridging the gap between commercial
pop of the corporate Brill Building variety and introspective musical artistry
(whereas with Tapestry, you could say
she actually took a few steps back towards the Brill Building as such). In any
case, my verdict is a very, very strong thumbs up — and if we all really respected woman
artists as much as we claim to do, I'm sure somebody would have the guts to
play a 15-minute version of ʽRaspberry Jamʼ for President Obama at the Kennedy
Center ceremony.
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ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for reviewing this record that makes me feel at ease, and simply fills my heart with sunshine. I agree that it must not be overlooked. Your words always hit the point.
I know the two ladies have very distinct styles, but I love to listen to Carole King and Joni Mitchell alternatively, perhaps because I am a woman - they catch different feelings that somehow complete one another.
I forgot to ask you if you had heard Annette Peacock's records ? "Been in the Streets too long" might please you, as well as "31 : 31", "I have no feelings", or the beautiful "Live in Paris" ... She also made dull albums in my opinion, but most of her compositions explore interesting facets of music with great sensibility.
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