Thursday 23 July 2015

Carole King - Writer



Rating: 5/5

Review:
Still a cracking album

This is Carole King's first album from 1970 and to me it still sounds just great. It's not the towering classic which Tapestry was to become the following year, but Carole King has always written great songs and performed them really well. That's certainly true here.

This is a fine collection. All these songs show King's magnificent melodic gift and her wonderful ability to set her melodies with intelligent, often beautiful harmonies and arrangements. Gerry Goffin wrote the lyrics, of course, and by 1970 the two of them had been writing superb songs for others for many years. Up On The Roof, for example, had been a hit for the Drifters in 1962 and is still a classic song; King closes this album with her own, excellent version of it. Goin' Back has been a standard of the repertoire since Dusty Springfield recorded it 1966 and the version here is terrific, I think. There's not a duff track on the whole album and some are simply brilliant.

Carole King is in excellent voice throughout this album and her piano playing is terrific. Any two seconds of the album would be instantly recognisable as Carole King and probably recognisable as coming from around 1970, too. That makes it just fine with me; it's a cracking collection of fine songs by one of the greatest of singer songwriters and I can recommend this very warmly.

No comments:

Post a Comment