Carole King stepped into the spotlight and broke gender barriers with her quintessential 1971 masterpiece Tapestry. A well-established Brill Building songwriter, King co-wrote hits with ex-husband Gerry Goffin throughout the 60s for Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, The Shirelles, The Monkees, and countless other pop sensations, but didn’t pursue a career as a performer herself until 1970. Tapestry showcased King’s expertly-crafted, heartfelt songs, including many of those written during her Brill Building tenure, but reinterpreted in her own warm, refreshingly unaffected voice. The music itself, produced by Lou Adler, was appropriately simple and allowed her vocals to breathe. Critic Robert Christgau wrote in 1981, “King has done for the female voice what countless singer-composers achieved years ago for the male: liberated it from technical decorum. She insists on being heard as she is - not raunchy and hot-to-trot or sweet and be-yoo-ti-ful, just human, with all the cracks and imperfections that implies.” Tapestry held the #1 spot on the Billboard album charts for 15 weeks and remained on the charts for a record six years. It garnered four Grammy Awards: Album of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year (”It’s Too Late”); and Song of the Year (”You’ve Got a Friend”, later covered by friend James Taylor, who played on Tapestry). It was one of 50 recordings added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2003.

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Official Carole King Website
Tapestry on AllMusic.com
Tapestry on Salon.com