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ALBUM REVIEW

CAROLE KING

TAPESTRY

Released -  1971 by Ode Records. Produced by Lou Alder

Carole King - Lead & Backing Vocals, Piano & Keyboards

Danny Kootch - Electric & Acoustic Guitars, Conga
Charles Larkey - Electric & String Bass
Russ Kunkel - Drums
Joel O'Brian - Drum

With:
James Taylor - Acoustic Guitar on tracks 2, 4, 6, 7 & 9
Curtis Amy - Flute on track 2, Sax on tracks 3, 6 & 10
Ralph Schuckett -  Electric Piano on tracks 3, 8 & 10
Barry Socher - Violin on "Way Over Yonder" and "You Got A Friend"
David Campbell - Viloa on "Way Over Yonder" and "You Got A Friend"
Terry King - Cello on "Way Over Yonder" and "You Got A Friend"
Perry Steinberg - String Bass on "Way Over Yonder"
Merry Clayton -  Backing Vocals on "Way Over Yonder", "Where You Lead" & "Smackwater Jack"
Julia Tillman - Backing Vocals on "Where You Lead" & "Smackwater Jack"  
The Mitchel/Taylor Boy And Girl Choir - Backing Vocals on "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow"

All song written by Carole King, unless noted below

REVIEW

Carole King will be remembered for two things, first as one of the 1960's best rock song writers, and for this great 1971 album, Tapestry. Everybody fell in love with this one when it was first released, in fact, most males under 30 couldn't resist it. For whatever reason, I was not one of them. I did liked the album at the time, but it didn't really grab me till years later. When I hear it now today, I love it too.

"You Got A Friend" is the best song on the album, almost as great as James Taylor's even better cover of this masterpiece. "So Far Away" was a number one hit single for King, and it is very good, a very smooth number (as that could be said about every song on Tapestry), but it's flip side, "I Feel The Earth Move" is even better, rolling along just so fine, the second best song on the album.

"It's Too Late" is yet another gem, in fact when I claim that I like "You Got A Friend" and "I Feel The Earth Move" better, well just barely, as when "It's Too Late" is playing, I just might dig it a bit more!

A few other songs on here that I really love are "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", a song with a lot of soul, and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", no question, Aretha Franklin's cover of this one, which came out a few years before Carole's version, is as good as any cover song can get, but even though King wrote this beauty, it is always hard to do a great follow-up version after somebody else has already had a hit with it.

"Smackwater Jack" is another nice flowing upbeat song, and "Where You Lead" also needs to be noted as yet another better than average song. No wonder this album was such a huge hit when it first came out!

- Keno, 2005

To listen to some soundclips from TAPESTRY,or to purchase it click on: Tapestry

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