If you wanted to define a hard starting point for the singer-songwriter trend that exploded in the early seventies, this album would be ground zero.

Carole King had been laboring behind the scenes for over a decade, writing songs for hire as part of the Brill Building contingent of pop songwriters. Her success rate was phenomenal when she gave her songs to other recording artists, but only one song that she released on her own ever broke into the top 40 (“It Might as Well Rain Until September” charted at #22 in 1962). From that point on, she concentrated on writing hits for others, until rock and roll bands started to provide their own material.

The Brill Building formula of ‘Artist and Repertoire’ men choosing songs for their artists was waning fast, which more or less forced King into the position of recording her own songs. Her album debut came in 1970 and sold poorly at first, but the singer/songwriter trend grew stronger by 1971, and the timing of “Tapestry” was perfect.

Her second album became a phenomenon, selling over 25 million copies and winning a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. From this point forward, singer/songwriters would start popping up like weeds, and the very nature of rock and roll would once again shift, making it easier for solo songwriters to achieve success on their own.

Featured tracks include:

I Feel the Earth Move

So Far Away

It’s Too Late

Home Again

Beautiful

Way Over Yonder

You’ve Got a Friend

Where You Lead

Will You Love Me Tomorrow

Smackwater Jack

Tapestry

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

February 1971 - Billboard Charted #1