The Essential Carole King (Sony Legacy CD Set)

 

Sound: B     Music: B+

 

 

Carole King has been one of the most significant songwriters in music history.  With Gerry Goffin, they were one of the most important wiring duos around, rivaling Lennon/McCartney and Bacharach/David for the quality of their standards, then her landmark solo album Tapestry was a huge breakthrough for women throughout the industry commercially and critically along with being a touchstone for the singer/songwriter era at its peak.  Sony has issued a new CD set called The Essential Carole King and it is an impressive compilation of her work.

 

The twist is how it is split.  One CD is of her own hits and the other is of hits she wrote (and/or co-wrote) for others.  As follows, the choices are really good:

 

CD ONE/THE SINGER
1. It Might As Well Rain Until September

2. Child Of Mine

3. I Feel The Earth

4. So Far Away

5. It’s Too Late

6. You’ve Got A Friend

7. Sweet Seasons

8. Been To Canaan

9. Corazón

10. Jazzman

11. Nightingale

12. Only Love Is Real

13. Medley w/James Taylor: Will You Love Tomorrow/Some Kind Of Wonderful/Up On The Roof
14. Really Rosie

15. Pierre

16. You Can Do Anything w/Babyface
17. The Reason w/Celine Dion

18. Now And Forever

 

 

Tracks 3 – 6 are from Tapestry, but her hits continued just the same for a while and the albums continued to sell.  No doubt she could hold her own and of all the songs, “It’s Too Late” may be her masterpiece single.

 

 

CD TWO/THE SONGWRITER
1. Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles

2. Take Good Care Of My Baby - Bobby Vee

3. Every Breath I Take - Gene Pitney
4. Crying In the Rain - Everly Brothers

5. The Loco-Motion - Little Eva
6. Up On the Roof - The Drifters

7. Chains - The Cookies

8. One Fine Day - The Chiffons
9. Oh No Not My Baby - Maxine Brown
10. Just Once In My Life – The Righteous Brothers
11. Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees

12. (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman - Aretha Franklin
13. No Easy Way Down - Dusty Springfield
14. Wasn’t Born To Follow - The Byrds                     

15. Hey Girl - Billy Joel

 

 

As writers in the legendary Brill Building, King and Gerry Goffin wrote classics for duos, groups, solo artists and this is a fine selection for a single disc.  Track 1 shows their ability to write for Girl Groups, Track 4 tried to continue the Everly’s hits after leaving Cadence Records for Warner (which some felt was a long-term mistake), most remakes of Tracks 6 and 12 botch the original, Track 11 showed they could launch new talent and Track 5 may just be one of the most important records in American Pop history.  Good thing this is a copy that is (finally!) not warped.

 

The singer was their baby sitter (!) and it set the tone for so many trends (like dance records, along with “The Twist”) not to mention the remakes that also hit every decade or so.  Track 7 is one of two big, great hit the duo wrote for The Cookies, with the other being the equally great “Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad (About My Baby)” and could have also been included.  I noticed the absence of two of the bolder, more unique songs that should have been included and were not.  “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss” (by The Crystals, remade so well by The Motels) and “The Porpoise Song” for The Monkees (for their underrated film Head) show how far they could push the pop form.

 

But that has been the raw talent in so many forms from King throughout her career, yet still ahead of her time in an industry in trouble it did not need to be in, an industry that for a golden period believed in talent that had something to say.  King reminds us you can put that to music without compromise and be a huge success, which is why this is such a fine set.

 

 

The PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo is impressive throughout both discs, with the King songs on the Singer CD sound about as good as they can in this format.  Audiophiles who want better outside of the best vinyl pressings of any of the material can turn to the second edition of Tapestry (neither version reviewed on this site) in the Super Audio CD (SA-CD) format.  After being issued as a 2-channel-only release, it was reissued with a second 5.1 mix added and both high definition audio tracks (in the giant single-megabit DSD/Direct Stream Digital format) are superior to the tracks included here.  The Songwriter set is as impressive by simply having solid copies of the songs included, several of which have not sounded this good in a long time.  On another audiophile note, The Animals’ hit version of “Don’t Bring Me Down” may be missing here, but is on the SA-CD we reviewed of The Animals Retrospective.

 

All in all, outside of a CD box set, The Essential Carole King is about as good as a double CD set on the artist is going to get.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo