“I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else/ Knows how to comfort me tonight:” Carole King’s Tapestry at 50

In case you missed it, over at The Ringer, I wrote about the 50th Anniversary of Carole King’s Tapestry. One of my favorite albums and a towering landmark of radical empathy. Check it out!

Nothing is off on Tapestry. Everything clicks. Fundamentally, King is a soul and gospel singer. From the opening piano phrases of “I Feel the Earth Move” through the stunning and spare reading of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” that culminates the record, Tapestry is Aretha by way of theater camp, a sui generis blend that channels both King’s immigrant roots and profound love of R&B. There was a lot of confessional soft-rock in the early ’70s—too much if we’re being objective. No doubt, King benefitted from the emergence of this genre as a popular force, but Tapestry is in no way soft. It has the grit, wit, and groove to match classic records that fellow soul-survivors Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones released that same year: Every Picture Tells a Story and Sticky Fingers.