The Living Room Tour

Back in the early 70’s Carole King released Tapestry, an album that took the country by storm. Along with James Taylor, Carole King set the standard for singer-songwriters that has echoes even 35 years later. The amazing thing was that King, along with her ex-husband Gerry Goffin, had made tons of hits for other artists as writers in the 60’s. Suddenly (or at least it seemed that way) she was thrust into the limelight as a performer. The album sold a gazillion copies. Everyone, it seemed, had a copy of Tapestry in the seventies.

I was cruising the itunes music store and noticed that King had a new CD out, The Living Room Tour, that is mostly just her and a piano, singing the songs that she wrote. And not just the songs from Tapestry. A lot of her earlier hits too, like “Locomotion,” “Chains,” and even the Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” When I saw that Best Buy (the happiest place on Earth) had this double CD for $12.99 I was unable to resist it.

It’s great. At age 62 King’s voice has lost a bit and there are times when it feels like she’s straining but the intimacy of just her voice and her piano on these songs is just too good to miss. A highlight is the duet with her daughter on "Where You Lead I Will Follow", now with new lyrics so it could be the theme from Gilmore Girls. (I hear that a lot at my house these days, thanks to Lynnae.) And when she closes out the show with "You've Got A Friend" it brings me right back to high school.

Check out the reviews at Amazon to read more about it.