When Carole King's Tapestry was released on Olde Records, I was five years away from being a twinkle in my parent's eyes, and yet this album has had a significant role in my musical development. The hit singles have been recorded and re-recorded by other pop stars over the years, and are firmly integrated into American musical culture. The album itself remains a classic and must-have in most musical collections, which makes it ripe for the picking, again.
This time around, Sony Legacy is putting a different spin on the remastered collection, Tapestry: Legacy Edition, by throwing in selections of live performances of the songs from 1973 to 1976. The live versions are arranged in the same order as the album, with the exception of "Where You Lead," which she had stopped performing live shortly after recording it due to what she perceived to be a conflict between the song's message and the recent revival of the feminist movement, as she explains on the Welcome To My Living Room DVD.
Many writers over the years have praised and analyzed the songs on Tapestry, and if you want to delve into that, there are plenty of resources out there to help you do so. You probably even have your own opinions and reflections on this classic album. For me, it's a connection with my parents as well as my first real introduction to the singer/songwriter genre. It is difficult for me to step back and critically think about these songs because they are tied to emotions and memories.
The thing that makes this particular release of Tapestry unique and worthy of the collection of any Carole King fan is the second disc of previously unreleased live recordings. Producer Lou Adler says the live versions, with just her voice and piano, are like the demo versions he first heard of the songs. "Those songs are alive with just piano-vocal," he writes. "Within that piano, you'll hear vocal lines, string line, bass line, maybe a guitar solo line."
Article comments