Carole King recorded Welcome Home during January of 1978 and released the album about four months later. While it was an album of mostly upbeat music, personal tragedy would strike as her husband and sometime co-writer, Rick Evers, would die of a drug overdose in between. The album would not be embraced by the music buying public and was her least successful up until that time.
The first sign of trouble was found in the personnel listing. She was listed as the vocalist, background vocalist, and for arranging the strings. She was not listed as a musician. It was her personal piano sound that was so important to her success, and here it was ignored. There was a brass section listed, a virtual orchestra of strings, and even a choir. It all added up to a new direction for her music. She continued to travel away from her gritty, personal lyrics toward a more pastoral and philosophical style.
She wrote or co-wrote all the tracks but two were written by committee, which further removed her from her previous comfort zone. Her two compositions with Evers, “Sunbird” and “Wings of Love,” are polished but not memorable. Her solo compositions were the best of the lot, which should have been a lesson learned.
I had to listen to this album a number of times to reacquaint myself with the music, which is not a good sign. There are a number of her albums where I can name many of the songs, but I could only recall the name of one track before I removed it from the shelf.
The song I did remember was “Main Street Saturday Night,” which was actually very good. It had strong guitar lines and quickly settled into a nice groove. The vocal was also excellent, as she sounded as if she was really trying.
Article comments
1 - ana l. scot
Could not disagree more!! Disco Tech was written by Caroles's daughter. Beautiful songs from this album which she pulled from the market after the death of Rick Evers and vowed never to release it again. Urban legend? Possibly. Yes she went out on a limb with this one and she stepped out of her comfort zone....so what!! If she ever decides to give the grren light again and re-releases it I'd be the first in line to buy it.