Pop music as we know it would not be what it is without Carole King.
As a teenager in the late fifties, King began her career in the cubicles of the Brill Building, creating hit after hit. She composed her first #1 hit “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” with Gerry Goffin for the Shirelles at age 17. The #1 and Top 10 hits Goffin and King wrote during this period are part of music legend. In the early seventies King once again led the way, opening the doors for a brand new genre of artist, the singer-songwriter. Carole released her first solo album, Writer in 1970. But it was 1971’s Tapestry that took her to the pinnacle. It spoke personally to every one of her contemporaries, women in particular, and provided the spiritual musical backdrop to the decade. Tapestry remains on the charts some thirty years later, having grabbed the first GRAMMY grand-slam for a woman — Best Record, Best Song, Best Album, and Best Female Vocalist, as well as the Diamond Award (10 million units) from the RIAA. At over 25 million units sold, Tapestry was the best selling album by a woman for twenty five years.
King has also amassed three other Platinum and six Gold records in a career that spans nearly half a century. Carole is one of the first musical performers to move into acting, highlighted by her starring role in Blood Brothers on Broadway in 1994. She was also introduced during May sweeps on the Gilmore Girls, in a role she reprised overal several seasons. King also writes for film and television. Recent credits include writing and singing the theme (with daughter Louise Goffin) for Warner Bros. Gilmore Girls, and her 2000 Emmy nomination for “Song of Freedom” (the title track to Freedom Song a TNT original movie produced by and starring Danny Glover and executive produced and written by Phil Alden Robinson). Other credits include the films You’ve Got Mail, A League of Their Own and Murphy’s Romance.
In this, her sixtieth year, the ever-prolific King has released her 24th album of timeless pop music with all the bravura of her indomitable female spirit.
All bios appear as they were submitted in the year of induction or award presentation.