Carole King - Tapestry-Legacy Edition (2-CD)
List Price:
Our Price: $9.93
You Save: $6.06 (38%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Artist: Carole KingBrand: PBS
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-04-22
Music Label: Sony Legacy
Product features:
- KING CAROLE TAPESTRY (2CD)
- I Feel The Earth Move
- So Far Away
- It's Too Late
- Home Again
- Beautiful
- Way Over Yonder
- You've Got A Friend
- Where You Lead
- Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
- Smackwater Jack
- Tapestry
- (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Music reviews of Tapestry-Legacy Edition (2-CD)
Music Review: Seminal singer-songwriter LP augmented with live tracks
Rating: 5 Stars
At the time of this album's 1971 release, Carole King had long since proven herself one of America's greatest pop songwriters, but she had yet to be fully recognized as a performer. It wasn't for a lack of trying. Early in her career she'd released a few singles from her perch at the legendary Brill Building, including the minor hit "It Might As Well Rain Until September." She'd also produced a smattering of titles for the Dimension and Tomorrow labels in the mid-60s, an album with the group The City in 1969, and her solo debut, Writer, in 1970. The latter held many charms, but found King singing her way past rock `n' roll backings or fitting herself into country rock. Writer's variety is broader than the piano-centered productions of Tapestry, but neither the upbeat numbers nor the placid ballads of King's debut proved the expressive jazz-tinged singer-songwriter vehicles of this sophomore breakthrough.
Presciently, Writer's closing cover of "Up on the Roof" did point the way to Tapestry, taking what had been a signature 1962 performance by The Drifters and rearranging its Latin beat and swirling strings into an introspective piano ballad. It's the same magic King performed in transforming the searching adolescence of the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" into the thoughtful worry-wonder of a woman on the brink of thirty. The feats are all the more impressive for the lyrics having been written when King was barely twenty-years-old herself, writing for commercial acceptance on AM radio rather than pure self expression. Here, as throughout Tapestry, King's piano is the instrumental focus, allowing her to emote through her voice and fingers in parallel.
The funky opener, "I Feel the Earth Move," finds King's vocals equally at home up-tempo. Her emancipated expression is breathtaking, and a bluesy piano solo enhances the euphoric freedom. Such openly emotional writing would be cloying in less talented hands, but King was not only an expert wordsmith, but a definitive interpreter of her own material. Her gospel-tinged version of "You've Got a Friend" is heavier than James Taylor's contemporaneous single, amplifying both the pain and relief of the song's lyrics, and the closing take of "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" is stripped of Aretha Franklin's arrangement and supported instead by King's piano playing and an overdubbed backing vocal. The spare instrumentation brings this closer to a songwriter's demo, but King's performance finds a dedication to the lyrics that reclaims her stake in the song.
In addition to re-imagined versions of earlier songs, King composed intimate new works of relationships being strained ("So Far Way") and broken ("It's Too Late"), loneliness ("Home Again"), salvation ("Way Over Yonder") and faithfulness ("Where You Lead"). It's only with "Smackwater Jack" and the album's title track that King took to more fictional abandon. The sum total of Tapestry swept the 1971 Grammys, netting King awards for Album of the and Pop Vocal Performance, as well as Record of the Year ( "It's Too Late") and Song of the Year ("You've Got a Friend"). The album launched "It's Too Late" to the top of the charts, and followed with "So Far Away" as a top twenty. Both singles' B-sides, "I Feel the Earth Move" and "Smackwater Jack," got their share of airplay, with the album peaking at #1 at the start of a six-year stay on the charts.
Legacy's two-CD reissue features the original album on disc one, and a second disc of live takes recorded at various locations in 1973 and 1976. The eleven tracks of disc two repeat the Tapestry song list, save "Where You Lead," whose lyrics King had deemed servile, and left off her set list. Over the years, this material was performed in a variety of musical settings, but Legacy has selected arrangements featuring only voice and piano. There's not much distance between Lou Adler's lean arrangements for the original album and these solo takes, but removing the intermediation of studio recording pushes King even closer to her songs. She adds an occasional inflection to her melodies, but what really sets these performances apart is the communication with her audience. The songs are transformed from interior expressions of a songwriter to vehicles for sharing emotions and responses.
King really digs into her songs on stage, bringing the sleeper "Beautiful" fully to life and adding extra passion to "Way Over Yonder." As on the original album her "covers" of songs made into hits by others reveal new emotional layers. "You've Got a Friend" spurs King to vocal exclamation, and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" is sung with a declarative force that's in startling contrast to its intimate lyric. Even more so than on the studio versions you get a hear King's singing and playing as natural expressions. Running the live tracks in the same order as the album suggests just how carefully the album was sequenced; but what isn't shown here is how these songs fit into King's larger live set. It's also interesting to note that none of these tracks were selected from tours that promoted Tapestry itself; they're all from subsequent album tours.
Those who purchased earlier versions of Tapestry will enjoy the new light shed by the live tracks; they can be purchased individually from on-line download services. Those picking up their first Tapestry CD may also want to reach back to the 1999 reissue for the bonus track "Out in the Cold," likewise available as a download. This latter track is reputed to be a Tapestry outtake, though its provenance remains disputed. Legacy's deluxe gatefold digipack includes new liner notes by Harvey Kubernick, period photos from the recording sessions, and song-by-song lyrics and instrumental credits. This is a superb reintroduction of one of the 1970s most endearing and enduring albums. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]
Description of Tapestry-Legacy Edition (2-CD)
The striking cover photo says plenty about Carole King's wildly successful 1971 album Tapestry. Carole, barefoot in a bulky sweater and old jeans, was the obvious poster girl for a striking new singer/songwriter movement about to take the world by storm. A proven thoroughbred pop-song maven with a long track record of winners, King and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin had penned over 100 chart hits for the likes of the Shirelles, Drifters, Monkees, and Bobby Vee.But belting out her own dazzling material from behind the piano, King charted new ground with Tapestry. A runaway-train success, its songs were heard everywhere in the 70's on a string of newly-minted FM radio stations featuring adult-oriented rock to a remastered version of this revered work, the Legacy edition adds a second disc with a thrilling live performance of Tapestry in its entirety.
Folk CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in Folk CDs
Margie Adam - Another PlaceRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Ann Reed - Road of the HeartRelease date: 1994-06-29; Music CD
Best price: $10.63
Price in other shops:
Ann Reed - Back & ForthRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
Kay Gardner - Rainbow PathRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $10.97
Price in other shops:
Joanne Rand - Grant Me EyesRelease date: 2001-08-02; Music CD
Best price: $9.96
Price in other shops:
Betty - Hello Betty!Release date: 1994-03-21; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Kay Gardner - AmazonRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Stage 2: Human HeartRelease date: 1997-04-11; Music CD
Best price: $14.95
Price in other shops:
Cyntia Smith, Ruth Barrett - Heart Is the Only NationRelease date: 1996-07-17; Music CD
Best price: $96.66
Giants! A Colossal Collection of Tales and Tunesby Jim Weiss
Greathall Productions, Inc.; Greathall Productions; Published: 1996-11-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.68
Price in other shops:
Similar CDs
James Taylor - Sweet Baby JamesRelease date: 2011-09-06; Music CD
Best price: $16.51
Price in other shops:
Carole King - Carole King - Her Greatest Hits: Songs Of Long AgoColumbia; Release date: 1999-05-25; Music CD
Best price: $4.15
Price in other shops:
Carole King - Original Album ClassicSony; Release date: 2008-10-28; Music CD
Best price: $16.03
Price in other shops:
Carole King - A Holiday CaroleRelease date: 2011-11-01; Music CD
Best price: $8.94
Price in other shops:
James Taylor - Sweet Baby JamesTaylor; Release date: 1990-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
James Taylor - The Best of James TaylorSOMERSET ENTERTAINMENT; Release date: 2003-04-08; Music CD
Best price: $6.68
Price in other shops:
Carole King - The Essential Carole KingRelease date: 2010-04-27; Music CD
Best price: $10.88
Price in other shops:
Carly Simon - Reflections: Carly Simon's Greatest HitsRelease date: 2004-05-04; Music CD
Best price: $6.92
Price in other shops:
Carole King, James Taylor - Live At The Troubadour (CD +DVD)Columbia; Release date: 2010-05-04; Music CD
Best price: $8.89
Price in other shops:
Carole King - TapestryKing,Carole; Release date: 1999-05-25; Music CD
Best price: $3.79
Price in other shops: