Carole King

Bio:
Carole King (born Carol Joan Klein in Manhattan, New York on February 9, 1942) is an American composer and singer-songwriter. Carole’s career began in the 1960s when she, along with her then husband Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen hit singles for numerous artists, many of which have become legendary hits. However, her success as a solo artist didn’t come until the 1970s when she sang her own songs, accompanying herself on the piano, in a series of albums and concerts. After experiencing commercial disappointment with her debut album Writer, Carole scored her breakthrough with the album Tapestry, which topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971 and remained on the charts for more than six years. The album garnered four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year; Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; Record of the Year (“It’s Too Late”) and Song of the Year (“You’ve Got a Friend”), with Carole becoming the first woman to ever win the award. The album appeared on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list at number 36, while “It’s Too Late” was placed at number 469 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Since then, Carole has gone on to record 25 solo albums, while also continuing to write for other artists. In 2000, Billboard pop music researcher Joel Whitburn named Carole the most successful female songwriter of 1955–99 for writing or co-writing a total of 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2015, she was also honored at the Kennedy Center Honors for her lifetime contribution to American culture through the performing arts.

Best Known For:
Carole King is best known as a singer-songwriter and composer, writing and performing such hit songs as “You’ve Got a Friend,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Beautiful,” and “I Feel The Earth Move.”

Personal Life:
Carole King has been married four times, including to Gerry Goffin, Charles Larkey, Rick Evers, and Rick Sorenson. In her 2012 memoir “A Natural Woman,” Carole wrote that she had been physically abused by her third husband, Rick, on a regular basis. Rick died of a cocaine overdose days after they broke up in 1978. She is also the mother to four children including musicians Louise Goffin and Sherry Goffin Kondor, artist Molly Larkey, and Levi Larkey.