The Living Room Tour - Carole King Album Review

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Album Review

One-time girlfriend of Neil Sedaka, sixty two year old Carole Klein, aka Carole King, finally emerges from the shadows on a superb live double disc.

Caught gigging at three venues in the States, the Auditorium Theatre Chicago, Greek Theatre LA, and Cape Cod Melody Tent Hyannis Massachusetts, the sixties icon develops an idea which she’s successfully deployed over several years. Playing private gigs, which is now part of the super-rich showboating weapon in the USA, King extends the intimate formula onto the bigger stage.

Stripping down to the basics, and sitting at her piano for most of the time, the years are rolled back as she thrills the highly expectant audiences with snippets from her memorable back-catalogue. King is joined by guests Rudy Guess, Louise and Sherry Goffin and Gary Burr on various tracks; though it’s her solo work which impresses the most as she handles the keys like a good fitting glove.

Delving into songs that haven’t been heard live for many a year, she’s out to prove that her music is as relevant to day as it was in her heyday of the early sixties and seventies – and it is.

Starting in 1962 in the UK with the single It Might As Well Rain Until September then It’s Too Late nine years later, she faded away in the UK, though three successive timeless albums Tapestry (1971), Music and Rhymes and Reasons (both 1972) they ensured her cult status around the globe. Other classic songs, some solo efforts and co-writers ex-husband Gerry Goffin and Toni Stern, they were covered by numerous artists such as Little Eva ( The Locomotion ), Herman’s Hermits ( I’m Into Something New ).

Songs one to six are pure brilliance as she gently saunters through her forte – melodic balladeering, with Lay Down My Life taking top prize for emotionally charged lyrics, which are quite profound. Jazzman and Smackwater Jack lifts the atmosphere to the crowd’s delight as they provide the clapping. Rounding off disc one, she embarks on a seven song medley( see tracklisting above ) in an attempt to cram-in as many songs as possible.

Disc two opens with a stunner – Loving You Forever, surely the ‘new’ wedding song as Gary Burr perfectly compliments the songbird - the harmonies are divine. The remainder is as superb as disc one.

It’s Too Late is as good if not better than the original, as are You’ve got a Friend, I Feel The Earth Move, and achingly beautiful Natural Woman. Semi- a-capella Chains bring the crowd out of its shell once more, proving to be one of the many highlights.Locomotion brings the house down on a glorious night. The songs, lyrics and melodies are a very powerful reminder that this artist was arguably the first female singer-songwriter in the world.

King has pulled off a master stroke, so let’s hope she does it all over again here in the UK – I’ll be first in the queue. Or, maybe she’d like to play in my living room, though it might cost an arm and a leg!

Elly Roberts