Carole King - Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (1997)

This American singer, songwriter and pianist was one of the most successful composers (for other artists) of the '60s, then recorded one of the best sellers of the '70s. Her Sixties song-writing and Seventies singing would each be enough to ensure legendary status. She was born Carole Klein in Brooklyn, New York in 1942 and began playing the piano at the age of four. In the late Fifties, while attending Queen's College in New York she met future husband Gerry Goffin, who became her permanent writing partner. When Goffin & King's song Will You Love Me Tomorrow reached the US No. 1 slot for the Shirelles in January 1961, it opened the floodgates for a sea of successful songs by the young writing team. Soon the charts on both sides of the Atlantic were awash with Goffin/King numbers. The golden era for Goffin & King was the early Sixties, in the years immediately prior to The Beatles' invasion of America. When the British revolution happened, the pair managed to get some of their songs into the repertoires of UK acts - The Animals, Manfred Mann, The Rockin' Berries and Dusty Springfield all enjoyed success with their material. Gerry and Carole divorced in 1968, although some of their collaborative efforts had still not seen the light of day. King decided to launch a performing career, and after an inauspicious start with some mediocre albums, she suddenly made it big with her 1971 LP Tapestry which chalked up a worldwide total of 15 million copies. It is often cited as the most important work of the singer-songwriter era; it yielded the US No.1 single It's too late, another track You've Got A Friend went to No.1 for her big mate James Taylor. King continued to record regularly during the Seventies and Eighties, but could not match the artistic or commercial success of Tapestry. She continued to pop up on the American charts from time to time, the biggest of her later successes being 1974's Jazzman single, which released the US No. 2 position. She enjoyed modest success with her 1980 album Pearls, a collection of old Goffin/King reworkings and continued to record throughout the 1980's, her last release being the City Streets album in 1989 which featured Eric Clapton.