It’s Turntable Tuesday because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV off! Pull on your dancing shoes and wake the neighbors! It’s time to crank up the volume on your favorite tunes! Let’s see what is on the turntable this week.
What is on the piano stool this week? The fifty year old classic vinyl from Carole King. This photo was taken at her house in Laurel Canyon five decades ago. Telemachus is the cat in the photo and you can see the tapestry in her hands that is featured in the gate fold.
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This story starts in the spring of 1972. The grass starts growing as soon as March in Mississippi and that causes the lawnmowers to start humming in the neighborhoods across the land. I had just reached my first year as a teenager and I was already dreaming of all the cash I could turn into music. A couple of blocks from my house in Meridian the grass there was a house where the grass was already about three times higher than where a normal homeowner would have cut it. I bravely walked up the sidewalk to the front porch and banged on the door. This middle aged woman comes to the door looking straight ahead and then her eyes scan down a bit to focus on me on the step below. I ask if she would like me to cut her grass in exchange for a few dollars and she smiles and says yes. After struggling through the almost knee high grass for what seemed like forever my net worth had climbed slightly at least enough to head off to the local discount store to see what record I might score. As I have previously written in my “Best of the Guess Who” story I scored two vinyls on that day in fact he first two 33 RPM “albums” I had ever purchased. Other than the Guess Who I bought the Carole King “Tapestry” album on that day as I had heard a few of the songs on the radio and really wanted to hear all of them on my speakers at home whenever I wanted to hear them and not be at the mercy of a radio dj. Both of these albums were awesome collections of music and I own multiple versions to this day including the ones I bought almost 50 years ago. I mean it’s really not hoarding if it’s vinyl, right?
The gate fold of the “Tapestry” album. This is the brand new copy that was just pressed for the 50th anniversary of the album and I just opened it as I started writing this story. That is Carole’s tapestry she created and there are many photos of the recording sessions for the album. The back cover is a full track list for the album with words. It is difficult to read so I didn’t bother to photograph the words on the back. The sticker from this version of the album. This album is currently available from Music Direct and is many times out of stock as a new vinyl copy. The album is still very popular.
“Tapestry” is the second studio album from Carole King and was produced by Lou Adler. Lou is the guy who also discovered Cheech and Chong and worked on many of their music and movie projects. Lou also went on to be the executive producer for the “Rock Horror Picture Show.” Carole had a cast of first class talent on this album from the crew to the musicians. She is a song-writing master and this album stands as one of the greatest albums of all time. At last count “Tapestry” was the 81st best selling record of all time. Album sales for this record are somewhere north of 14 million copies sold. I will talk about this group of 12 songs on my pod cast one by one. I will also cover the musicians who helped create this stellar album as well as some trivia on the crew that supported the whole project.
Andrew and Russ Kunkel around 3:00 AM in Key West in 2008. Russ played drums on “Tapestry” and on so many music projects that it would take another article to list them all. There is nothing like sharing some time with a very nice guy and stellar musician. Here is one of several stories I have from that evening that ended with the sun rising on Dog Beach. Russ was on stage earlier that night and I watched him play using a borrowed music stand that had a label on it from Jimmy Buffett’s studio “Shrimpboat Sound.” I asked him what he was using that music stand for during this gig. He told me that he had never played the songs he was playing until that night and he charted everyone of the 22 songs from the set on the flight from California to Key West while listening to the tracks. He was playing from notes that night and I can testify that he was amazing. This man is one talented drummer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_KunkelIn June of 2010 I was fortunate to see Carole King perform with James Taylor and several of the players from “Tapestry” perform. Russ Kunkel was there. They all walked right by me to the circular stage as I was only eight feet from the stairs. I smiled at him as the entire band with Carole and James walked to the stage right by my chair. Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, and Robbie Kondor were there as were some vocalists. What a night that was as the stage slowly rotated so you saw the entire band come by very slowly as they played. There was not a bad seat in the house with this layout. On the way out James Taylor quickly shook my hand along with many others and all the band was smiling as they walked away with security in front and back. This boy came a long way from cutting knee-high grass to standing 8 feet from a stage at a sold-out show watching the music of my teenage years get played live right in front of me. https://www.caroleking.com/news/james-taylor-and-carole-king-announce-troubadour-reunion-world-tour-2010-full-article
The Immediate Family. I have talked about this band a couple of times on my podcast. Go check out their video collection and buy their music.
Carole King in 1971. This is a fabulous recently restored video from the BBC TV. If you have 28 minutes you should watch this video. This is some great music and the film resolution is quite good for 1971! Watch for James Taylor and Danny Kortchmar’s band Jo Mama as they back Carole.
There is so much to share about this great album and I will get into more details on my companion podcast which I encourage you to subscribe to and follow. Thanks to all the listeners from the United States and from so many great countries around the world.
Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.
"In June of 2010 I was fortunate to see Carole King perform with James Taylor and several of the players from "Tapestry" perform. Russ Kunkel was there. They all walked right by me to the circular stage as I was only eight feet from the stairs. I smiled at him as the entire band with Carole and James walked to the stage right by my chair."
