Sunday, March 1, 2020

Various Artists - Covered: Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Volume 4: 1969-1971

This is the fourth of out six volumes in the Covered series for songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

This is a particularly important one, because it marks when Goffin and King stopped working together, yet continued to write hit songs separately. But, for a time, King was much more successful than Goffin. She put out solo albums in 1968 and 1970 that sold very little. Then, in 1971, she released her album "Tapestry." It sold 25 million copies, becoming one of the most successful album of all time! This album contains covers of a bunch of songs from "Tapestry." Most of the rest from that album will appear on the next album in this series.

Goffin, meanwhile, kept a low profile. He didn't release any of his own music at the time, and I don't think he had any hits as a songwriter either. He would, later. He's only a co-writer on a few songs here, which are remnants of the Goffin and King songwriting partnership, like "Take a Giant Step" and "Hi-De-Ho (That Old Sweet Roll)."

By the way, from this point on, pretty much all the King songs would first appear on King's own albums. But there are a few songs in the 1970s that she never released herself. "No Sad Song" and "A Fine Way to Go" are examples. Plus, "After All This Time" was only done in concert by her at the time, then was released on an archival live album decades later.

01 Take a Giant Step (Taj Mahal)
02 What Am I Gonna Do (Smith)
03 So Much Love (Dusty Springfield)
04 Sweet Sweetheart (Carla Thomas)
05 To Love (Matthews Southern Comfort)
06 Hi-De-Ho [That Old Sweet Roll] (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
07 I Feel the Earth Move (Vivian Reed)
08 Beautiful (Petula Clark)
09 Where You Lead (Barbra Streisand)
10 After All This Time (Merry Clayton)
11 No Sad Song (Helen Reddy)
12 Child of Mine (Anne Murray)
13 A Fine Way to Go (Lonnie Mack)
14 Home Again (Kate Taylor)
15 You've Got a Friend (James Taylor)

https://www.imagenetz.de/fQTSX

I'm not happy with the cover I made for this album. I found some black and white photos of Goffin and King to use for the 1960s albums in this series. I also found some much later color photos of Goffin and King to use in albums after this one. But at the start of the 1970s, neither Goffin nor King looked like how they did in the 1960s, nor did they look like how they did later. So I found separate photos of each of them from the era and Photoshopped them in together. The problem is, the lighting, coloring, texture, etc, doesn't really match. So I'm unhappy. But it's the best I could come up with for now. Hopefully someday something better will fall into my lap.

2 comments:

  1. By the way, it turns out Goffin did have a hit he wrote on his own during this time, "I'll Meet You Halfway," by the Partridge Family. It was a top ten hit in the US in 1971. But I didn't include it because I didn't like it that much.

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  2. Thanks for all you do for so many of us.

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