Various Artists - Covered: Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Volume 5: 1971-1973

This is the fifth out of six volumes in the Covered series, celebrating the songwriting of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

Things definitely have changed since the first three albums, which were mostly hits co-written by Goffin and King. After their divorce at the end of the 1960s, King went on to releasing one of the most popular albums of all time, with 1971's "Tapestry," while Goffin didn't have nearly the same songwriting success.

Like the last volume, this volume is still heavily dominated by King's songs, with a good number of songs from "Tapestry." Only the first one, "Smackwater Jack," is from 1971, but four others are later "Tapestry" covers ("It's Too Late," "So Far Away," "Tapestry," and Way Over Yonder"). Pretty much all the rest of the songs are covers of King's songs from her other solo albums, without any songwriting involvement from Goffin. However, "Smackwater Jack" was cowritten by him. Perhaps it was from a couple of years earlier when they were still married, though I don't know for sure.

That said, Goffin wasn't done yet. It's just that the early 1970s wasn't a particularly good time for him. He would bounce back and have a good number of hits without King's involvement. The first such big hit is here at the end, "I've Got to Use My Imagination," which was a Top Five hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1973.

By the way, "Dixie Highway" is another rare case of a Carole King song from this era that apparently was never recorded and released by King.

01 Smackwater Jack (Quincy Jones)
02 It's Too Late (Isley Brothers)
03 So Far Away (Marlena Shaw)
04 It's Going to Take Some Time (Carpenters)
05 Ferguson Road (Bobby Vee)
06 Walk On In (Lou Rawls)
07 Sweet Seasons (Isley Brothers)
08 Tapestry (Alice Babs)
09 Way Over Yonder (Judy Mowatt)
10 Corazon (Creative Source)
11 Eventually (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
12 Been to Canaan (Alice Babs)
13 Dixie Highway (Martha Reeves)
14 I've Got to Use My Imagination (Gladys Knight & the Pips)

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There's good news and bad news with the cover art photo here. The good news I've used a color photo of Goffin and King together. The bad news is it's not from the time period in question, or even close. I'm not sure, but I think it's from the 1990s. I wish I had something more fitting, but this was all I could come up with. There pretty much are no photos of Goffin and King together from the end of the 1960s until decades later, when they started appearing together at tributes and award shows and the like.

I also must admit that I edited the photo significantly. Goffin was significantly taller than King, so I raised King's head up relative to everything else so I could have both heads larger in the frame. And I moved their bodies so there wasn't a big gap between them, again allowing me to have their heads larger in the frame.