Carole King - No Easy Way Down - Selected Best Tracks (1968-1970)

I just updated two of the three albums I've posted of Carole King's excellent demos. Both of those albums have one previously unreleased and unbootlegged demo added. I thought about making an announcement post about this, but decided instead I would post something else by King and mention it there. 

I looked around for what else to post from her, and came up with this one. One might call it a stray tracks album, but really, all but one of the songs are from two studio albums: "Now That Everything's Been Said," released in 1968, and "Writer," released in 1970. They were her first two solo albums, and she was still finding her way with them, so they're mixed bags. But if you combine the best from both, it makes for a very strong album.

Of course, the next album she released was "Tapestry" in 1971. Her first two albums didn't even make the charts, partly due to the fact that she didn't perform concerts or do other promotion. But "Tapestry" would go on to be one of the best selling albums of all time, with at least 25 million copies sold, and would be highly critically acclaimed, ranking 25 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 best albums of all time.

In truth, her first two albums weren't that different in terms of production or song quality. King is one of the most commercially successful songwriters on all time, and had big hits since the early 1960s. For these two albums, she tended to look backwards more than forwards, frequently covering her own songs that had been hits for others. For instance, "Wasn't Born to Follow" was made famous by the Byrds, "Hi-De-Ho (That Old Sweet Roll)" by Blood, Sweat and Tears, "Goin' Back" by Dusty Sprinfield (and the Byrds), "I Can't Hear You (No More)" by Betty Everett, "Up on the Roof" by the Drifters, and "Child of Mine" has been covered by at least 25 artists. But she also included some newer songs that dealt with more mature themes and fit better into the emerging singer-songwriter mode.

In my opinion, had King put together the best songs from these two albums after her huge post "Tapestry" success, it would have sold many millions. 

By the way, the last song is not from either of those albums. Instead, it was a song she wrote and gave to Merry Clayton to release in 1971. She only did a version in concert in 1971, which was released decades later. I removed the audience noise to make it fit in with the other tracks.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Snow Queen (Carole King)
02 Wasn't Born to Follow (Carole King)
03 Now That Everything's Been Said (Carole King)
04 Paradise Alley (Carole King)
05 Why Are You Leaving (Carole King)
06 Hi-De-Ho [That Old Sweet Roll] (Carole King)
07 No Easy Way Down (Carole King)
08 Child of Mine (Carole King)
09 Goin' Back (Carole King)
10 Eventually (Carole King)
11 Raspberry Jam (Carole King)
12 I Can't Hear You [No More] (Carole King)
13 Up on the Roof (Carole King)
14 After All This Time (Carole King)

https://www.imagenetz.de/mHZJF

For the cover photo, I could have used the cover of one of the two albums, but I thought that would be boring. Instead, I saw a promotional photo of her from 1970 that I really liked. It was in black and white, so I colorized it.