Carole King

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Brooklyn NY, United States (1942 – present)

Carole King (b. 1942) is a U.S. singer-songwriter and pianist.

Born Carol Klein on 9th February 1942 in Brooklyn, New York to a Jewish household, King started out playing the piano, then moved on to singing, forming a vocal quartet called the Co-Sines at James Madison High School. She attended Queens College, where she was a classmate of Neil Sedaka and inspired Sedaka’s first big hit, “Oh! Carol”, to which she later wrote and recorded a tongue-in-cheek response, “Oh! Neil”. Along with Sedaka and Gerry Goffin (whom she later married), King also befriended Paul Simon at the same college.

Goffin and King soon formed a songwriting partnership, eventually married, and had two daughters, Louise Goffin and Sherry Goffin Kondor, both of whom have also become singers. Working for Aldon Music in the Brill Building in the heart of New York’s music district, where chart-topping hits were churned out during the 1960s, the Goffin-King partnership first hit it big with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”. Recorded by The Shirelles, the song topped the charts in 1961. It was later covered by Dusty Springfield, Little Eva, Roberta Flack, Laura Branigan, The Four Seasons, and King herself.

In 1962, Goffin and King co-wrote “Up On The Roof”, which was first recorded by The Drifters. Released at the tail end of that year, the song epitomised the urban romantic dream of the Brill Building era and became a big hit, reaching number five on the U.S. pop singles chart and number four on the U.S. R&B singles chart. It has since been covered many times by artists such as Laura Nyro (1970), James Taylor (1979), and Neil Diamond (1993), among others, and also by King herself in 1970.
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