Carole King rewrites history!

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 08:40 AM

keberoxu please shut up, or get a sense of history!

Abba didn't emerge until the early 1970s, Neil was including "sophisicated" harmonic ideas a decade earlier, and, just in case you don't know, from 1960 to 1970 was an eternity in the development of pop/rock music.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 09:03 AM

Over the decades I've got used to the folk music community tending to be too insular,
and having a superiority complex regarding 'lesser' popular music forms...

But I do still get irritated when self-important folkies consider themselves experts
to make pompous judgemental pronouncements
on other more widely enjoyed genres that they are so obviously ignorant of...


..at mudcat this can be a regular source of amusement...

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 09:16 AM

Funny coincidence talking of harmonies. The earliest harmony song that moved me was 'Silence is Golden' put out by the Tremeloes in 1967 when I was 14. It is still a favourite of mine and I was listening to it yesterday before I came across this thread.

Small things amuse small minds I suppose :-D

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 09:20 AM

Just spotted on Wiki that the original 'Silence is Golden' was on the B side of 'Rag Doll' by the original Jersey boys, the 4 seasons. Some fine harmonies came out of that stable!

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 09:31 AM

I've just remembered about 10 - 20 years ago I bought a CD
that was an official release of Carole King's songwriting demo tapes.
I recall it as just her solo with her piano...

Now how would that qualify as vintage acoustic singer songwriter contemporary folk...???

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 10:10 AM

please shut up. Thanks for the please.
I have a sense of history --
the kind that comes from being old enough, thank you.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 11:06 AM

Quite right, keberoxu, you've as much right as anyone here to express your opinion and, btw, I was not criticizing a particular genre I was expressing a dislike of the music of Sedaka specifically. Some great songs, singers and songwriters came out of that scene including folks like Doc Pomus and Ben E. King along with Goffin/King.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 01:40 PM

This is an interesting song by Neil. It’s about his amazing come back in the early 70s after years in the wilderness.
For those who weren’t around, or are not up on their pop/rock music history, the British rock invasion of 1964 virtually ended the chart success of the majority of US pop/rock musicians/bands who had enjoyed big record success prior to the arrival of The Beatles, The Stones etc. Even a giant like Roy Orbison, who had his biggest hit “ Pretty Woman” in 1964, would have to wait until the late 1980s until his next top 20 hit.
BTW, As far as I can ascertain, Neil wrote the music and lyrics to this song.
The Come Back Kid.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 02:52 AM


Well, what we should have got is choice number 3!

I didn't offer 3 choices. Because Carole King doesn't need to tell the world about Sedaka.

He (and you) can (have) do it in a totally unbiased way. I couldn't, I would be sarcastic.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:14 AM

Oh dear, have you read anything that I have written?
Read the following slowly and try to get your brain around the contents! PLEASE!
Carol Klein would very probably have never have become Carole King but for Neil Sedaka. Have you got that?
He was her major inspiration in writing pop songs.

Neil was THE pop star at her school. She would go around to his house and watch him work out pop music arrangements. He watched him write hit songs for a range of R&B and pop singers.
She saw him have a number one record with Connie Francis's version of "Stupid Cupid".
She watched him get a songwriting and performing deal.
How, in any reality,could she write all of that out of her autobiography.
To call her dishonest, is the least you can do.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 10:36 AM

Here is a piece that I found on the web written by a Roger Friedman.
I also forgot to mention that Carole got her publishing contract because of Neil recommending her to his music publisher.
Just today, I was talking to a friend of mine who interviewed Carole and she wasn't keen to have mentioned that she was once Carol Klein. She seems to be a woman with a lot of issues.

This is an extract from an article by Roger Friedman...

"The worst interview experience I ever had with a celebrity–and there have been thousands–was with one person I really wanted to like. But in the early 90s, to promote one of her post-success albums, Carole King brought her mother with her to the Paramount Hotel for our lunch. She said, “I figured if I brought my mother, you wouldn’t ask me anything personal.” It was a nightmare. King wouldn’t talk about her Brill Building years or even “Tapestry,” her seminal, watershed album of 1971. She mostly wanted to discuss conservation in Idaho, a subject New Yorkers–this was for the New York Daily News–didn’t much care about. She also indicated that she didn’t care much for Neil Sedaka, her childhood friend and teen songwriting buddy from the Brill era. When the story was published, she fired her publicist, a very sweet woman.

Later, Neil Sedaka told me a story. His adult son had run into Carole on the street and introduced himself. King responded: “Tell your father to stop talking about me in interviews.” Nice.

Now we have a new memoir from King and after reading “A Natural Woman,” I felt like I needed a Xanax. It made me think about creativity and the people who have it, why geniuses are crazy, and completely self-absorbed. Basically, King marries her childhood sweetheart, Gerry Goffin, and they have tons of hits with music publisher Don Kirshner at the Brill Building. There’s almost no mention of Sedaka..."

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 11:48 AM

Music autobiographies are such a generally dire genre that I didn't need to be warned off this one (though the absence of anything about Neil Sedaka has to be a plus).

Good ones? Charles Mingus, Hector Berlioz - neither of them something you'd read for factual information. Who else?

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 12:05 PM

Some interesting posts above. Thanks to Leslie Butler for pointing out that Goffin wrote the Oh Neil lyrics. (Confirmed on the photo of the single on YouTube).
Neil also was a founder member of the Tokens who had a hit with The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
I actually agree with a lot of the points made above, the good, the bad and the ugly. Re Neil, yes he had a cheesy image and sounds sugary however, he did have a great knack for writing good pop songs of the two eras when he peaked. IMO, the bridge in Breaking Up Is Hard To Do is a perfect example of Neil at his (pop) song-writing best.
Re. Carole, she and Gerry composed propably several of my all-time favourite pop songs. I think it's a shame she didn't acknowledge Neil in her bio however, it's her book and she can say what she wants in it nevertheless, It would be a bit of an oversight for any independent biographer writing her story to miss out Neil's involvement.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 12:14 PM

It's amazing how superficial people are. Rather than judging Sedaka on his talent, they would rather judge him on his image, because that is what it seems to comes down to.
Again, here we have a major pop/rock talent who was probably the first composer to introduced sophisticated harmonica ideas into early rock music.
I composer who had hit songs recorder by great R&B great in the mid-1950s, and 50 years later, his composition "Is This the Way to Amarillo", was the best selling UK single of 2005, and about the same time his composition "Solitaire" was a huge hit in the States.
Interestingly, a friend was telling me that Neil is featured in the stage musical "Beautiful: The Carole King Story".
Now, there's thought. A musical based on Neil Sedaka's life couldn't fail.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 12:45 PM

Carole King is a superb songwriter, at least was. There are half a dozen classic songs on Tapestry alone. You've got a friend was covered by James Taylor before she released it herself, and he must have some credibility in folk circles (having been on Transatlantic Sessions for instance). Carole King is an excellent songwriter, even if some of her material was not to your taste.

Neil Sedaka I would not put at the same level. Ok, "Oh Carole", "Breaking Up is Hard To Do", "Laughter in the Rain", are harmless and fairly catchy pop ditties.

But, please, not "Solitaire". If Hell has lifts, Solitaire is what is played in them for all eternity. It belongs alongside "I've never been to Me", and "All Kinds of Everything" in the pantheon of pop horrors.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 01:41 PM

David Carter, you are going to have to explain why you don't think Solitaire is a great popular song, because the people who do think it's a great song are legion.
It's been covered by everybody from Elvis to Sheryl Crow to The Carpenters.
Of course, you can dislike any song you like, but Solitaire is a beautiful crafted song with a well told story that, sadly, many will be able to identify with.
I would recommend anybody and everybody to watch the BBC Documentary about Neil. I bet you find an eye-opener, and, if you are a musician, very informative and educational.
I've also included a live performance that might, for some, show another side of Neil.

BBC Documentary

Standing on the Inside

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 03:44 PM

Jim Dixon: "...be totally honest, objective, and candid."

How to fail in show business without really trying.

The "Ryder Smith" mansion set from Where the Boys Are was at the end of my parent's block in Ft. Lauderdale. We all knew what Neil Sedaka and Connie Francis did for a living long before we ever heard of Carole King.

FYI: Carole's beef with Neil is because Leba is friends with Ivana and dotes on Ivanka but Carole likes Hillary. The only thing they all agree on is Donald is icky. And this was all before 9 Nov. 2016.

Grade school social politics.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: voyager
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 03:56 PM

mudcat message board needs a 'delete thread' option.
this discussion is mostly pointless.

voyager

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 04:24 PM

No voyager, you've getting confused. It's YOU who are mostly pointless!

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 04:42 PM

Interestingly, I was talking to a friend of mine recently and he has writen lots of books on rock and pop music, and, has read every pop/rock autobiography known to man. And he was surprised that I was so disappointed with Carole for “ editing out” almost reference to Neil in her book. I guess he has read so many autobiographies that he has seen this sort of thing over and over.
   The problem with Carole’s attitude is that we denied the full story, and, to make matters worse, the full story of the years where she was learning her craft and breaking it to the record/publishing business. And, that part of her story is close to meaningless without reference to Neil’s contribution.
Again, I would recommend Mudcatters to watch the Sedaka documentary on Youtube as it is an very entertaining look at the early days of Rock/pop music and having Neil sit at the piano and discuss how he created his hits and arrangements is - for musicians - fascinating.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:25 PM

But, please, not "Solitaire".
Lyrics not by Neil. The documentary I saw both his principle lyricists were interviewed. The Solitaire lyricist said he was "In a dark place" when he wrote that, no other explanation.
Neil also explained the mechanisms of various songs, references to genres from blues to classical.
It gives even the songs you feel are jaded an aura. There was an intellect way beyond the banality of pop.

He told his story and not a word about Carole King. Ironic eh?

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:37 PM

Maybe Neil was asked to comment on Carole's bio but he deKleined.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:58 PM

Neil devotes a chapter to Carole in his autobiography, and, of course, Neil's impact on Carole was far huge, but not so the reverse!
Also, in the BBC documentary Neil had no control over the editing.
Also, in the documentary lyricist Phil Cody talk at length about the creation of Solitaire which was very much autobiographical based on personal experience.

Subject: RE: Carole King rewrites history!
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 06:18 PM

Amarillo - went on to become the UK's best-selling single of 2005.

This success was due to the video made by the popular - and perhaps the most popular - British comedian Peter Kay.

From Wikipedia; The song was recorded by Tony Christie and released in the UK in November 1971, initially reaching number 18 in the UK Singles Chart.

However, it was a substantially bigger hit at that time across Continental Europe, notably in Germany and Spain, where it made number one. In the U.S., however, Christie's record stalled at #121 on the Bubbling Under the Hot 100.

Following the re-issue of Christie's version in 2005 in aid of the charity Comic Relief, promoted with a video featuring comedian Peter Kay, the song gained even greater prominence, reaching number 1 in the UK.