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‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’: Hear Carole King’s incredible Monkees demos
09.23.2015
11:56 am
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It’s well-known that Carole King, along with her then-husband Gerry Goffin, wrote several of the Monkees’ biggest hits and best-loved songs, including “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” the achingly gorgeous romantic ballad “Sometime In The Morning,” the country stomper “Sweet Young Thing,” the groupie anthem “Star Collector” and Head‘s remarkable water-logged symphony “Porpoise Song.” Although her demo track for “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was released on her 2012 collection The Legendary Demos, the rest are less well-known to her fans.

Goffin and King were living in West Orange, New Jersey—total suburbia—in the mid-Sixties. Unhappy with all the conformity they saw around them at the height of the 1960s, the pair wrote a song named after a street there called Pleasant Valley Way:

“Serenade the weekend squire, who just came out to mow his lawn . . .
Another Pleasant Valley Sunday,
Here in status symbol land.”

“Pleasant Valley Sunday” demo
 

 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.23.2015
11:56 am
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Carole King ‘In Concert,’ 1971
02.09.2014
07:57 pm
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Singer-songwriter and general force of nature, the great Carole King turns 71 today.

King’s first solo record, 1970’s Writer, was a commercial flop, but the following year, her Tapestry album captured the public’s attention, worldwide. Tapestry‘s laid-back, folksy, very feminine-centered compositions—something still quite “new” then, Joni Mitchell was also breaking big around this same time—saw the record become an immediate chart success. The lead-off single from the album, “It’s Too Late”/“I Feel The Earth Move” was number 1 on the Billboard charts for five weeks. The confessional Tapestry was nominated for four Grammy awards and King was given statues for Album of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year (“It’s Too Late”) and Song of the Year (“You’ve Got a Friend”).

Tapestry went on to become one of the top-selling record albums in history. In fact, with well over 25 million copies sold worldwide, 10 million in the US alone, the album was the first to be certified “diamond.” Its sales tallies have been bested only by Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Its chart run, holding down the #1 rank for an incredible fifteen weeks was the record for a female solo artist for over 40 years until Tapestry was surpassed by Adele’s worldwide blockbuster 21 in 2012. All in all Tapestry has been on the Billboard Top 200 for over 300 weeks between 1971 and 2011.

I’ve actually purchased Tapestry on three formats over the years on vinyl, CD and then twice on two different SACD releases (I’m forever searching for “the best version” of something). It’s one of the most essential albums I own. How could anyone not like Carole King???

In 1971, Carole King taped an amazing live studio set—more or less “unplugged” before such a concept existed—for the BBC’s In Concert series, with James Taylor on acoustic guitar.

Set list: “I Feel the Earth Move,” “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman,” “So Far Away,” “It’s Too Late,” “Smackwater Jack,” “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” and “Up on the Roof.”

I was absolutely floored by the quality of this set. I hope you will be, too.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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02.09.2014
07:57 pm
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A Natural Woman: Carole King ‘In Concert,’ 1971
01.28.2013
11:43 am
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(I posted this once before, but the video was pulled off YouTube just a couple of hours later. In light of the Joni Mitchell post last week being so popular, here it is again.)

Singer-songwriter Carole King’s first solo record, 1970’s Writer, was a commercial flop, but the following year, her Tapestry album captured the public’s attention, worldwide. Tapestry‘s laid-back, folksy, very feminine-centered compositions—something still quite “new” then, Joni Mitchell was also breaking big around this same time—saw the record become an immediate chart success. The lead-off single from the album, “It’s Too Late”/“I Feel The Earth Move” was number 1 on the Billboard charts for five weeks. The confessional Tapestry was nominated for four Grammy awards and King was given statues for Album of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year (“It’s Too Late”) and Song of the Year (“You’ve Got a Friend”).

Tapestry went on to become one of the top-selling record albums in history. In fact, with well over 25 million copies sold worldwide, 10 million in the US alone, the album was the first to be certified “diamond.” Its sales tallies have been bested only by Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Its chart run, holding down the #1 rank for an incredible fifteen weeks was the record for a female solo artist for over 40 years until Tapestry was surpassed by Adele’s worldwide blockbuster 21 in 2012. All in all Tapestry has been on the Billboard Top 200 for over 300 weeks between 1971 and 2011.

I’ve actually purchased Tapestry on three formats over the years on vinyl, CD and then twice on two different SACD releases (I’m forever searching for the best version of something). It’s one of the most essential albums I own. How could anyone not like Carole King???

In 1971, Carole King taped an amazing live studio set—more or less “unplugged” before such a concept existed—for the BBC’s In Concert series, with James Taylor on acoustic guitar.

Set list: “I Feel the Earth Move,” “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman,” “So Far Away,” “It’s Too Late,” “Smackwater Jack,” “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” and “Up on the Roof.”

I was absolutely floored by the quality of this set. I hope you will be, too.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.28.2013
11:43 am
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An elegy for Davy Jones: Carole King’s demo for ‘Porpoise Song’
03.01.2012
11:32 am
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In light of the unexpected passing of Monkee Davy Jones, here’s Carole King’s original demo for Head’s “Porpoise Song” (co-written by Gerry Goffin). The Gregorian chant thing she’s got going here (it’s the Mass of the Dead, remember this was the song playing during Micky Dolenz’s “suicidal” jump off the bridge in the beginning of the film) seems like a fitting thing to post in Jones’ honor.

Sound quality is what it is, but no matter, this is still pretty amazing. Listen LOUD!
 

 
Thank you Simon Wells!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.01.2012
11:32 am
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‘Basketball Jones’: 1974 Cheech and Chong cartoon

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“Basketball Jones” was a song/routine/character from Cheech and Chong’s 1973 Los Cochinos (“The Pigs”) record. The original album cover had a secret compartment where you could see how they smuggled pot, sandwiched in their car door. I bought this LP at a garage sale when I was about ten and just starting to get into comedy albums. I only half understood the idea of “drugs” at the time, I’m pretty sure, so I can’t imagine a Cheech and Chong album made much sense to me at that age. But I loved the routine “Basketball Jones” by Tyrone Shoelaces & Rap Brown Jr. H.S.” and would go around singing the musical part of it like ten-year-olds do.

The song is about teenager Tyrone (as in “tie your own”) Shoelaces and his love of basketball sung in a falsetto voice by Cheech Marin. It’s catchy as hell, but small wonder, dig the backing band: George Harrison, Klaus Voorman, Carole King, Nicky Hopkins, Tom Scott, Billy Preston, Darlene Love, Ronnie Spector and Michelle Phillips. The animation is by Paul Gruwell and was made in 1974.

This cartoon has also made some impressive Hollywood cameos over the years, in Robert Altman’s California Split, Hal Ashby’s Being There and in the 70s underground comedy Tunnel Vision. It was also parodied in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons (”A Midsummer’s Nice Dream”).
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.12.2011
12:48 pm
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