London gig is new stitch in Carole King’s epic Tapestry
CAROLE KING is to play her first UK concert in more than 25 years this summer.
She will perform her career-defining album Tapestry in full — the first time she has ever done this in public — at the BST Festival in London’s Hyde Park in July.
Jewish singer-songwriter King, 74, first found fame as part of a song-writing duo with her husband Gerry Goffin, writing hits throughout the 1960s and ’70s, including Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?, Up on the Roof and (You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman.
Tapestry, released in 1971, was her second solo album and sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, making it the first multi-million selling album by a female artist and turning King into a household name. She was 28 at the time.
However, the star has never performed the album in full in public due to stage fright. She said of the upcoming UK concert, her first in Britain since 1989: “I’m doing it because they asked me to. No one has ever thought to ask before,” she said, “and I loved the idea”.
She told BBC 6 Music: “I’ll be adding other songs because it would be a very short set if I only did Tapestry.
“I might actually even have it on my social networks where people can offer up their favourites and see if we can get a consensus and help me figure out which songs to add”.
The concert comes after the West End success of the Broadway hit Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, which tells the story of King’s life and career, and which she said made her realise how large a fan-base she had in Britain.
“I want to begin by thanking Londoners for making Beautiful so successful,” King said. “And now I’m coming to London and can’t wait to perform Tapestry from beginning to end for the first time ever! How perfect to be doing that in the heart of one of my favourite cities”.
Explaining why the album became such a phenomenon, King said: “It came out of the ’60s, a tumultuous time with the Vietnam War and the shootings of political figures in 1968, and there was a need for expression of the positive side of people’s feel- ings. Actually, it’s not so different from today.”
King has been described as the most successful female songwriter in both the UK and the US. She has had 118 songs featured in the Billboard Top 100 and has won four Grammy Awards, while Tapestry held the album record for most weeks at number one by a female artist for more than 20 years.