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After a while, James asked Danny to join us. Danny leaped forward, plugged in his guitar, executed a few licks, and then the three of us were jamming. As a trio we had a similar familiarity,
but with Danny added there was an exponential increase in volume and energy. We might have continued for hours, but Peter was listening for the doorbell. As soon as the rest of the band arrived, we stopped playing, exchanged greetings, and then we began to rehearse the new material.

With Peter producing, James recorded
Sweet Baby James
at Sunset Sound in 1969.

That year, in addition to being a mom to my seven- and nine-year-old daughters, I played and sang on James’s album, recorded my own
Writer
album, and wrote songs and made demos for other artists. After Warner Bros. released
Sweet Baby James
in February 1970, James started appearing in small venues around the United States to promote the new album. As his manager, who was also a friend, Peter traveled with James and did his utmost to keep him clean and sober. He wasn’t always successful in keeping the darkness of James’s addiction at bay. Even so, James’s talent and charisma shone through brightly enough to build a following.

The next time I saw James was in the summer of 1970. As before, he was staying with the Ashers, and Danny had invited me to join him in catching up with his old friends. Peter’s house had changed quite a bit since I had last been there. Now the interior had an elegance to match the outside. Peter’s spacious living room still had the fireplace and grand piano, but without the drums to block the view I could see the greenery framed by the large arched windows. There were new stereo components and speakers in a proper cabinet, two sofas, several comfortable armchairs, small side tables with coasters on which one could set a drink, and a coffee table on its own legs.

Danny had already told me that James was preparing to go on a college tour to further promote
Sweet Baby James
. The band would include Kootch on lead guitar, Lee Sklar on bass, and Russ Kunkel on drums. On this visit, after about twenty minutes of casual
conversation, James migrated over to his guitar and picked it up. Danny plugged his guitar into an amp artfully tucked among the décor. I sat down at the piano. With Peter encouraging us, clapping, singing along, and sometimes joining in on acoustic guitar, we played whatever came to mind. We laughed, sang, and let the music pour out of us. We were four individual musicians riding a collective wave of easy enjoyment.

When at last we stopped for a break, Peter seized the moment and invited me to join James’s band on tour. I was no more inclined to go on the road than I’d been previously, but Peter had anticipated my concerns about leaving Charlie and the girls. He explained that going on the road with James wouldn’t take me away from my family for long periods of time. The tour would involve six to eight college shows on weekends during the fall of 1970, with trips home in between.

The opportunity to play music with James again was difficult to resist. After consulting with Charlie, the girls, and Willa Mae, I said yes.

It was during one of those weekends that I wrote
“So Far Away”
completely on my own. I had Charlie in mind personally and James in mind musically. James’s songs can be deceptive in their apparent simplicity. They’re actually quite complex and not always predictable. James creates subtle distinctions that make every verse and chorus not quite like any other, yet each new section feels completely familiar and natural. I was so inspired by James’s writing style that I began to incorporate it into my own songs. I had developed the skill of writing for other artists in the Aldon years. Though I wasn’t writing
for
James, it was his voice I heard in my head while I was writing “So Far Away.”

It was on a night during another one of those weekends—more than a year after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took “one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” on the actual
moon
!—that James figuratively dragged me kicking and screaming to the front of the stage. Later, I learned that he had been looking for an opportunity to help me make the transition from sideman to performer. Once he’d made the decision that the transition would happen that night, he was more assertive about it than I’d ever seen him be about anything.

With all due respect to the astronauts, from where I sat, the moon was a lot closer than the front of the stage.

I
’ve always enjoyed being a sideman. For the record, it is “sideman” regardless of gender. It was especially fun to be a sideman with Danny, Russ, Lee, and James, who went out of their way to make me feel welcome. As the focus of attention, James had the responsibility of directing the flow of the show and making sure the audience was having a good time. Part of his audiences’ enjoyment came from James’s generosity in showing off the musicianship of members of his band, to whom he always gave plenty of latitude to stretch out within the framework of a song. Sometimes I was so entertained by the musical interplay among my bandmates that I forgot what I was supposed to be playing. Along with the audience, I was in awe of Danny’s guitar work. I couldn’t fathom how he managed to come up with so many different inventive solos night after night. As the tour progressed, I became quite comfortable as James’s sideman.

As I write this, I remember my grandmother saying, “Kehdeleh dollink, dunt get too comf’tah-bull.”

What happened next was the opposite of comfortable, and I never saw it coming.

Most of the songs James performed were self-penned, but sometimes he sang other people’s compositions. Originally released by the Drifters in 1963, Gerry’s and my song
“Up on the Roof”
was one of James’s favorites. It was on the set list the night we were to perform at Queens College.

Usually James performed the first part of his set alone, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. James and I were waiting with the rest of the band in the backstage area when the house lights flickered, signaling that the show was about to begin.

James leaned down and said, “I’d like you to sing lead on ‘Up on the Roof’ tonight.”

It was a long moment before I fully absorbed what he had just said.

“Oh, no… n-no… please… James… I couldn’t… I mean…
you
sing it so beautifully…”

I stopped, took a breath, and exhaled as I spoke.

“James,” I said. “Don’t make me sing lead in front of all those people!”

James wasn’t having it. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’ll love you.”

“James, I can’t do this. It’s my alma mater!”

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ll do it in your key.”

Oy, I thought. He knows my key.

“Tell the band,” he said, unnecessarily, since they were right there. And with that he hoisted his guitar and strode onstage. A few audience members caught sight of him and began clapping; it became a wave of excitement and then an ocean of applause from the entire audience.

I stood immobile. They were welcoming James. They didn’t know me. I was James’s piano player. And I was terrified.

That night James played and sang, as he always did, with confidence and authority. There was no sign of shyness when
he sang. And when he spoke to the audience between songs, his down-to-earth demeanor gave the impression that he was speaking completely off the cuff about whatever had just come into his mind. Normally his performances and patter had a calming effect on me, but not that night. He was so good. I couldn’t imagine following him.

Soon it was time for me to go on as James’s sideman. Thankfully, my fingers played the piano part on “Fire and Rain” and “Country Road” without my having to consciously direct them, leaving my mind free to careen around the white-knuckle edges of panic.

Some friend! I thought over the quarter-note chords in the first verse of “Fire and Rain.” Why is he putting me on the spot? Is he
really
going to make me do this?

Not only was he going to make me do it, he was going to make me do it without a rehearsal! With terror running through my head like a team of track racers sprinting for the finish line, we ended the song that preceded “Up on the Roof.” Prolonging my agony, James chose that moment to introduce the band, player by player, as he does at some point during every show. That night, he saved me for last. Before saying my name, he mentioned some of the songs that I had cowritten that the audience was likely to know. Then he announced that I had gone to Queens College. When the audience applauded I wasn’t sure whether they were applauding for me, the songs, or their school.

Then James pronounced my name.

“Ladies and gentlemen: Carole King!”

I could either freeze in place and pray that the stage would open up and drop me into the basement, or I could go ahead and sing the song. I took a breath and brought my hands to the piano.

As I played the opening chord, the lights around me dimmed, leaving me alone in the spotlight. My voice came out sounding timid.

When this old world starts getting me down

And people are just too much for me to face…

I continued through the second verse and began the first bridge.

On the roof it’s peaceful as can be…

I was wondering how I would make it through the rest of the song when suddenly I felt the audience make that infinitesimal yet impossibly vast transition from tentative to attentive.
I
may have been unfamiliar to them, but the song wasn’t.

And there the world below can’t bother me…

They were with me.

By the time I got to the second bridge, to my surprise, I was there, too. I looked over at my bandmates, and every man had a big smile on his face. The biggest smile was on the face of my sideman, James Taylor, who was playing and singing, in my key, parts that fit perfectly with what I was doing.

Together we sang:

On the roof’s the only place I know

Where you just have to wish to make it so

Let’s go up on the roof…

The audience’s warmth filled me with confidence. I played the lead piano instrumental with gusto, and then some of the audience joined us in singing the last bridge. My mind was still running along parallel tracks. On one track I was performing; on the
other I was tremendously touched to see all those people holding hands, swaying, and singing along with James and me.

Right smack dab in the middle of town

I found a paradise that’s trouble-proof…

On one track I was aware of leading the audience; on the other I was thinking, Leave it to Gerry Goffin to find such an evocative description of an earthly paradise—“trouble-proof”—and have it rhyme with “roof.”

When the song ended, the audience clapped and cheered and wouldn’t stop. They loved the song and, as James had predicted, they loved me because I’d written it. I basked in the applause, and when they still wouldn’t stop, James waved me up and I took a bow. Then James stepped up to the microphone and everyone, including me, remembered whose show it was. I sat down, flushed with exhilaration, while the audience became quiet, ready for the next James Taylor song. As before, I had no idea what my fingers were playing, but thankfully they still knew what to do.

Later that night, in one of those insightful moments that come just before we fall asleep, I understood that rather than putting me on the spot, James had given me a priceless gift. He had set me up for a favorable reception from the audience. James’s introduction and choice of song had virtually guaranteed that I would be pre-loved. My inaugural experience as a lead performer was successful because of a thoughtful send-off from a generous, caring friend. I will always be grateful to James for putting me on the path to become a confident performing artist, and also for being an excellent example of how to perform unselfconsciously with joy and integrity.

P
eople often ask if I knew, when I was recording
Tapestry
, that it would become one of the biggest-selling albums in popular music, or that it would touch so many people.

How could I know that? I was simply doing what I’d always done—recording songs that I had written or cowritten. I was the musical half of the writing team through whom the songs had emerged. I wasn’t in the same league vocally as Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, or Barbra Streisand (whom I considered “
real
singers”), but I knew how to convey the mood and emotion of a song with an honest, straight-from-the-heart interpretation. If quality of songs and integrity of presentation were factors in
Tapestry
’s success, so were the timing of its release, an extraordinary confluence of good luck, and the determination of Lou Adler to ensure that the album would be heard by as many people as possible.

Except for my publishing rights, which were owned by Screen Gems, Lou was directly involved with everything I did as a performing artist. He was my manager, record company, and producer. It was Lou who helped select the songs to record, Lou who chose Hank Cicalo to be our recording engineer, and Lou who
made sure we got studio time at A&M. With the Carpenters recording in Studio A and Joni Mitchell recording
Blue
down the hall in Studio C with Henry Lewy engineering, Lou and I would be recording with Hank Cicalo in Studio B.

Seven blocks east, Peter and James were recording
Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon
at Sunset Sound with Richard Orshoff at the control board. A constant stream of singers, musicians, friends, and family flowed in and out of the recording studios along Sunset Boulevard. At A&M we commuted down the hall. Sometimes we commuted between A&M and Sunset Sound. In New York I would have walked the seven blocks. Now that I was living in Los Angeles, where people thought nothing of driving half a block to buy a newspaper, I adopted a “when in Rome” policy. When I wasn’t working on my own album I drove to Sunset Sound to play as a sideman and sing background on James’s songs. Sometimes I rode over with Kootch, who was playing on both albums. Periodically James came over to A&M to play acoustic guitar and sing background on my record. Physical proximity to me and romantic proximity to James brought Joni’s beautiful voice to both James’s and my albums. Sometimes it seemed as if James and I were recording one massive album in two different studios.