Carole King performs at the Oakland Coliseum in 1972
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American singer-songwriter Carole King celebrated her 80th birthday on Wednesday. Widely considered one of the most significant and influential musicians in history, she is the subject of a feature-length documentary this evening. Carole King: Natural Woman airs on BBC Two at 9pm tonight, and will be followed by vintage footage of her performing songs for a BBC live studio performance. Initially starting out as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building before establishing herself as a solo artist, her career has spanned a remarkable eight decades.
Her major success began in the Sixties when she and her first husband, Gerry Coffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists.
They produced songs including Chains, later recorded by the Beatles, and The Loco-Motion, which Kylie Minogue released as her debut single.
Gerry was the first of Carole’s four husbands, and they had two children together, Louise and Sherry.
However, they divorced in 1968.
Carole opened up on a “pattern” she saw in her past relationships in her 2021 book, A Natural Woman: A Memoir.
She wrote: “When I look back at my relationships with men, I see a pattern.
“As a child my strong will juxtaposed with wanting to please my father, and because my father had been so effective in making things happen, I grew to believe that it was easier to take strong steady action toward a goal with a man to help me get there.”
Carole released her first solo album in 1970, and had met her second husband Charles Larkey shortly beforehand.
He played the bass guitar on a number of Carole’s early singles, and they performed in the musical trio ‘The City’ together, releasing one album.
Though they had two children together — Molly, born in 1971, and Levi, born in 1974 — they had divorced by 1976.
Carole said in a 2012 interview with the Kennedy Library Foundation that they split because “he was living the life of a musician and I was living the life of a domestic housewife, and ultimately it wasn’t working”.
In 1977, Carole collaborated with songwriter Rick Evers for her album Simple Things. Shortly after that they were married.
Carole wrote in her memoir that Rick had a bad temper and became increasingly abusive in their relationship.
She recalled one of the occasions: “Without warning he struck with his right fist, he hit me hard as if he were in a boxing ring, except he wasn’t wearing gloves and he wasn’t in a boxing ring.”
She left him in 1978, and he died shortly afterwards from a cocaine overdose.
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Carole felt it was important for people to hear her story to draw attention to the matter of domestic abuse and to ensure victims know help is available.
Speaking to ‘Today on Tuesday’ in 2012, she said: “I wasn’t sure I was going to include it in the book but I wanted people to understand, people who go through that, mostly women but some men, that you’re not alone.
“This is a phenomenon that can even happen to someone like me, who was successful, who had financial independence and what I learned is it’s a really bad dynamic and it’s very hard to get out [of].”
Carole met her fourth and final husband, Rick Sorenson, through a mutual friend. He worked as a carpenter and lived in a teepee, according to Parade, earning him the nickname ‘Teepee Rick’.
They bought a ranch together in Idaho, and he stayed out of the limelight while they were together. Her busy schedule and frequent toing and froing put a strain on their relationship and they divorced in 1989.
Carole did not marry again after her fourth marriage, instead choosing to keep her romantic life rather private.
Despite the widespread assumption that Carole was romantically involved with fellow musical genius James Taylor, the pair never even dated.
Carole recalled in her memoir that they first met in 1969 and bonded like two old friends who had not seen one another for years.
She wrote: “It was like we were puppies rolling around; the music was just rolling in and around each other.
“His guitar and my piano just rolled around. And we just felt like we knew each other and had played together forever.”
Likewise, James has echoed this, telling CNN earlier this year that they have “the same musical DNA”.
Carole King: Natural Woman airs at 9pm on BBC Two tonight. It is followed by In Concert with Carole King from 9:55pm until 10:25pm.
She wrote: “It was like we were puppies rolling around; the music was just rolling in and around each other.
“His guitar and my piano just rolled around. And we just felt like we knew each other and had played together forever.”
Likewise, James has echoed this, telling CNN earlier this year that they have “the same musical DNA”.
Carole King: Natural Woman airs at 9pm on BBC Two tonight. It is followed by In Concert with Carole King from 9:55pm until 10:25pm.
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