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Featured Events
2014Lyricist Gerry Goffin, author of over 100 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, many with former wife and songwriting partner Carole King, dies at age 75.
2010Backstreet Boys join New Kids on the Block at NKOTB's show in Radio City Music Hall. The response is so great that the re-formed bands begin touring together... as NKOTBSB.
2010"California Gurls" hits #1, the first of five Hot 100 chart-toppers from Katy Perry's Teenage Dream album - a feat equaled only by Michael Jackson's Bad.More
1999In an interview published in Melody Maker, Britney Spears says, "I would have to be totally happy in every aspect before I would get married. I believe marriage is for life."
She ends up getting married twice... in 2004.
1987Mötley Crüe begin their Girls, Girls, Girls tour with a show in Tucson, Arizona. The stage show features an inflatable Harley, lots of pyro, and a contraption that spins Tommy Lee and his drum kit upside down while he plays. Whitesnake is the opening act; later on the tour an new band called Guns N' Roses takes that slot.
1965"I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" by The Four Tops goes to #1 in America, knocking off another Motown song: "Back in My Arms Again" by The Supremes. Both songs were written and produced by the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland.
1948Folk artist Nick Drake is born in Rangoon, Burma. Raised in England, the mercurial and highly influential musician releases three albums before his death in 1974.
19
In Music History
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2018The day after he is murdered, XXXTentacion breaks Taylor Swift's record for most Spotify streams in a single day, with 10.4 million. A month earlier, the rapper was banned from Spotify playlists as part of their short-lived "hateful conduct" policy.
2017In Matal v Tham, the United States Supreme Court rules 8-0 that Asian-American rock band The Slants can copyright their name in spite of its disparaging racial meaning.
2013'50s country singer Slim Whitman, who enjoyed a career revival in the '80s thanks to a television direct-marketing campaign, dies of heart failure at age 90.
2012Fiona Apple releases her fourth album, The Idler Wheel..., her first since Extraordinary Machine in 2005.More
2012R&B singer Bobby Brown winds up a 2-year engagement to his fiance (and manager) Alicia Etheredge by tying the knot. The couple get married at a modestly pleasant ceremony in Hawaii.
2006Duane Roland (guitarist for Molly Hatchet) dies of natural causes at age 53.
2004An audience member hurls a lollipop on stage while David Bowie is performing in Oslo, Norway. The lollipop wedges itself in David Bowie's left eye (which already has an enlarged and frozen pupil following a childhood fight). Bowie halts the concert to remove the lollipop. Luckily, he escapes serious injury.
1996Comedic composer Vivian Ellis, known for the 1929 musical number "Spread A Little Happiness," popularly covered by Sting in 1982, dies at age 92.
1983Rapper Macklemore (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis) is born Ben Haggerty in Seattle, Washington.
1980Donna Summer is the first artist to sign with Geffen Records.
1973Roberta Flack... The First Time Ever TV special airs on ABC.
1973The Rocky Horror Show musical debuts at London's Royal Court Theatre. Two years later, it starts a brief Broadway run and is adapted into the cult classic film The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
1972The United States Supreme Court rules in favor of MC5 manager John Sinclair and his White Panther associates in a landmark case that makes it illegal for the government to use wiretapping without a warrant. The White Panthers were accused of bombing the CIA agency in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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Carole King's Landmark Tapestry Hits #1
1971
Carole King's album Tapestry hits #1 in the US, where it stays for 15 weeks.
Prior to the release of Tapestry, Carole King was known as half of the songwriting duo Goffin and King, whose catchy songs populated the Hot 100 in the '60s. From a cubicle at Aldon Music, next door to the famed Brill Building, the young married couple churned out dozens of hits, including "The Loco-Motion" for Little Eva, "Take Good Care Of My Baby" for Bobby Vee, and "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman" for Aretha Franklin. After the duo's personal and professional split, King eventually pursued a recording career at the encouragement of her friend James Taylor. Tapestry is her sophomore release and a seminal album from the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter scene.
King's voice is no match for Aretha's, but it has a characteristic all its own: imperfect, but warm and inviting. Tapestry producer Lou Adler, who founded King's label Ode Records, wanted to keep the record as simple as possible and created an intimate album that blends sweet harmonies and well-crafted instrumentation with emotionally potent lyrics.
"It brought out emotions that no other record at least at that time had," Adler recalled. "Tapestry was really special and hit a real chord with the public."
The tracklist revisits a handful of Goffin-King standards – including "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," a #1 hit for the Shirelles, and "Natural Woman" – bringing a level of authenticity that can only come from the songwriter's perspective. The lead single, "It's Too Late," co-written by Toni Stern, examines the painful aftermath of a breakup while its flip side "I Feel the Earth Move" is a free-spirited expression of sexual desire. James Taylor, who was recording his Mud Slim and the Blue Horizon album around the same time, brings his acoustic stylings to many of the songs, including "You've Got a Friend," which he brings to #1 that summer.
Many of King's other pals show up on the album, including Joni Mitchell on backing vocals, and her former bandmates from The City, Danny Kortchmar and Charles Larkey, on guitar and bass, respectively. Curtis Amy, who played sax on the Doors' "Touch Me," solos on "It's Too Late" and plays the flute on its follow-up "So Far Away," about two lovers drifting apart.
After the album goes to #1, it spends the next six years on the chart. King, who is too shy to attend the Grammy Awards ceremony, takes home the night's most prestigious prizes, including Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Album of the Year, Record of the Year (for "It's Too Late"), and Song of the Year for Taylor's version of "You've Got A Friend." She's the first woman to sweep all the top awards.
Tapestry becomes an emotional touchstone for listeners and its timeless themes never grow old. Fellow musicians are drawn to King's songs, and the singer-songwriter scene expands as budding artists are encouraged by her success. In 2003, the album ranks at #36 on Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.
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