Carole King
Name at birth: Carole Klein
Carole King's Tapestry (1971) was a number one album that won four Grammys and stayed on the charts for nearly six years. She got her start as a songwriter in New York, crafting pop songs in a variety of styles with her first husband, Gerry Goffin. From the late 1950s until the mid-1960s the pair wrote dozens of hit songs for other singers, including ""One Fine Day" (), "Don't Bring Me Down" (The Animals), "I'm Into Something Good" (Herman's Hermits), "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" (The Shirelles), and -- written for their teen babysitter -- "The Loco-Motion" (Little Eva). Tapestry showed King in her own light and spawned the hits "It's Too Late," "So Far Away," "I Feel the Earth Move" and her version of "You've Got a Friend" (a song made even more famous by King's collaborator James Taylor). She followed up with hits like 1974's "Jazzman," did the music for Maurice Sendak's TV show Really Rosie (1975) and had success with her own versions of some of her best-known songs on 1980's Pearls. These days she's known as an active voice in protecting the environment and as a solid performer with a secure spot in the history of American pop music. Her albums include Wrap Around Joy (1974), Touch the Sky (1979), City Streets (1989, featuring Eric Clapton) and Love Makes the World (2001).
Extra credit: She made her acting debut on Broadway in 1994's Bloodbrothers... The 1995 album Tapestry Revisited had versions of her songs done by artists such as Celine Dion, Rod Stewart and Faith Hill.