Without getting into too many details, and without alienating the reader into thinking I'm strange or weird, a nerd, a stalker or all of the above, let's just say I know a lot about the life of Carole King.
I know more than anybody should know, let alone someone who's 29 and was born 15 years after her iconic album "Tapestry" came out. I've seen "Beautiful," the musical that tells the story of her career as a songwriter and singer in the 1960s and early '70s, on Broadway multiple times.
I first heard "Tapestry" when I was 15, after I picked up the CD on a whim for $5.99 at a local Barnes & Noble back where I grew up near Wilkes-Barre, Pa. On first listen, the album grabbed me like no piece of art had before or since. King's percussive piano playing, her everyman (or everywoman) style of vocals and the glorious melodies that flowed out of her combined to stop me in my tracks the first time I heard it. I had to know more about this woman, where she came from and what other music she made.
Of course, I quickly learned she is among the most prolific and revered songwriters in the history of rock 'n' roll and had already compiled a legendary career as a writer before she released "Tapestry."
As an amateur songwriter myself, I spent years scouring eBay to get out-of-print copies of her sheet music so I could play and analyze her writing.
I've noticed how her use of chord structures evolved over the years, from simpler, pop patterns in the early to mid-'60s, to more jazz-oriented, complicated structures in the late '60s and early '70s. I know I'll never come close to matching the simple, intricate beauty of her and Gerry Goffin's music, or that of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, King's friends and rival songwriting team featured in "Beautiful," which is now running at the Oriental Theater (24 W. Randolph St.) through Feb. 21.
"Beautiful" has become a bona fide hit and serves as a great showcase of her immense talent. I work as a sportswriter for the Tribune covering the Blackhawks, but I have been dragging my friends (willingly or not) to see "Beautiful" while it is here in Chicago. Even though sports consume a big portion of my life, I still retain the passion for songwriting and, especially, the music of Mann and Weil and King and Goffin, who was King's first husband and first lyricist. Their relationship forms the crux of "Beautiful." But I'll admit it was a show I was hesitant to see when I bought a ticket to the previews on Broadway over two years ago.
My biggest concern was how loose book writer Douglas McGrath would be with the arc and facts of King's career — or how truthful the subjects of the show would allow him to be.
For the most part, McGrath stayed true to the trajectory of King's life in the 1960s, even the moments King said were initially too painful for her to watch on stage. The casts, both on Broadway and here in Chicago, are impeccable in their portrayals of King, her friends and the artists who sang her songs. And the arrangements have even taken the care to keep some false notes you hear occasionally on "Tapestry" to make the show an authentic soundtrack of King's career.
But like any show, "Beautiful" takes some dramatic license.
For me, it's more notable what the show leaves out than what it includes. At a low point during her marriage to Goffin, King's character says something to the effect of, "Why am I so sure of myself at work, but with Gerry I'm always guessing?"
That would be a theme that extended throughout King's personal life beyond "Tapestry." The show ends with King finding her voice — and beginning to write her own lyrics — by escaping her doomed marriage with Goffin and branching out on her own to begin a blockbuster solo career in 1971.
But if you read King's autobiography "A Natural Woman," you would know one of her most harrowing relationships was still a few years away. In the late '70s, King was married to a wannabe songwriter named Rick Evers, her third of four husbands.
In a chilling and moving account, King said Evers physically abused her during the marriage and even though she was one of the most successful recording artists in the world, she couldn't muster up the courage to leave. Finally, she did, shortly before Evers died of a drug overdose in 1978. "Beautiful: The Sequel" might be a much different and darker show.
That's not to say "Beautiful" is bereft of drama — albeit drama that isn't telling the whole story. Goffin and King's relationship crumbles in part because of his craving for other women. In the show, he has an affair with a character named Janelle Woods, a singer whom Goffin and King work with, but who is fictional.
Goffin, however, did have an affair with a woman he and King wrote for in the 1960s. Her name was Earl-Jean McCrea Reavis, a member of the girl group The Cookies.
The show also won't tell you that Goffin and Reavis had a daughter together while they and King were still working together, as author Sheila Weller said in her book "Girls Like Us," which chronicles the lives of King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon.
But the essence stays true to King and Goffin's relationship. Goffin cheated, multiple times, and had problems with substance abuse. Eventually, King reached her point of no return.
The show doesn't mention King had put out two albums prior to "Tapestry," one called "Now That Everything's Been Said" with a group she formed called The City, and her first solo effort, "Writer," which initially flopped.
Instead, King decides to move to Los Angeles in "Beautiful" and within about two scenes, she has won four Grammys for "Tapestry." The show also won't tell you that by the time "Tapestry" became a best-seller, King was married to her second husband, bassist Charlie Larkey. You leave the show with the impression King was single around that time. It also won't tell you that Goffin and King actually continued writing songs together after their divorce. Several of King's albums after "Tapestry" feature songs co-written by Goffin.
There are also some small inaccuracies only a dork like me will catch. In one scene, Goffin and King say their song "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," as recorded by The Shirelles, was No. 1 on the charts for five weeks. I, being the nerd I am, know it was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks.
And "Beautiful" portrays King as having written one of the early musical numbers "It Might As Well Rain Until September" all by herself, but in truth Goffin wrote the lyrics to that one too. Ditto for "It's Too Late," a song King wrote with Toni Stern, who provided the lyrics.
I have my quibbles with the accuracy of the show, like any dweeb who is a big fan of a book that gets turned into a movie.
But I still keep coming back because the show is unflinching in portraying the humanity of King and how she became the great writer she was, a writer whose mind-boggling list of hits will leave you whistling each one as you exit the theater.
Each time I see it, I wait for that one moment, that goosebump-inducing moment when the stage gets quiet and King walks to her piano as Goffin is asleep on a couch nearby. He has just finished writing the lyrics to a song they need to present the next day.
King plays a C-major chord.
"Tonight you're mine, completely …"
The crowd gives an audible "Oh," as it recognizes "Will You Love Me Tomorrow."
And that's when I know they've found the same thing in King's music that I found back when I first heard "Tapestry."
That's one part of King's life the show gets right — and it's the most important part.
chine@tribpub.com
Twitter @ChristopherHine
