arole King wrote some of the most popular songs in chart history for other recording artists, but her 1971 Tapestry album made her a performing star in her own right. While that album gave her a chart-topping hit in "It's Too Late", she didn't approach those heights again until 1974's "Jazzman."

First charting on Sept. 14, 1974, "Jazzman" was Carole King's fourth Top 10 single, ninth Top 40 hit, and first single from her sixth studio LP, Wrap Around Joy. The album first charted on Sept. 28, 1974, rose to No. 1 on the Hot 200 album chart for one week, and remained on the chart for 29 weeks. It was certified platinum by the RIAA on Oct. 16, 1974.

"I never wanted to be the performing artist," Carole King told author Paul Zollo in his book Songwriters On Songwriting. "I was always the vehicle through which the songs could be communicated to a real singer." The switch occurred when I moved to California in 1968 -- I was encouraged by Danny Kortchmar and Charles Larkey to perform with them as a group, and we made an album called City. I didn't have any intention of going out and performing live. It was a way to make a record while hiding behind a group situation."

While King might not have intended to be a singer, the former Carole Klein was certainly no stranger to music. Throughout the 1960s, she wrote or co-wrote such pop music classics as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "Go Away Little Girl," "The Loco-Motion," and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." Many of those hits were written with her husband, Gerry Goffin, but after they divorced in 1968, Carole decided to take a serious stab at performing her own songs. In 1971 she released Tapestry, which not only spent 302 weeks on the album charts, with 15 of those at #1, but also become one of the 25 best-selling albums of all time. Critical acclaim followed, too, with King earning Grammy Awards for Album, Song, and Record of the Year.

King had gotten off to a fast start as a singer, but she had difficulty maintaining the momentum. A change was needed, and it came with the album Wrap Around Joy, which was recorded while she was pregnant. King employed songwriter David Palmer to co-write the songs with her. Lou Adler, Carole's producer, noted that there were musical changes, too. As he explained in her anthology, Carole King: A Natural Woman, "Carole went back to piano, mostly. We kept the horns, stayed with David Campbell for the strings. Tom Scott had the big solo on 'Jazzman,' and we reached way back for Jim Horn to solo on 'Wrap Around Joy'....Wrap Around Joy was a good, solid album, with the title song and 'Jazzman'."

"Jazzman" entered the Billboard pop charts at #86. Within 11 weeks, the song had become Carole's second-biggest hit, rising all the way to #2. The song earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal. However, the magic of Tapestry wasn't there, and she lost to Olivia Newton-John. While King's pop hits ended with 1982's #45 "One To One," she continued to place songs on the Adult Contemporary charts, reaching #18 in 1992 with her hit from the movie A League of Their Own, "Now And Forever."

- Christopher G. Feldman, The Billboard Book of No. 2 Singles, Billboard, 2000.

 

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