Customer Reviews

Brill Building Legends

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In concept, this disc (along with its companion volumes focusing on other Brill Building habitues) should be the Rosetta Stone of early-60s pop: a blueprint of demos for the hits that would shape the Brill Building legend. But what's actually here is a good deal more complex: a mix of early King solo work, demos for songs that were either never recorded commercially or never broke in the charts, and a smattering of demos for bona fide chart toppers. And though this isn't as immediately satisfying as a disc full of hit demos, a spin through these 57 tracks provides tremendous illumination of just how Goffin & King came to their success.

What's really evidenced here is the sheer hard work that went into creating the Brill Building's success. The unfiltered depiction of Goffin & King's songwriting yields uncommercialized songs and non-hits that range from very good to merely competent to surprisingly bad. Without the editing of publishers, producers, artists, managers, song pluggers and DJs, Goffin & King's output shows itself to include an equal (if not greater) number of flops than finds.

Perhaps this mixed songwriting success shouldn't be surprising, but given the rose-colored memory of oldies radio, it's easy to forget that such stellar talents could turn out such banalities as "Boomerang" (the slide whistle would be bad enough if it didn't accompany a chorus like, "Like a boom-boom-boom-boom-boomerang, I keep boomerangin' back to you."). On the other hand, one has to wonder why "I Didn't Have Any Summer Romance" didn't get into the hands of Annette Funicello, and why Connie Francis never sang "Queen of the Beach" or "Goin' Wild."

Several tunes, like "There Goes My Lover," are just a notch less stellar than the Goffin & King hits, and getting a feel for that narrow gap between success and also-ran is a good part of what this set allows. Also included are better known early King solo sides like "Right Girl," "Oh Neil" (her answer to Neil Sedaka's "Oh Carole"), "He's a Bad Boy," and "It Might as Well Rain Until September."

King's post-Everly's recording of "Crying in the Rain" is moving for its more fallible harmonies, as is her take of Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up is Hard To Do." Her demo of Bobby Vee's "Take Good Care of My Baby" makes for an ironic twist, given the lyric's longing for "her." The demo of the answer song ("He Takes Good Care of Your Baby"), eventually released by Dora Dee & Lora Lee, is a nice complement. 1966's, "A Road to Nowhere," has a sophistication not heard elsewhere on this collection, and clearly points towards King's solo career.

Others singing on this collection include Gerry Goffin, Bernie Knee, and the girl-groups, The Honey Bees and The Palisades. Even stranger, the last three tracks feature co-Brill Building songsmith Barry Mann singing songs that seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with King.

Throughout, the tape quality is very high, with performances that range from simple piano or guitar accompaniment to full arrangements. Though this isn't the treasure chest of demos that make up Goffin & King's popularly known ouvre, what's here is an amazing peek inside the creative process of the Brill Building.

Carole King had authored and done demos of some very familiar chestnuts and other humable tunes from the 60s. If you are a Carole King fan and want a unique experience, quite different from the solo albums, buy this set. I've never seen it elsewhere. Many of these tunes were never recorded commercially, the piano arrangements are extremely simple as to not detract from the tunes, and her voice had not picked up the rich gravelly intimacy that made you want to play Tapestry 1000 times. If you are expecting the Carole King of Tapestry and beyond you will be disappointed; if you are a fan and are curious about the days when that talent was still forming but had not found that unique voice, I think you'll like it.

This is an interesting collection from the perspective that it presents lots of unreleased (31!) and very rare songs from Carole King's songwriting days at the Brill Building with then-husband Gerry Goffin. Some of these were actually issued by Carole herself, but the majority are still associated with other Top 40 performers (Bobby Vee, the Everly Brothers, the Drifters). Many of these are clearly publishers' demos with sparse instrumental accompaniment, while others were clearly complete sessions. Although the sound on a couple of tracks suffers slightly from compression (possibily the result of using acetates and some multi-generational tapes) the majority sound remarkably clean and bright. It is dubious whether Carole herself participated in the release of this compilation (Brill Tone Records/ Made in Germany smacks of borderline legitimacy), but even if not there is nothing for her to regret or be ashamed of in this 57 track collection. It certainly is a joy to hear these songs done by their composer and then be able to compare them to the hits with which we are so familiar today.

Usually when Carole King is mentioned, people think of 'I Feel The Earth Move' and 'Hard Rock Cafe', which are great songs, but they tend to forget her early days. Unless your a great fan, you won't think of 'It might As Well Rain Untill September'or 'Uh! Oh! It Started All Over Again'. Thats what I think makes this album so unique and a must have for all you King fans, and im not talkin' Elvis!

To get the true feeling of a developing Carole King, 'The Right Girl' is for you.
I have enjoyed many hours of listening to the songs of the early sixties by her, as much as I enjoy her in the seventies.
This CD is quite a unique collection, as many of the songs featured on it are becoming quite rare and hard to find, some of them not being released on a single, but now they're all here on one CD,
and I love it.
Oh Carole!

Here lies Carole the Pop King's TRUE tapestry.

Although these 57 slices of pure, three-minute Brill beauty are already reaching their half-century mark, each and every single one remain, and still contain, the undeniable Sound of the Future in oh so many ways.

In fact, all you have to do is conjure the name of YOUR favorite song(writer) from the Sixties through today, and you'll no doubt easily uncover its Top 40 ancestry still shining loud and true somewhere upon these two jam-packed discs.

Indeed, the magic's in the melody -- always has been; always shall be -- and there's magic to spare, in all its monophonic, 45-RPM magnificence, throughout this wholly indispensable collection.

Oh, Carole!
(...and Gerry, Barry, Cynthia and Ellie too)

I only discovered this 2-CD collection in October 2007 during a visit to Osaka, Japan, of all places. Fully titled Brill Building Legends Carole King Complete Recordings 1958-1966, and first released in 1995, this 57-track compilation makes available 31 tracks that had never before been released, as well as numerous other tracks that were only released as singles or featured on long-deleted albums.

Even though I am very late to the Brill Building party, this is a very welcome gathering of rarities, most of whom were composed by Carole and then husband Gerry Goffin. The eight singles - complete A and B sides - that Carole made between 1958 and 1966 are here, including her very first, the rock 'n' rollin' Goin' Wild, 1962's break-through hit, the sweetly melancholic It Might As Well Rain Until September, and the plaintively soulful Some of Your Lovin'.

These early recordings show what an astute team Goffin & King were. Their radio-savvy ears were tuned to the changeable tastes of American teenagers in the late 50s and early 60s. In particular, the collection showcases Carole's ability to record in a range of styles, from teenage novelty (Oh Neil, Short Mort) to folk (He's A Bad Boy), country-pop (Deep In My Heart), girl-group pop (Oh! Oh! It Started All Over Again, Crying In The Rain) to the more contemplative pop music that emerged with the Beatles and Bob Dylan (The Road To Nowhere). Influences range widely, the oddest possibly being an obscurity entitled Disappointed which both lyrically and stylistically replicates the melodramatics of Timi Yuro's unusual hit of 1961, Hurt.

Despite the multiple styles, Carole's voice most closely resembled Skeeter Davis's, the keening-voiced country singer who enjoyed a clutch of pop hits in the early 1960s, including the Goffin-King classic I Can't Stay Mad At You (Not included on Brill Building Legends). In the best sense of the phrase, Goffin & King songs were "made-to-order product" but, as the 1960s progressed, their product successfully transcended any hint of manufacture.

The debt to Neil Sedaka is evident early on: First, in Carole's 1959 answer song to Sedaka's breakthrough hit Oh! Carol and second, in 1963's track from the album "Dimension Dolls" Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. Lyric changes on Oh! Neil aside, both tracks are carbon-copies of Sedaka's originals. This debt, which initially spawned a handful of way-too perky pop tunes and was thankfully short-lived, provided early practise in song-writing and arrangement. Indeed, although the tracks are not chronologically sequenced on this collection, they demonstrate how rapidly Goffin & King diversified their craft as the 60s themes matured from teenage crushes to adult angst.

Of the many standout tracks, two deserve mention because they exemplify the thrilling catchiness of Goffin and King's best early 1960s songs on this collection:

* School Bells Are Ringing, the follow-up to Rain Until September, flopped commercially but had 'hit' written all over it: An irresistible chorus, with joyful ringing instrumentation, propulsive drumming and cooing-humming girl-backing vocals. (All of Carole's subsequent 1960s singles also flopped - save He's A Bad Boy, which scraped the bottom of the Top 100).

* That's What I Call True Love, sung by Bernie Knee, features cleverly arranged verses that irrrestibly lead to the very catchy chorus.

A Foretaste Of The 1970s
We all know Carole went on to huge fame as a solo singer in the early 1970s when Tapestry sold in the millions. There are one or two intriguing hints on this collection of the contemplative composer-singer she was yet to become: 1962's I Didn't Have Any Summer Romance, simply arranged, gently paced and plaintively toned, hints at the intimate simplicity of her best 1970s work. A Road To Nowhere, from 1966, takes the Goffin-King song craft up a serious notch or two into adulthood; Innocent teenage preoccupations make way for heavier themes such as the painful lessons learned when a long-term relationship ends. Heavy indeed - but these kids were growing up fast.

Is Carole Singing Lead Vocals On Some Of Your Lovin'?
The second CD contains two versions of the sublime Some Of Your Lovin'. While the second version is credited to the Honeybees, the first is not specifically credited. However, based on liner notes "All tracks sung by Carole King, unless otherwise noted." Released in 1966, it was the last of Carole's 1960s solo singles. However, it's hard to believe the vocals on this version are Carole's - the timbre is so unlike Carole's. Of course, Dusty Springfield subsequently recorded the definitive version of this heart-achingly lovely song, taking it to another level of convincing blue-eyed soul and straight into the British Top Ten in 1965.

Seriously Incomplete Liner Notes
Several booklet-sized pages of information accompany this collection, attributed to "Your Brill Tone Record Company". Most of the information re-treads the early biographies of Carole and Gerry. However, apart from having their names credited, you'll find nothing about the other artists featured in this collection. In fact, unless you read the "small print" liner notes, it's easy to think that the entire 2-CD collection is by Carole. The cover information no where states that this is a compilation by various artists: Of the almost 60 tracks, "only" 36 are sung by Carole. The remainder feature a cast of virtual unknowns, including Tina Robins (one minor hit in 1961, Dear Mr D J Play It Again), The Honeybees, Bernie Knee and Barry Mann (okay, he's not unknown!). Gerry Goffin sings lead vocals on two.

Of the unreleased tracks, the liner notes do not tell us which were "demo tapes" intended to woo other recording artists and which were recorded but just never released. Indeed, there's no information on which of the tracks were singles or album tracks. You need to hunt down a discography such as M.C. Strong's (1995) to get this information.

Other information remains elusive: Carole's unplugged version of Take Good Care Of My Baby sounds like a demo tape - which is not to disparage her version in which she sparklingly accompanies herself on piano. Why didn't she get in early and release her own version of the song that Bobby Vee quickly turned into a million seller? Of course, she did have a Top Thirty US hit and a Top Three UK hit with another song that she and Gerry had written for Bobby Vee: It Might As Well Rain Until September.

The sound throughout this collection is remarkably good. The release of this collection makes available to Carole King fans songs that have not been available for decades, if ever. Its release seems to have gone unnoticed more than 10 years ago. However, this 2-CD collection undeniably enhances the reputation of one of America's most talented and successful pop singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s. Borrowing from Neil Sedaka, Oh! Carole!

Woah,this is really an explosion of happy,bubbly 1960s pop - King's early recordings and demos are thrilling in their energy, earnestness and enthusiasm.
Long before "Tapestry" she was well known as a gifted composer,but this information doesn't really register until one hears this generous compilation of rarities recorded a full decade before superstardom - if "Tapestry" was gentle,melodic and melancholic,these early 1960s songs were all irresistibly happy,tuneful and danceable. It is also cute to note where king picked up her influences - doo wop,The Drifters,Neil Sedaka and others somehow mirrored in her music,clearly she tried a little bit of everything.

Downright funny (and good natured) answer song "Oh Neil" that starts this compilation,might suggest that this girl would turn into some gimmicky one-trick Pony and before you know it,King blossoms into irresistible (and instantly recognizable) weaver of magic melodies - surely,this is all based on 1960s girl-group sound but if you like music from this decade,this CD is Holy Grail. With a few over-cooked exceptions,most of these songs are highly enjoyable and King herself sounds much better than demo tracks singers.

It's got everything I was looking for and more! And arrived in excellent condition.