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  Author’s Note

  Over the years many people have urged me to write a book about my life. Each time my answer was, “I’m too busy living my life to write about it.” I was no less busy in 2000, when I was fifty-eight, but two years shy of sixty seemed as good a time as any to begin reflecting on the prior decades.

  As I began to put together an outline, keeping track of all the bits and pieces was akin to herding cockroaches. Memories scurried out of sight as soon as they came to light, but I persevered. It was important to me to write this book myself, and it’s taken me nearly twelve years to do it.

  In order to arrive at some degree of objective truth, I undertook some research, and I interviewed friends, family, and colleagues about shared experiences. But my primary purpose in writing this memoir was to entertain readers and share what I remembered. If any dates or facts are inaccurate, I will greatly appreciate your understanding that this is not a historical treatise. It’s a memoir.

  Where the title of one of my albums is the same as that of a song within that album, the title of the album is always in italics. The song title appears in quotes.

  A Natural Woman includes stories to the best of my recollection about my life and my music, with occasional observations about how I perceived the cultural context for both. Just as I can only fit so many songs into one concert, I could only fit so many stories into this book. I hope you enjoy the ones I’ve chosen.

  Carole King

  Custer County, Idaho

  Showtime 2005

  Soundcheck isn’t going well. There’s a persistent hum in my monitor that no one seems to be able to fix. The lights are throwing a shadow from my microphone boom onto the keyboard, making it hard for me to see middle C. The piano bench is too low. It’s not adjustable. A few minutes ago, when I turned around to take off my guitar, I banged the headstock into the side of the piano visible to the audience. My guitar is cracked where the headstock meets the neck, and there’s a big ding on the piano.

  But these are minor problems compared to the sensation I feel in my throat, the one I get when I’m about to lose my voice. How can I give my audience what they’ve come for if I don’t have a voice?

  My bandmates, Rudy Guess and Gary Burr, try to dispel my anxiety.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Gary volunteers. “Your voice will be there for the show.”

  Rudy adds, “Carole, don’t worry about the guitar. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Their consoling remarks only make me feel worse. I know why the guitar bang happened. It was because I was in too much of a hurry.

  My mood doesn’t improve when John Vanderslice, our production manager, announces, “It’s 6:55, doors open at 7:00, and you need to leave the stage right now.”

  “But, Slice, we didn’t check our vocal balance or get a level on ‘Earth Move’!”

  Usually we play a chorus of “I Feel the Earth Move” in each new venue so the sound team can assess our likely maximum volume. Whatever level of “loud” we achieve, the sound guys know it goes to “louder” during the actual performance and prepare accordingly. But how can they prepare if they never got to hear where “loud” was?

  “Sorry,” Slice says, handing me my backpack and beckoning to the piano tuner in one fluid motion.

  As I head backstage, my manager, Lorna Guess, intercepts me.

  “Don’t forget, you have a preshow with some radio contest winners,” she reminds me. “Why don’t you put this on?”

  “This” is a lanyard with a hand-lettered laminated sign that says “Voice At Rest.” It explains to others why I’m speaking only in hand signs and whispers, and at the same time reminds me not to speak unnecessarily.

  It’s unusual for me to meet radio contest winners before a show. Usually I try to conserve my energy for the concert and greet people afterwards. But we have a long bus ride tonight and need to leave immediately after the performance. Touring bands call it “play and wave.”

  I have less than an hour to meet, greet, eat, and primp. I’m hoping the crew will be able to buff out the ding on the piano, raise the piano bench, eliminate the shadow on the keyboard, and get rid of the hum. I shouldn’t worry. In over thirty years of performing in concert I’ve never gone onstage and found a hum heard at soundcheck still there at showtime. But tonight I am not in harmony with the universe. This is not a good way to feel before a show.

  Lorna brings me to the room known as Hospitality where the radio contest winners are. These lovely people are longtime fans. Each has a story. They respect the “Voice At Rest” sign and do all the talking. I listen attentively and sign albums. By the time I’ve met them all, it’s 7:20. Showtime is 8:00.

  Lorna walks me over to Catering. Gary and Rudy are at one table and some of the crew are at another. Lorna joins her husband (Rudy) while I stop at the crew table. From their wry jokes I learn that the air-conditioning on their bus hasn’t been working for the past few days. It’s midsummer in the Midwest. Ignoring my “Voice At Rest” sign, I ask if there’s anything I can do to hasten the arrival of a replacement bus. They tell me it’s already on the way. I tell them I couldn’t function on tour without them. They brush aside my compliments and urge me to enjoy my dinner and not worry about the bus, hums, broken guitars, or their ability to adjust for “louder.” Lorna signals me to stop talking. Like a flock of birds, the crew all get up at once to go back to work. Christian Walsh, the FOH (front-of-house) sound man, stops long enough to assure me that everything will be working perfectly by showtime. His upbeat mood makes me feel a little calmer as I walk to the buffet.

  I sit down at the now vacated crew table with a plate of salad and just enough rice to sample the sauces from the meat and fish dishes. I always swear I won’t eat the cheesecake, and then I always do. I think if I eat half a piece and go back for the other half I’m not really eating a whole piece. I eat quickly, and then I look at my watch: 7:35. Yikes! I hurry to my dressing room, brew a cup of Throat Coat tea, pull a couple of outfits from my wardrobe trunk, and wait for the steamer to heat up. I check my hair in the mirror. It’s frizzy. I daub some conditioner into my hands, add a splash of water, and scrunch the mixture into my hair. Much better.

  The importance of hair: I’m feeling optimistic.

  I steam my first-act trousers and my second-act blouse. Steaming my clothes grounds me. It gives me ownership of my preshow preparation. I take a sip of tea. It’s too hot. I set the cup down and begin to put on my makeup. I’ve finally figured out how much I need for a concert. It’s not much, and it doesn’t take long to apply.

  Two short raps on the door announce the arrival of Brandon Miller, guitar tech and all-around crew member. He’s come for The Book, a loose-leaf notebook that contains each show’s set list, charts, lyrics, notes about songs, and the names of local people to mention. I am the keeper of The Book at all times on tour except when Brandon is transporting it to and from the piano. Without The Book I would have to depend on my memory, which has fewer available gigabytes every year.

  I begin to dress, simultaneously creating and observing my metamorphosis into the woman the audience has come to see. I’m wearing a black beaded top with a matching jacket over my “security” black pants—“s
ecurity” because they always fit comfortably and look good no matter how much cheesecake I’ve just had. I quickly choose some accessories from the accumulation of costume jewelry that I’ve carried on tour since 1989. It runs the color gamut and is still serviceable, albeit by no one’s standard except mine.

  I look in the mirror. Ta-dah! It’s 7:56, and I look exactly like Carole King. Slice knocks on the door and calls out, “Four minutes!” By the time I open the door and peer outside, Slice has already left to round everyone up for our circle. Tonight “everyone” includes Rudy, Gary, Lorna, and anyone else backstage who isn’t doing an essential job at that moment. My own essential job will begin in what is now three minutes. As I wait for the others I wonder if I’ll remember to turn on my light. The show is supposed to begin with me turning on the lamp atop my piano before I sit down to play—a gesture I created to set a welcoming tone and establish that we’re in my living room.

  Lorna arrives at my dressing room with Rudy, Gary, and Joe Cardosi, our tour manager and lighting director. Slice pops in long enough to make sure everyone’s there, tells us they’re holding until 8:15, then dashes away to make sure everything is in order. The rest of us form a huddle and make jokes and quips about topics ranging from politics and sports to music and fashion. Gary is wearing a long-sleeved black shirt with images of gray rats of various sizes. He calls it his rat shirt. Rudy says he’s glad for the reprieve because he doesn’t have his blue Beatle boots on yet. Gary reminds Rudy that he’s not onstage for the first song. Joe tells me the name of the local baseball team in case I decide to play “Hard Rock Café.” Then Rudy spontaneously hums a low note. We all join Rudy and let the note rise gradually in pitch and volume until it turns into a roar. We end with a shout and break the circle. Seconds later, Slice opens the door and says, “Showtime!”

  The others resume their preshow tasks. Slice stays with me. I rely on him to keep me from having a Spinal Tap moment. He has taped white arrows marked STAGE on the floor, but the arrows aren’t registering because I’m already thinking about the show. Did they fix the hum? Will I feel comfortable playing the replacement guitar? Will I remember to turn on my light? Will my voice hold up??

  I follow Slice past a series of long concrete-block walls filled with performance photos of other artists who’ve appeared at this venue. Suddenly Slice gets a call on his cell saying he’s urgently needed to solve a last-minute problem. He parks me by a wall, says, “Wait here!” and takes off. I look up and see photos of Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Aerosmith, Jefferson Starship, Johnny Cash, Reba McEntire, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel, Earth, Wind & Fire, Crosby, Stills and Nash, David Bowie, U2, and the Rolling Stones.

  I well up unexpectedly at the realization that I am one of a select cadre of people who do this thing that I’m minutes away from doing. All have walked these corridors before me, and many will walk them after me. How did I get here?

  The wiseass answer would be: on a bus from the hotel. But as I see it, the journey started with my grandparents.

  PART I

  Chapter One

  The Name of the Father

  In the first decade of the twentieth century a man and a woman from Poland, another man from Poland, and a woman from Russia undertook to cross a continent and an ocean with little more than a fierce determination to find a better life in America. They were my grandparents, and they found that better life in Brooklyn, New York. Had my grandparents not emigrated when they did, I might have been born Jewish in Eastern Europe during World War II, or I might not have been born at all. Instead, I was born in 1942 in New York City.

  The story I heard was that when each of my grandparents landed on Ellis Island, an American immigration official wrote down his or her name. My paternal grandparents’ surname, Glayman (pronounced GLYE-man), was written down as Klein, which means “small” in German. Though not German, my grandfather, David, was of small stature and, at four foot eight, his young wife, Mollie, was even shorter. Their DNA and the similar stature of my maternal grandparents would foreclose a prepubescent dream of at least one of their future American granddaughters. Predestined to reach a maximum adult height of five feet two inches, I would never grow up to become a tall, slender fashion model.

  My name at birth was Carol Joan Klein. It would take me five decades to appreciate my surname and the history that came with it. Along the way I would add an “e” to Carol and acquire several more surnames.

  Note to self: wanting to change your surname is not a good reason to get married.

  My father’s name was Sidney Klein. Everyone called him Sid. My mother’s name was Eugenia Cammer. Everyone called her Genie. They met in an elevator at Brooklyn College in 1936. Dad was studying chemistry; Mom’s majors were English and drama. They were married on October 6, 1937, after which my mother rechanneled her considerable ambition and intelligence into running a household on a weekly budget of fifteen dollars. My dad left college before graduating and worked briefly as a radio announcer, thereby setting the precedent of a Klein in front of a microphone. He didn’t stay in that job very long. With job security on his mind during the Great Depression, he went into civil service and found his calling as a New York City firefighter.

  My dad liked helping people and solving problems. He did both every time he pulled someone out of a burning building. My father’s captain proudly described him to my mother as “always first on the nozzle,” a revelation that brought little comfort to a fireman’s wife. Though many of his colleagues died saving others, my dad lived for many years after his retirement. When I was very young, his shift at the firehouse kept him away from home for several days and nights at a time. I missed him, but the upside was that we were able to do things as a family on his days off. Sometimes we went to Coney Island, a short bus ride from our house, where Mommy and Daddy would sit on a bench nearby while I played in the cool, damp sand under the boardwalk. After a while I’d climb up onto the splintery wood and let Mommy brush the sand off me. Then I’d skip along the boardwalk between Mommy and Daddy, holding both their hands, until we arrived at the stand where Daddy always gave me a nickel to buy a huge sugary mound of cotton candy.

  But the thing I remember most about Coney Island is Daddy, Mommy, and me crowded into one of those primitive audio recording booths to record my voice on a black acetate disc so they could preserve the moment for posterity. That was my first recording experience. I no longer have that disc, but I still remember my three-year-old baby voice saying, “My name is Carol Joan Klein, and I live at 2466 East 24th Street in Brooklyn, New York.”

  I sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” And then I began to cry.

  Chapter Two

  Almost Perfect

  On December 7, 1941, a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military effectively ended the debate about whether America should engage more actively in the war against Germany and Japan. I was born two months later in Manhattan on February 9, 1942.

  Because firefighters were essential on the home front, my dad didn’t serve in the military, but he, too, put his life on the line every day. My mother managed our family’s money and took care of the semidetached two-family house in Brooklyn on which she and my father had put a down payment after I was born. My mother also took care of me, which I’m told was a full-time job. The rent they collected from the family upstairs was negligible. My father refused to go on relief and my mother refused to go into debt. To make the mortgage payments, my mother shopped with an eye for bargains for everything from food and clothing to laundry soap and tooth powder. She cooked, cleaned, and washed and hung my dad’s sooty clothes on a clothesline with wooden clothespins that lent themselves to being painted and decorated with bits of cloth to look like tiny men and women. In the spring and summer, my mother tended her Victory Garden in our backyard. That’s where one of my earliest musical memories took place.

  It’s still wartime. I’m three years old, and I’m supposed to be helping my mother in the garden, but on this sunny spr
ing day I’m easily distracted by my desire to gambol around the yard and climb up on things on which I shouldn’t be climbing. Our neighbors, Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Bursch, call out to my mother whenever they think I’m in danger, which is approximately every two minutes.

  Mrs. Butler lives upstairs from Mrs. Bursch. They’re always together. “Butler and Bursch” is how we think of the single unit the two women seem to have become. Mr. Butler and Mr. Bursch exist but are rarely seen. In good weather, Butler and Bursch sit on a bench across the street next to the public playground. On this occasion they sit on painted metal chairs on the back porch outside Bursch’s kitchen while giving my mother a running commentary on my activities. Clods of freshly watered dirt squish between my bare toes as I cavort among the vegetables and help my mother pull weeds. I pirouette around the garden and sing along with my mother while the radio plays one of the popular songs of the day, “Bell Bottom Trousers (Coat of Navy Blue).” I’m too young to understand the meaning of the words, but I sing and dance to the catchy chorus with gusto while my mother alternates between singing and laughing.

  When the song is over, Bursch exclaims to my mother, “Isn’t she cute! Mark my words, Genie. Someday she’ll be famous.”

  Butler is less optimistic. “I don’t like those popular songs. I wish they’d play real music like Caruso sings.”

  The first piece of furniture in my parents’ home was a piano. My mom had deeply disliked the piano lessons my grandmother forced her to take, but she appreciated them later when she found that she could earn fifty cents a lesson teaching piano to neighborhood children. And when she discovered my insatiable curiosity about music, she was able to pass her knowledge on to me. From the time I could stand on tiptoe to reach the piano keys, I was relentless in asking my mother to teach me the names of notes. The first note she taught me was D above middle C, which I played repeatedly in various rhythmic configurations.