Carole King - The Living Room Tour

Genre rock Publisher Concord Records External Links Official Website Concord Records

I had my first crush when I was fourteen. Being something of a soppy sort, I eschewed the current music of the time (happy hardcore dance not being the sort of thing that you can gaze wistfully out of the window to, I'm afraid, and Rage Against The Machine is a bit heavy for that sort of thing), and instead found solace in a copy of Carole King's Tapestry. And no, thank you, I did manage to get through high school without being savagely beaten (it amazes me too sometimes).

So it's with something of an odd nostalgia that I turn to The Living Room Tour, a double CD concert album from Ms. King's last tour, culled from three nights in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Hyannis. The name arose from the set-up of the tour itself; it was supposed to have an intimate feeling; no drums, and only a few accompanying guitars here and there. It's actually a little sickening to hear just how good the 62-year-old Carole King still is; not a note out of place, and her voice not betraying a hint of her years.

She's lost none of her slightly sense of humour either; the collection begins with "Welcome To My Living Room," a slight skit which harkens back to her Really Rosie album (which, while we're here, you should seek out post-haste), with its comic aside of "I'm gonna play some songs for you / There are so many I'd like to do / If I don't get to them all, I hope you'll forgive me / 'Cause I'm 62." From there on, it's straight to the songs themselves, jumping around the last forty-plus years of her career. The highlights on the first disc are the final track, a lively medley of the songs she wrote with Gerry Goffin in the 1960s, and an updated version of "Where You Lead," rewritten for the Gilmore Girls TV series, and sung here in a sweet duet with her daughter, Louise Goffin.

(Those of you in the back throwing up: it's probably not for you. This an album that's unapologetically sentimental, and it doesn't care if it comes across as being deeply unfashionable)

The second disc features somewhat more in the way of arrangements, as most songs feature a guitar at the very least, but it's still some way short of a full band. There's more of King's overly-precious sense of humour, as she recounts a lyric change to "Sweet Seasons" to accommodate politicians (it's funnier actually hearing the change, honest). Meanwhile, "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman," "So Far Away," and "You've Got A Friend" are all handled with natural aplomb, as you'd expect.

Some of the songs do suffer from being stripped bare, and while there are brave attempts to work around this (King gets the audience to be the drums in "Smackwater Jack" for example), it might have been better to leave those songs out of the set entirely. Also, some of her newer compositions appear to borrow a few elements from her earlier work, but after fifty years of writing hits, it would be a little churlish to quibble about a little melody reuse here and there.

The Living Room Tour is a concert album, and like most concert albums, it will appeal most to die-hard hard fans than newcomers, but still, this is a lovely set of songs sung by one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century. If, however, any teenagers are listening, I will have to admit that she won't improve your chances. It turns out that happy hardcore was the way to go after all.