Carole King

After shaking off debilitating stage fright and touring the country with friend and superstar James Taylor in 1970 and '71, King married her long-time bass player, Charlie Larkey, and had two children with him, content to be a mother of four and yoga-practicing homebody, while writing, recording, and occasionally performing. Her 1972 song “Goodbye Don’t Mean I’m Gone” describes her life at that time.

But it’s all I can do to be a mother
My baby’s in one hand, I’ve a pen in the other

Married bliss was to be short-lived, however, as Charlie’s musical life and long absences took its toll on their relationship. They divorced, amicably, in 1975, but the failure of a second marriage threw King for a loop as she struggled to find her bearings.

She moved with the children to Malibu and started uncharacteristically “hanging out” with the pop star and celebrity crowd living at the upscale beach. At one such party, Don Henley of the Eagles introduced King to a dashing-looking “mountain man” from Idaho, Rick Evers.  Though she was instantly smitten with the the tall, blonde stranger, she was even more intrigued with the idea of a rustic existence for herself and her children, far from the drug-hazed frivolity of the L.A. music crowd. For the next two years she built her life around him, bought him a truck, moved to Idaho, and purchased a ranch in the middle of nowhere. When he insinuated himself into every phase of her life and music, including demanding that she record his songs on her albums, she did it. When he started a fistfight backstage with members of her band during a concert, she forgave it. And when he began physically abusing King herself, she allowed it. But when it became obvious that Evers was abusing himself with drugs, she and the children slipped out of the house in the middle of the night and flew to Hawaii to escape his clutches. He died from a cocaine overdose just days later, at age 33.

A few years later she would marry another, much gentler mountain man, “Teepee Rick” Sorenson, and though happy together, her re-emergence into recording and touring and his desire to have no part of it led to their 1989 divorce. King has not remarried.

At the end of this fascinating, and, at times, rather shocking autobiography, the author recalls a recent performance of one of her favorite compositions. Perhaps it says, regretfully, all that King could not say to herself at the difficult moments of her life, when she needed it most. The song is “Beautiful.”

You’ve got to wake up every morning with a smile on your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes, yes, you will
That you’re beautiful.... you’re beautiful
You’re beautiful as you feel.

John Kehe is the Monitor's design director.

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