B005S8O7YE EBOK (21 page)

And then he would chuckle because he had just made a pun.

Gurudev had a gift for using simple analogies to help people incorporate complex theological concepts into their daily lives. In the summer of 1969 he gave the opening invocation at Woodstock. Whether speaking to twenty people or an audience of thousands, Gurudev exuded a calm, easy confidence. He never proselytized, only spoke of what was possible. He believed that his purpose was to guide people to their spiritual connection with each other and with whatever form of higher power they were ready to embrace—or not.

I was already in tune with most of what he was saying, but I found a deeper connection through his analogy of a candle in a windstorm being blown in all directions, its flame flickering. The owner of the candle is fearful that the flame will be extinguished by the wind. A neighbor gives the fellow a glass chimney to put around the candle. Now the owner can see that the flame will burn steadily and brightly no matter what’s going on around it. Now he knows he has nothing to fear.

“The peace within us is the flame,” said Gurudev, “and the chimney is our awareness of our relationship to each other and to God.”

When Gurudev said “God,” I took it to mean God by whatever name. Twelve-step programs use the phrase “God as I understand God” to cover all the names and concepts people use to describe the life force that animates and inspires them. Gurudev’s analogy of the candle was a reminder that if we have faith in our relationship with everyone and everything in the universe, the flame of our inner peace will remain constant through life and death. My understanding of this concept made me stronger.

Sometimes Gurudev gave me personal advice, but he never took it personally when my inner rebel chose not to follow it. He knew I needed to learn in my own way and in my own time. Gurudev attained Samadhi on August 19, 2002. He was eighty-eight when he left his body. I was one of his many friends, disciples, devotees, and students around the world who mourned his passing and celebrated his life.

By combining Gurudev’s wisdom with principles from my Jewish heritage, reaffirming my dedication to excellence, responsibility, fairness, and compassion, and incorporating all those things into what I hoped was a commonsense approach to theology, I found my center—or so I thought.

I would come to learn that a center isn’t a destination. It’s a journey.

T
he first really excellent thing happened when I resumed writing with Gerry in 1969. As much as I enjoyed writing with Toni, it felt good to write with Gerry again. I continued to write with Toni and also, separately, David Palmer.

Lou had moved Ode’s distribution and offices to A&M Records, of which the “A” was Herb Alpert and the “M” was Jerry Moss. Raise your hand if you can think of a trumpet player before or since Herb Alpert who was able to parlay a series of easy pop hits into an empire as hugely successful as A&M.

Herb and Jerry had purchased Charlie Chaplin’s former studio, at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, and converted it into a compound of A&M offices. Conveniently located fifteen minutes from Laurel Canyon and ten minutes from Wallich’s Music City on Sunset and Vine, the former movie lot provided a casual, independent environment for Alpert, Moss, Adler, and the day-to-day employees who facilitated A&M’s creative and business endeavors. With a dress code ranging from casual to outrageous, an easygoing executive management style, comfortable recording studios with state-of-the-art equipment, and an assortment
of low-lying buildings with glass-paned doors, large windows, and balconies with lots of plants, A&M offered my generation of fugitives from the East Coast gray-flannel fifties a congenial atmosphere conducive to creative thinking. While the executives, business people, album cover artists, recording engineers, and assistants prospered in the informal ambiance of A&M’s offices, the writers and artists whose music underwrote the operation were lionized.

With the City album in the cellar, Lou had invited me to his new office to propose that I record another album for Ode, this time as a solo artist.

“Look,” he said. “If an artist doesn’t record a song of yours that you really like, you can record it and release it on a Carole King album. That’ll get your song out there. Isn’t that what you want?”

Yes. It was.

Between Lou’s logic and the attraction of working at A&M, I agreed to strive for success as a solo recording artist. But then I developed a new boundary. I didn’t want to be a star.

Everyone around me thought I was out of my mind. I was being offered an opportunity for which so many people had been praying their whole life and all I could say was, “Please believe me. I don’t want to be a star.” My rationale was that I viewed success and stardom as two different things. Successful recording artists were played on the radio, were respected by the public, and had longevity. The songs they sang moved and inspired people. Stars were hounded and mobbed, their privacy was nonexistent, and they were under constant pressure to reach #1 and stay there.

Kootch and I had a recurring conversation about this. One day, while he was sitting on my living room couch holding a cup of strong black coffee, he expressed once again his strongly held opinion that I had what it took to be a star, and I should settle for nothing less.

“And you shouldn’t aspire to be just any star,” he said. “You should be the biggest star there is. You got what it takes to be number
one
!”

“But Danny, stars fall.”

“Yeah,” he said, setting his cup down on the hatch-cover coffee table. “But it’s pretty fuckin’ great to be at the top. The top is where you want to be!”

“I don’t want to be number one,” I said. “There’s no place to go but down. I’d rather be number five, or even number ten, and stick around longer.”

I didn’t realize I was expressing a guiding principle of my career. I was hoping for career longevity, and to my utter amazement and eternal gratitude I achieved it. And if that weren’t enough, one of my albums would actually reach #1 and stay there for a very long time. But Danny and I engaged in such conversations before
Tapestry
was released, when I had no way of knowing what my future held. I just wrote songs, worked hard, created each day’s blueprint from scratch, and hoped to high heaven that I was doing all the right things to give my daughters and myself a good life.

High heaven must have thought I was doing the right things, because in spite of intermittent relationship confusion, 1970 was humming along pretty smoothly. Louise and Sherry seemed to be flourishing, I was cowriting songs prolifically, and our household seemed almost normal considering the rapidly changing times. I was practicing yoga. And I was dating occasionally, though not with much enthusiasm.

Then the second really excellent thing happened. Charlie came over, told me he wanted to build a life with me, and asked me to marry him. Oh, joy!!! We began planning a wedding and reception to be held on September 6, 1970, in the front yard of what would once again be
our
house on Wonderland Avenue. Charlie, too, was Jewish, which made it easy for our respective families and
us to agree that a rabbi would perform the ceremony. Though I was rebellious in other ways, major family occasions always seemed to bring me back to my roots. My attachment to Judaism was more about tradition than religion. I liked the chain of familiar rituals that had sustained generations before me, and I didn’t want to break it.

I was twenty-eight and Charlie was twenty-three the day we were married. My friend Stephanie made a simple white A-line wedding dress for me. It was ankle-length, with a scoop neck, long sleeves, and no lace. A garland of white flowers, woven by Joel O’Brien’s then wife, Connie, cascaded through my hair. We honored the custom of men covering their heads at Jewish services by providing yarmulkes. Though our friends were dressed in varying degrees of unconventional attire, the ceremony was traditional. Charlie wore tails and a top hat that added eight inches to his already six-foot-one height. I was five foot two in my bare feet.

Charlie was waiting with the rabbi in front of the chupah when I made my entrance. At eight and ten, Sherry and Louise were achingly beautiful as they accompanied me. They wore long-sleeved sky blue and mint green dresses that I had made to match their eyes. My making their dresses was a tribute to my Grandma Sarah and her sister, Lillie, who as new immigrants had contributed to the support of their families by working as seamstresses in their homes.

Louise and Sherry stood just behind me during the entire ceremony. Though I clearly heard the rabbi say, “I now pronounce you man and wife,” little Carol heard, “I now pronounce you a family.” Charlie broke the glass with a firm stomp of his heel, and then amid the chorus of friends saying “Mazeltov!” we sealed our vows with a kiss, for which Charlie had to bend way down while I stood on tiptoe. Then we stepped away from the chupah. Friends and family members crowded in with congratulatory hugs, kisses,
and handshakes. Watching Louise and Sherry alternately running around happily with their friends and interacting comfortably with Charlie’s and my friends, it struck me that some of Charlie’s friends weren’t much older than my children.

How happy I was! And oh, how blissfully unaware I was that I would now have to balance the needs of a younger husband with those of two children who weren’t his biological offspring, and somehow fit my own needs into the picture.

The third really excellent thing that happened in 1970 was that I was reintroduced to James Taylor, and this time he was fully present.

I
recorded and released three albums for Ode between 1968 and 1971, beginning with the City album. Lou produced
Now That Everything’s Been Said
and
Tapestry
; Gerry Goffin and John Fischbach produced
Writer
. Though I didn’t realize it then, I view those three albums as a trilogy, with a progression from
Now That Everything’s Been Said
, through the slightly more confident
Writer
, and culminating with the elements that contributed to the success of
Tapestry
. But there was an additional element in
Tapestry
. If Danny’s observation is true that the seeds of
Tapestry
were planted in the two prior albums, then the influence of James Taylor brought water and sunlight.

In 1969 “sunlight” might not have been a word that sprang to the mind of Peter Asher in connection with James. After producing James’s first album in London, Peter accompanied him back to America, dropped him off at a rehab center on the East Coast, then went on to Los Angeles. Peter’s mission was to put together a band and produce an album on which James’s voice and guitar would be the focal points. Among the musicians Peter assembled were Danny Kortchmar on guitar, Russ Kunkel on drums, Chris
Darrow on fiddle, Red Rhodes on steel guitar, and alternately on bass
^*
Bobby West, John London, and Randy Meisner.
^†
When Danny suggested to Peter that I play piano, Peter asked Danny to bring me over for a rehearsal that would be scheduled as soon as James arrived in L.A.

The day after James landed, I went with Danny to Peter’s house. I was already a fan of James’s songs. I was also a fan of Peter and Gordon. In addition to their string of hits including
“A World Without Love,”
“Nobody I Know,”
and
“I Go to Pieces,”
the duo had recorded “Crying in the Rain.”

Peter’s house on Longwood Avenue in the Wilshire district was an elegant old home. Describing a house in Los Angeles as “old” wasn’t a negative. It simply meant that the house had been built as long ago as thirty years. With his trademark red hair and eyeglasses, the man who answered the door could only have been Peter. His British accent, upper-class background, and natural generosity made him a casting director’s dream for the role of sociable host. He embraced Danny, then welcomed me with a warm handshake. As we walked through the foyer I could see other rooms. In contrast to the elegance of the exterior style and location, inside, the décor resembled that of a rehearsal studio. The living room was devoid of furniture in any conventional sense. There were acoustic and electric guitars set in stands, a set of drums in front of large arched windows, several microphones, two guitar amps, one bass amp, a couple of mismatched straight-backed chairs in front of a large fireplace (the latter showing no evidence of use), a few odd tables on which to put drinks, charts, pens, and ashtrays,
several stools for the bass and guitar players, stereo components and speakers on the floor, and wires everywhere. There was also a grand piano. And there was James, sitting on a tall wooden stool tucked into the curve of the piano.

It was the first time I’d seen James since the Night Owl. He was now twenty-one. He didn’t notice us at first because he was playing the guitar softly, his head bent with close attention. Once again I had the impression of how tall and angular he was, and even with his head down, his presence was compelling. When he looked up and saw Danny and me, he looked blank for a second. Then, realizing that it was Danny, James smiled broadly, set his guitar into a stand, unfolded his body, and stood up to embrace his friend.

Danny said, “James. You remember Carole.”

James turned to me and said, “Sure!”

As we shook hands and smiled with mutual pleasure, our eyes met. That was the first moment of our decades-long friendship.

Peter had booked the rest of the band to arrive later so that James and I could play, just the two of us, before they showed up. I sat down at the piano and played a few chords. Nice piano, I thought as James picked up his guitar. Soon James and I were playing and singing songs we both knew—some by him, some by me, and some by other artists.

Magical…? Transformative…? Timeless…? Adjectives fall short. It was as if I were playing with an extension of myself. Every time I thought of a chord or note that I wanted James to play or sing at that moment, he was already there. Our musical vocabulary was the same, and we found that we had an impeccable vocal blend. Piano, guitar, chords, notes, and vocal harmonies rolled around each other like puppies playing in a pile of newly cut grass.