Various Artists - Covered: Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Volume 6, 1974-2019

This is the sixth and final album in my Covered series that celebrates the songwriting of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. And this is the album where things get a bit weird.

What I mean by that is that, for this volume, the performances I'm including are probably wildly different from the ones most other people would include. Goffin and King stopped writing songs together at the end of the 1960s, but both of them continued to have success on their own, sometimes collaborating with others. But I'm not including a lot of the hits they had in the late 1970s and after. Both of them did a lot of poppy mainstream stuff that was commercially successful, but in my opinion is bland, overproduced, and forgettable. In their defense, it's not just them; it happened to popular music in general. They simply followed trends to stay successful.

So, far instance, Goffin had big hits with "Tonight I Celebrate My Love" by Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson in 1983, "Nothing's Going to Change My Love for You," a number one hit in Britain for Glenn Medeiros in 1988, "A Long and Lasting Love" by Crystal Gayle in 1985, and "Miss You like Crazy" by Natalie Cole in 1989, among others. King had some more hits as well, though they weren't as big. She did a lot better with remakes of her earlier hits. For instance, Kylie Minogue had a huge hit with a remake of "The Locomotion" in 1988. But I'm not including any of those for the reasons mentioned above.

Instead, I've included a bunch of songs that were hits in this time period, but I've also included many songs that were done by totally obscure artists of good Goffin and/or King songs that weren't covered by anyone else in earlier years. For certain songs I definitely wanted to include, I had to resort to finding versions on YouTube by people who apparently don't even have any officially released music. But I doubt you'll notice because those versions are just as good as the others.

By the way, Goffin's solo songwriting efforts were nearly shut out in the last two volumes in this series. But he made a comeback for this album. He had some massive hits, for instance "Theme from 'Mahogany' (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" which he co-wrote, and which was a number one hit in 1975. Similarly, "Saving All My Love for You" was a number one hit for Whitney Houston in 1985. But I've selected the original non-hit version by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. (both of them formerly of the 5th Dimension) in 1978. It isn't as infected with the cheesy overproduction problems of the 1980s.

Goffin died in 2014 at the age of 75. As I write this, King is 78 years old and is still going strong with her music career as well as lots of charity projects. Long may she run.

One final note. John Lennon of the Beatles once said that he wanted his Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership to be the "Goffin and King of Britain." In my opinion, that's the ultimate compliment he could have made.

By the way, if anyone knows of good covers of Goffin and/or King songs that I've missed, please let me know. They wrote so many good songs that I'm sure I've missed some.

01. Jazzman (Counts)
02. Theme from 'Mahogany' [Do You Know Where You're Going To] (Diana Ross)
03. Saving All My Love for You (Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr.)
04. I Can't Make It Alone (Maria McKee)
05. It's Not the Spotlight (Beth Orton)
06. Monday without You (Wilsons)
07. An Uncommon Love (Joan Osborne with the Chieftans)
08. Bitter with the Sweet (Samuel Purdey)
09. Wrap Around Joy (Candye Kane)
10. When My Little Girl Is Smiling (Paul Carrack)
11. Hard Rock Cafe (Anne Fox)
12. Being at War with Each Other (Rumer)
13. Sweet Young Thing (Carrington MacDuffie)
14. Nightingale (Justin Ploof & the Throwbacks)

https://www39.zippyshare.com/v/9NWlOtno/file.html

The cover art photo comes from an awards show in 2012. For I think the only time in this entire series, I didn't have to do any Photoshop work to get their heads close together or the like.