Carole King - Later Life and Work

Later Life and Work

King moved to Atlantic Records for One to One (1982), and Speeding Time in 1983, which was a reunion with Tapestry-era producer Lou Adler. In 1983, she played piano in "Chains and Things" on the B.B. King album Why I Sing The Blues. After a well-received concert tour in 1984, journalist Catherine Foster of the Christian Science Monitor dubbed King as "a Queen of Rock." She also called King's performing as "all spunk and exuberance."

In 1985, she wrote and performed "Care-A-Lot", theme to The Care Bears Movie. Also in 1985, she scored and performed (with David Sanborn) the soundtrack to the Martin Ritt-directed movie Murphy's Romance. The soundtrack, again produced by Adler, included the songs "Running Lonely" and "Love For The Last Time (Theme from 'Murphy's Romance')", although a soundtrack album was apparently never officially released. King made a cameo appearance in the film as Tillie, a town hall employee.

In 1989, she returned to Capitol Records and recorded City Streets, with Eric Clapton on two tracks and Branford Marsalis on one, followed by Color of Your Dreams (1993), with an appearance by Slash of Guns N' Roses. Her song, "Now and Forever", was in the opening credits to the 1992 movie A League of Their Own, and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

In 1988, she starred in the off-Broadway production A Minor Incident, and in 1994, she played Mrs Johnstone on Broadway in Blood Brothers. In 1996, she appeared in Brighton Beach Memoirs in Ireland, directed by Peter Sheridan. In 1991, she wrote with Mariah Carey the song "If It's Over", for Carey's second album Emotions. In 1996, she wrote "Wall Of Smiles / Torre De Marfil" with Soraya for her 1997 album of the same title.

In 1997, King wrote and recorded backing vocals on "The Reason" for Celine Dion on her album Let's Talk About Love. The song sold worldwide, including one million in France. It went to number 1 in France, 11 in the UK, and 13 in Ireland. The pair performed a duet on the first VH1 Divas Live benefit concert. King also performed her "You've Got A Friend" with Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan and Shania Twain as well as "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" with Aretha Franklin and others, including Mariah Carey. In 1998, King wrote "Anyone at All", and performed it in You've Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

In 2001, King appeared in a television ad for the Gap, with her daughter, Louise Goffin. She performed a new song, "Love Makes the World", which became a title track for her studio album in autumn 2001 on her own label, Rockingale, distributed by Koch Records. The album includes songs she wrote for other artists during the mid-1990s and features Celine Dion, Steven Tyler, Babyface and k.d. lang. Love Makes the World went to 158 in the US and No.86 in the UK. It also debuted on Billboard's Top Independent Albums chart and Top Internet Albums chart at #20. An expanded edition of the album was issued six years later called Love Makes the World Deluxe Edition. It contains a bonus disc with five additional tracks, including a remake of "Where You Lead (I Will Follow)" co-written with Toni Stern. The same year, King and Stern wrote "Sayonara Dance", recorded by Yuki, former lead vocalist of the Japanese band Judy and Mary, on her first solo album Prismic the following year. Also in 2001, King composed a song for All About Chemistry album by Semisonic, with the band's frontman Dan Wilson.

King launched her Living Room Tour in July 2004 at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. That show, along with shows at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and the Cape Cod Melody Tent (Hyannis, Massachusetts) were recorded as The Living Room Tour in July 2005. The album sold 44,000 copies in its first week in the US, landing at 17 on the Billboard 200, her highest-charting album since 1977. The album also charted at 51 in Australia. It has sold 330,000 copies in the United States. In August 2006 the album reentered the Billboard 200 at 151. The tour stopped in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A DVD of the tour, called Welcome to My Living Room, was released in October 2007.

In November 2007, King toured Japan with Mary J. Blige and Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas. Japanese record labels Sony and Victor reissued most of King's albums, including the works from the late 1970s previously unavailable on compact disc. King recorded a duet of the Goffin/King composition "Time Don't Run Out on Me" with Anne Murray on Murray's 2007 album Anne Murray Duets: Friends and Legends. The song had previously been recorded by Murray for her 1984 album Heart Over Mind.

In 2010, King and James Taylor staged their Troubadour Reunion Tour together, recalling the first time they played at The Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1970. The pair had reunited two and a half years earlier with the band they used in 1970 to mark the club's 50th anniversary. They enjoyed it so much that they decided to take the band on the road. The touring band featured players from that original band: Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, and Danny Kortchmar. Also present was King's son-in-law, Robbie Kondor. King played piano and Taylor guitar on each other's songs, and they sang together some of the numbers they were both associated with. The tour began in Australia in March, returning to the United States in May. It was a major commercial success, with King playing to some of the largest audiences of her career. Total ticket sales exceeded 700,000 and the tour grossed over 59 million dollars, making it one of the most successful tours of the year.

During their Troubadour Reunion Tour, Carole King released two albums, one with James Taylor. The first, released on April 27, 2010, The Essential Carole King, is a two-disc compilation album. The first disc features many songs Carole King has recorded, mostly her hit singles. The second disc features recordings by other artists of songs that King wrote, most of which made the top 40, and many of which reached No.1. The second album was released on May 4, 2010 and is a collaboration of King and James Taylor called Live at the Troubadour, which debuted at No.4 in the United States with sales of 78,000 copies. Live at the Troubadour has since received a gold record from the RIAA for shipments of over 500,000 copies in the US and has remained on the charts for 34 weeks, currently charting at No.170 on the Billboard 200.

On December 22, 2010, Carole King's mother, Eugenia Gingold, died in the Hospice Care unit at Delray Medical Center in Delray Beach, Florida at the age of 94. King stated that the cause of death was congestive heart failure. Gingold's passing was reported by the Miami Herald on January 1, 2011.

In the fall of 2011 she released A Holiday Carole, which includes holiday standards and new songs written by her daughter Louise Goffin who also is producer for the album.

Her autobiography "A Natural Woman: A Memoir" was published by Grand Central in the United States on April 10, 2012.

On Thursday, May 10, 2012, it was announced that Carole King was retiring from music and that her days in music have most likely ended. King herself also doubted she would ever write another song and said that her 2010 Troubadour Reunion Tour with James Taylor was most likely the last tour of her life, saying that it "was a good way to go out." King also stated that she will most likely not be writing or recording any new music. However, on May 22, King wrote on her Facebook page that she never said she was actually retiring, and insisted that she was just "taking a break."