Event Description : Join us on our studio stage for a Mini-Concert featuring CAROLE KING!!!
Born Carol Klein in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York to a Jewish household, King started out playing the piano then moved on to singing, forming a vocal quartet called the Co-Sines at James Madison High School.
She attended Queens College, where she was a classmate of Neil Sedaka and inspired Sedaka's first big hit, "Oh! Carol." She wrote "Oh! Neil" in return. While attending Queens College, King befriended Paul Simon and Gerry Goffin.
Goffin and King soon formed a songwriting partnership, eventually marrying and having two daughters, Louise Goffin and Sherry Goffin Kondor, who also became singers. Working in the Brill Building, where chart-topping hits were churned out during the 1960s, the Goffin-King partnership first hit it big with "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow". Recorded by The Shirelles, the song topped the charts in 1961; it was later covered by Dusty Springfield, Laura Branigan, Little Eva, Roberta Flack, the Four Seasons and King herself.
In 1965, Goffin and King wrote a special theme to Sidney Sheldon's new television series, I Dream of Jeannie, but the song was rejected in favor of an instrumental theme by Hugo Montenegro.
Their 1965 song Pleasant Valley Sunday, a #3 hit for The Monkees, was inspired by their move to suburban West Orange, New Jersey.
In 1966 artist Peter Max arranged for a two-day visit from later-to-be legendary Woodstock guru, Sri Swami Satchidananda. Carole King met the charismatic and pragmatic teacher who was part of Carole King's unfoldment and was a family friend in her California homes. Swami Satchidananda's portrait while seated under a tree at Carole King's California home was used on the cover of his biography, Apostle of Peace. A classic song written by King, the 1971 #1 US hit "You've Got a Friend", is an allusion to calling on the guidance of a great teacher.
In 1968, she was hired to co-write two songs for Strawberry Alarm Clock with Toni Stern, "Lady of the Lake" and "Blues for a Young Girl Gone," which appeared on the album, The World in a Seashell.
Carole King gave a property in Massachussetts for use as a Yoga ashram. It was named "Music Mountain" and was sold to provide the down payment for Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville in Buckingham County, Virginia. Yogaville serves as the headquarters of Integral Yoga International, is home of the ecumenical temple LOTUS, (Light of Truth Universal Shrine), which Carole King helped inaugurate in 1986, and Chidambaram in Yogaville is where Sri Swami Satchidananda's tomb was located in August, 2002.
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