Photo: Angela George / CC BY-SA 3.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Carole King is, to me, the gold standard of songwriting as a craft. The Manhattan-born writer put 118 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the back half of the twentieth century, a number that still feels unreal, and the honors followed: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Kennedy Center Honors, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. But statistics undersell her. What moves me is how her songs live in ordinary rooms, hummed in kitchens and played on late-night radio decades after they charted. She wrote for people, not for posterity, and that humility is exactly why posterity claimed her anyway.
Overview
Carole King Klein (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter and musician renowned for her extensive contributions to popular music. She wrote or co-wrote 118 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 during the latter half of the 20th century and 61 songs that reached the UK charts, establishing her as the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts from 1962 to 2005.…
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Carole King
- Name (Japanese)
- キャロル・キング
- Reading
- きゃろる・きんぐ
- Born
- February 9, 1942 (age 84)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Aquarius / Horse
- Origin
- Manhattan, New York, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- singer-songwriter / musician / actor / singer / composer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- James Madison High School
- University
- Queens College
Awards & achievements
- 2013 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2004 Grammy Trustees Award
- 2014 MusiCares Person of the Year
- 2015 Kennedy Center Honors
- 2013 Gershwin Prize
- 2011 Johnny Mercer Award
- star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
- 1990 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Singer-songwriter — see all → · Musician — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-11
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.