Now That Everythings Been Said

Description

First official vinyl reissue! 24 bit / 96 kHz remaster from the original tapes.
New notes by Steve Hochman featuring interviews with band members and album producer Lou Adler. LP expanded gatefold edition housed in deluxe Stoughton Tip-On gatefold jacket.

We all know the Carole King who wrote some of the biggest hits of the 60s, from Will You Love Me Tomorrow to Pleasant Valley Sunday, via The Locomotion and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. We also know the singer-songwriter behind Tapestry, the album that launched King as a solo singer in her own right. But in betweenand not nearly as well knownis Kings band, The City, and their album, Now That Everythings Been Said.

By the mid-60s, Kings marriage to Gerry Goffin, with whom shed written many of those wonderful hits, had hit the rocks. A divorce loomed, and King all but retired to raise their two daughters. She headed west to Laurel Canyon in 67, taking the children with her, and made the previously unlikely move of joining a progressive folk-rock band. King formed The City with future husband Charles Larkey on bass and Danny Kortchmar on guitar and vocals. With King on piano and vocals, they created a folk rock sound that pre-empted the singer-songwriter boom of the 70s.

Produced by Lou Adler and featuring Jimmy Gordon on drums, The Citys sound is deep and soulful, imperfect but passionate. And the songs, with King writing or co-writing all but one, are as exceptional as youd expect and as widely covered as her factory work. Now That Everythings Been Said was a hit for American Spring, A Man Without A Dream was tackled by The Monkees, and Hi-De-Ho (That Old Sweet Roll) was a hit for Blood, Sweat & Tears. Central to the albums appeal is Kings own stirring reading of her track Wasnt Born To Follow, covered masterfully by The Byrds for the Easy Rider soundtrack.

King had been used to a life on the sidelines, and her stage fright left the trio unable to tour the LP which adversely affected their fortunes. That, plus some behind-the-scenes distribution problems, meant the album was quickly deleted, and it remained so for the next thirty yearspartly at Kings request. Even so, its failure was a surprise to those concerned. I was 26 when Now That Everythings Been Said was released in 1968, King says of the album. [We] expected it to zoom to the top of the charts within, at most, a few weeks. Individually and together, we optimistically imagined the albums success as if it had already happened. Danny and Charlie kept telling each other, Its a great album. The City is gonna be Number 1 with a bullet!
Listening now, you can feel the threads that lead to Tapestryand to the hugely successful performing career that followed. Its not so much an oddity in Kings work as the missing link between her two lives.

Reissued in vinyl by Light In The Attic, this is, at long last, a chance to own this lost album.