Bought the Tickets last Year

Tomorrow evening we will be at Hollywood Bowl to see Carole King and James Taylor in concert. I will most likely be backblipping on Saturday morning because we won't return home until extremely late Friday evening.

The concert tomorrow evening has a web of connected-ness that extends through the past all the way to 1971 when James Taylor "coaxed Carole King away from the comfort of being a member of his band to take center stage and open for him at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. Just before that, several of her own songs from an album called Tapestry, sung in her own voice, were starting to be played on the radio. The sold-out crowd was about to be introduced to a life force and on that night Carole King was no longer just the most successful female songwriter of all time; she became a performer as well . . . it was the first time she had sat solo in the spotlight since high school."

The four who lived at Miterville back in that era had already been influenced by many of her tunes sung by other performers. When the tunes of Tapestry came drifting through the speakers of our radio we became lifelong fans. More than any other singer, she has composed and sung the sound-track of our married life. Our daughter loves her music and so does our redhead granddaughter.

During the 1960s, Carole King "had quietly helped define rock and roll by co-writing over 50 songs that had landed in the Top 40--some climbing all the way to #1. As she sat alone at the piano, she was arguably the most successful female songwriter in pop music history. Her early career had centered on her collaborations with Gerry Goffin. The hooks and the melodies were mostly her responsibility. She knew the structure of a song. She loved doing it. And there wasn't anyone who could do it any better."

I love her spoken thought here, "The driving force behind my musical expression is honesty. Even when I'm writing for someone else, I write how I honestly think that person might be feeling. So it's honest. It's about connections. I want people to think 'Yeah, that's how I feel.' And if that happens, I feel like I've accomplished something."

Well, she's been doing that for Mr. Fun & Rosie for years -- "Yeah, that's how I feel." We, actually I, connected with her first popular song from Tapestry, "It's Too Late Baby." We had been married just about 7 years and besides starting out all wrong at 15 and 19 with a baby born on my 16th birthday, we had continued on an aimless path. I was disillusioned and life was so dismal and drab. I was in a cage that had no door. I wanted out so terribly bad. Her song massaged my ache like nothing else. Thankfully, though, her song was not a sharp-toothed saw. I stayed in that cage until Mr. Fun & I turned the cage into a castle. Carole King sang the songs that helped us weave a fairytale of our own.

Her album "Fantasy" is still one of my favorites. Well, shoot, every one of her albums is my favorite. Tomorrow evening at the Hollywood Bowl all those Miterville memories are going to play in my mind as I get goose-bumps, get out of my seat to dance, and as I sing and cry and laugh. And then I will arrive back home emotionally drained and absolutely full from a priceless experience. Long ago I was born in Hollywood, so tomorrow night I'll be "home."

Of course Mr. Fun will be going too and we'll be with our good friends, Scott & Peg. So look for my Blip page sometime long after midnight Friday, but most likely Saturday morning.

Thanks for reading this far and thanks for all the nice comments about yesterday's "Map Lecture" summary.

Good Night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol