King and Goffin were inducted together as songwriters into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990; in 2021, King was inducted as a solo artist. Her bestselling album, 1971’s Tapestry, captured the zeitgeist of the time and still draws new fans in 50 years later. As songwriter CynthiaWeil has commented, “People were looking for a message, and she came to them with a message that was exactly what they were looking for.” King’s personal life is nearly as storied as her career. Her musical gifts were recognized at an early age and she was fearlessly driven to have her songs heard. That same drive can be seen in her romantic relationships. King has been married four times. She writes in her 2012 memoir, A Natural Woman: “When I look back at my relationships with men, I see a pattern. As a child, my strong will juxtaposed with wanting to please my father, and because my father had been so effective in making things happen, I grew to believe that it was easier to take strong steady action toward a goal with a man to help me get there.” So who have been the men in Carole King’s life? Keep reading to find out what we know about Carole King’s husbands—and which other musical legend she was never involved with, despite tons of rumors to the contrary.
Is Carole King married?
King is not presently married, although she has been married four times, to Goffin, Charles Larkey, Rick Evers and Rick Sorenson. Goffin was her college boyfriend, meeting at Queens College when she was just 16 (she had skipped a grade in school). The two became songwriting partners; Goffin was an aspiring lyricist at the time while King has said about where she wsa personally and musically when they met, “I didn’t have any kind of serious boyfriend. And by the way, neither did I have very good lyrics.” They were together for 10 years before splitting in 1968. In 1970, King married Larkey, a bassist who played on several of King’s albums. They divorced in 1976. King’s third marriage to Evers, a musician and songwriter, was brief, lasting from 1977 to 1978; her fourth marriage to Idaho rancher Sorenson lasted from 1982 to 1989. Since then, King has been happily single.
Why did Carole King change her name?
Born Carol Joan Klein, King discovered her talent for music at a very early age. She finagled an appearance on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour as a young girl, and took on the stage name Carol Kane for that show only, because “it wasn’t the thing to do, to have ethnic names at that time.”In high school, upon forming the band The Co-Sines, she would adopt the name Carole King.
How old was Carole King when she had her first child?
King became pregnant in the summer of 1959, prompting her and Goffin to marry. When she was 18, King gave birth to her first child, Louise Goffin.
Why did Carole King and Gerry Goffin divorce?
King and Goffin wrote so many hit songs during their professional collaboration that odds are you’re listening to one right now. As their partnership flourished, King matured as a lyricist in her own right, while Goffin leaned into the counterculture aspects of the 1960s. Some of this is featured in Beautiful, the Broadway musical based on King’s early career; notably, Goffin’s frequent infidelity (he fathered a child in 1964 with singer Jeanie Reavis). There were other factors. As King tells it, “You get married, you’re very, very young at that time, and the world is changing. It’s the ’60s. Things are starting to happen. […] One member of the couple sort of got into that before the other member of the couple… and Gerry was so drawn to that and the culture, and the LSD, and the whole more open attitude.” The couple divorced in 1968. At the end of Beautiful, Gerry approaches Carole at Carnegie Hall and apologizes for his mistreatment of her. In real life, the two reunited professionally on four songs for King’s 1976 album Thoroughbred and would work together occasionally after that. When Goffin passed away in 2014, King said, “Gerry Goffin was my first love. He had a profound impact on my life and the rest of the world. Gerry was a good man and a dynamic force, whose words and creative influence will resonate for generations to come.”
Who are Carole King’s other ex-husbands?
King’s second husband, Larkey, was playing bass in a New Jersey-based garage rock band called The Myddle Class when King and Goffin discovered them in the 1960s. After King and Goffin split, Larkey moved in with King in L.A. and they formed a band called The City, recording one album called Now That Everything’s Been Said in 1968 before disbanding in 1969. King and Larkey married in 1970, but their different lifestyles led to their divorce in 1976. Says King, “We loved playing music together, we loved our family, and everything was cool. Our situation, we split up because Charlie was really into playing music. He loved playing music and playing in bands and that was not my scene. He got into that scene and hanging out, and hours, truly, it was hours. We loved each other. There was no other issue except that he was living the life of a musician and I was living the life of a domestic housewife, and ultimately it wasn’t working.” Not long after she separated from Larkey, King met Evers at a party at the home of Eagles singer Don Henley. By this time, King remembers, she was ready to leave city life behind and Evers sold her on Idaho. Evers was also a songwriter and the two worked together on King’s eighth album, Simple Things. They married in 1977 and relocated to a remote cabin completely off the grid. Evers became increasingly abusive during their relationship, an experience King writes about unsparingly in her memoir A Natural Woman, and she left him in 1978. Evers died shortly afterward from a cocaine overdose. King met Sorensen through a friend. Sorensen worked as a carpenter and lived in a teepee that he moved with him as the seasons changed, earning him the nickname “Teepee Rick.” Their mutual attraction was evident from the beginning and they married in 1982, staying together for six years.
When did Carole King marry James Taylor?
While it is a common assumption that King and James Taylorwere romantically involved and/or married, they never even dated. King credits Taylor for helping her build the confidence to perform for live audiences; up until their friendship, she was far more comfortable out of the spotlight. They first played together at a party in 1969 and King remembers, “It was like we were puppies rolling around; the music was just rolling in and around each other. His guitar and my piano just rolled around. And we just felt like we knew each other and had played together forever.” King wrote “You’ve Got A Friend” for Tapestry; Taylor recorded it for his own 1971 album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, and it became a No. 1 hit for him. King has said she wrote the song while thinking of Taylor: “He was in my mind, that song just came through me.” Taylor remembers King telling him “You’ve Got A Friend” was inspired by a line from his “Fire and Rain”: “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.” When he was recording his album, his band found themselves with a little extra recording time and on a whim decided to record “You’ve Got A Friend.” Recalls Taylor, “There was just one problem: I hadn’t bothered to ask Carole if it was OK. I sheepishly called her up and said, ‘We didn’t really mean to do it, but we’ve recorded “You’ve Got a Friend,”’ and she said, ‘Fine, go ahead, put it out,’ which was remarkably generous."
How many kids does Carole King have?
King has four children. She had two daughters with Goffin: Louise, born in 1960, and Sherry, born in 1982. Louise has followed in her mother’s footsteps as a singer/songwriter with multiple credits on various albums and soundtracks. When King was approached by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino about using “Where You Lead” (off Tapestry) as the show’s theme song, King revamped the lyrics to be more in line with a mother-daughter relationship and re-recorded the song with Louise. Louise also appeared as the Stars Hollow troubadour in the Gilmore Girls revival A Year in the Life. Sherry is also a singer/songwriter who has contributed to the soundtracks for The Care Bear Movie and Basic Training. King has two children with Charles Larkey: Molly, born in 1971, and Levi, born in 1974. Levi has a few Hollywood credits, according to IMDb but has mostly lived a quiet life. Molly is an artist and writer. Next, Who is Janet Jackson’s Son? Meet the Light of Her Life, Eissa Al Mana
