If this is the end. . .

[Tango]

I've been reading another music/biography book that recently came out, one written by Carole King, a singer/songwriter with solid credentials in any category. She just wrote a book called, "A Natural Woman," and its been on the best seller list.

I spied an article a couple of days ago that addresses what happens to old war horses and, perhaps, singer/songwriters: "if this is the end." I'll stick a few highlights of the article here:

NEW YORK — The voice behind dozens of standards like “It’s Too Late,” ‘’You’ve Got a Friend” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” says her music-making days are likely over.

Carole King, now a best-selling author, doubts she will ever write another song and suggested that her 2010 “Troubadours Reunion” concert tour with James Taylor would be her last: “It was a good way to go out.”

King composed dozens of 1960s hits with then-husband Gerry Goffin before emerging as a recording artist in her own right. Her 25 million-selling “Tapestry” launched the singer-songwriter era in 1971 and became the first real blockbuster album. She spoke recently as two new projects offer fresh reminders of her legacy — the memoir “A Natural Woman” and a new disc that gathers “demo” recordings of some of her best-known songs that were made to sell the compositions to other artists.



She hasn’t released an album of new compositions since 2001, and on her website’s exhaustive list of songs she has written, the most recent are two from 2004.


“At this point I can look back at my life and career as a songwriter and say I’ve done everything I really wanted to do,” King said.


She’s not naive. She knows popular culture has long since moved elsewhere. As a teenage music prodigy she knew what young people were thinking about and wanted to hear in music, and she’s not there anymore.


“I suppose if I had a reason to, if someone said I want you to write a song for this movie, I could sit down and do that,” she said. “But to just write songs and to throw them out into the marketplace, I don’t think this is my time to do that.”


The decision to shut it down or keep creating is one that many members of an older musical generation face. Billy Joel announced in the early 1990s that he was through writing pop songs, and has stuck to that. But Bob Dylan has kept writing and releasing new music. Both surviving members of the Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, keep turning out new projects. The Beach Boys have an unlikely reunion with a new album as well.


King did a fair amount of touring during the past decade, but it took its toll. “I’m 70,” she said. “It would be lovely to retire.”

With her writing frequently interrupted by concert tours and activism (including work for environmental causes and Democratic politicians), the book took King 12 years to write. She was determined to do it herself without a ghost- or co-writer.

The strongest part of the book is also the most shocking. She talks of being physically and verbally abused by her third husband in the 1970s, the man who led her to the Idaho backcountry that she adores and still lives in. Even King found it hard to believe that despite fame, success and plenty of friends, she wouldn’t end the relationship the first time she was hit — and even several times thereafter. She finally did leave, and he died of a drug overdose shortly after that, according to her book.


“It was very difficult, too complicated to talk about in a small sound bite,” she said. “My editor said to just write about it, you don’t have to include it. But I decided to include it because I want other women in abusive relationships to know that it’s not their fault and that it can happen to anyone.”
With her first book is fresh on the market, she’s already thinking about the possibility of another one.


“Now that I’m 70, I have bits of wisdom I can offer to a younger generation,” she said. “It’s not ‘This is the way it has to be,’ but ‘This is my experience, I hope this helps you.’”

www.washingtonpost.com