Carole King: Needlepointer
Ode Records/A&M, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Some albums get their name from a song, a lyric, a mood. Tapestry got its name from the thing in Carole King's lap.
In 1971, King was 29 years old, already responsible for more than a hundred hit songs written for other artists, about to become the first woman ever to win Album of the Year at the Grammys. And the image that would define her for the next fifty years wasn't a stage shot or a studio portrait. It was her, barefoot, sitting by a window in her own living room, quietly stitching.
Album Tapestry photo by Jim McCrary for Ode Records/A&M
The Photo
Photographer Jim McCrary took the shot in King's house on Appian Way in Laurel Canyon, the same neighborhood where she crossed paths with the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor. The composition is almost accidental in its intimacy: King on a window seat, an Indian-print curtain behind her, her cat Telemachus perched on a cushion in the foreground, and in her hands, a piece of needlework she had stitched herself.
King confirmed it herself, years later: "There was an actual tapestry. Inside the original double album cover is an image of the needlepoint I worked on when I wasn't playing or singing."
McCrary didn't stage a hobby for the camera. He photographed what she was actually doing, in her own words.
The Name
Most artists would have called the album something abstract, a lyric, a feeling. King named it after the object in the photograph. Tapestry. The needlework in her lap wasn't a prop chosen to match a title someone came up with in a boardroom, it was the title.
The album went on to spend fifteen weeks at number one, sell over 25 million copies worldwide, and get named one of the greatest albums ever made. Every one of those copies has her needlepoint on the cover.
photo by Jim McCrary for Ode Records/A&M
Twice Over
The original vinyl pressing didn't stop at the cover. The inner sleeve carried a second photograph, this one a closer look at the needlework itself, so that anyone who slid the record out of its jacket saw her stitching again. It wasn't a single image doing double duty. It was two deliberate looks at the same handmade piece.
photos by Jim McCrary for Ode Records/A&M
One of Us
Four Grammys in a single night. The first woman in Grammy history to take home Album of the Year. A songwriting career most people spend a lifetime chasing, already behind her before she turned thirty.
And an album named after her own needlepoint, photographed not once but twice, on one of the most recognizable covers in the history of recorded music.
Carole King was a needlepointer. She named an album after it. One of us.
Sources: Tapestry (Ode Records, 1971) liner notes and inner sleeve; Wikipedia, "Tapestry (Carole King album)"; Carole King, official Instagram; https://www.musicconnection.com/carole-kings-tapestry-celebrates-55th-anniversary/