Carole King recovers from the death of her third husband
King’s third album for Capitol was originally released in 1978, and is now being reissued on her own Rockingdale imprint with the original track list and an eight-page booklet that includes liner notes, lyrics, photos and album art. Unlike her other Capitol albums, this was recorded in Austin, Texas, with a soulful group of musicians who were then backing Jerry Jeff Walker. The country-tinged sound is a great deal earthier than the slick studio work on Simple Things and Welcome Home, and King is more contemplative in voice and melancholy in lyrical mood, no doubt due to the death of her third husband, Rick Evers, earlier in the year.
That said, King remained, as she had been on her two previous Capitol albums, generally optimistic. There’s genuine pain in “Dreamlike I Wander,†but she realizes you can both remember and move forward, providing herself the opportunity to heal on “Walk With Me†and emotional advice and pep talks with “Move Lightly,†“Passing of the Days†and “Eagle.†Leo LeBlanc’s pedal steel and Mark Hallman’s mandolin fit nicely behind King’s more emotional vocals, and though she only plays piano on three tracks, Reese Wymans adds expressive keyboards throughout the rest of the album.
The socially conscious themes heard on Welcome Home continue here with the environmentalism of “Seeing Red†and “Time Gone By,†the latter inspired in part by Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, and the back-to-the-land hippies-and-rednecks idealism of “Good Mountain People.†King digs deeper for this album than she’d done for the previous two, and the country-rock backings are both a welcome change and an excellent fit. The borrowed band is sensitive and soulful, providing delicate musical annotations for King’s lyrics and playing out several songs with deep instrumental grooves. After two pedestrian albums, this (and the next, Pearls) found King back on track. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com] 