GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE – ‘Troubadour Reunion’ tour donates $326,000 to Alliance for the Wild Rockies

By John S. Adams
HELENA — A Montana ecosystem protection group received a big financial boost last week, thanks to world-famous recording legends Carole King and James Taylor.

On June 20, the duo presented Alliance for the Wild Rockies Executive Director Michael Garrity with a $326,000 check at a performance in Boston.

The singing and songwriting icons are midway through their “Troubadour Reunion” tour. Along the way, they are donating proceeds from the sale of certain VIP tickets to a handful of nonprofit organizations. For example, the Natural Resources Defense Council was awarded a $385,000 check at the same event. All told, the Troubadour Reunion tour has raised more than $1.3 million for charity just half-way through the 40-concert event.

King, a former board member of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, selected the Helena-based nonprofit as one of the recipients of the “Tickets for Charity” proceeds.

“James and I are thrilled to support these two worthy organizations,” said King, a resident of Stanley, Idaho. “I particularly care about the work for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies since I live in the northern Rockies. (The Alliance) is a grassroots organization that does invaluable work to protect the northern Rockies for all Americans.”

Garrity said he found out about the donation two days before the June 20 concert.

“They called me Friday night and told me to get on a plane for Boston Saturday morning,” Garrity said. “I was shocked.”

Garrity said the donation, which is actually the sum of hundreds of smaller donations made by concertgoers who bought special VIP charity tickets, is the largest single check the organization has ever received.

“I had no idea it would turn into this much money,” Garrity said.

He said the donation will cover about three years worth of operating expenses for the group.

“A lot of environmental groups, even a lot of nonprofit groups, spend a majority of their time and money trying to raise money,” Garrity said. “Donations like this let us focus our work on what we’re trying to do rather than to try to raise money. That’s why it’s so wonderful.”

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies authored and is the chief advocate for the passage of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, a bill that would protect all the remaining roadless areas in the northern Rockies through wilderness designation.

The measure is sponsored by Democratic Representatives Carolyn Maloney of New York and Raul Grijalva of Arizona. More than 100 other members of the House of Representatives have signed on to the bill, but measure has not yet received a vote in the House.

King has been a long time advocate for the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act and Garrity called her the organizations “chief lobbyist in Washington, D.C.”

“The tens of thousands of people who are going to Carole King and James Taylor concerts around the country this summer can be sure this money will be carefully used to protect habitat in the northern Rockies, and we will continue to protect more with less, especially compared to the big corporate-model environmental groups,” Garrity said.

THE WASHINGTON POST – Carole King and James Taylor raise $1.5 million for charity; Lennon lyrics fetch a bundle; Jay-Z concert canceled in NYC

By Ally Schweitzer

– Carole King and James Taylor announced yesterday that their “Troubadour Reunion” tour has raised more than $1.5 million for charity. The proceeds will be distributed among the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other groups. Miss King and Taylor at the Verizon Center two weeks ago? Check out our review and photos here.

BOSTON.COM – Friends share a bond and songs

By Sarah Rodman

Saturday night at the TD Garden, in the first of two weekend shows, James Taylor and Carole King opened the floodgates of remembrance with a smashing joint performance that merged their distinctive voices and justly celebrated catalogs.

Members of the sold-out audience of 18,000 — whether they were firsthand witnesses to the early-’70s golden age the pair was celebrating, fans turned on by parents or elder siblings, or those from a younger generation just discovering the duo’s classics — were with Taylor and King every step of the way.

There was nothing faded or yellowing about the performances Saturday night. Instead, Taylor, King, and their crackling band illuminated their history — and the timelessness of their songwriting — in vibrant full color, pouring heart, soul, and remarkable skill into the 2 1/2-hour show celebrating friendship, contemplation, and joy. The concert was exactly what live shows are supposed to be: an emotional connection between the performers, and the performers and the audience.

The pair generally restricted themselves to pre-1980 material, the tunes they played at the Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles, when their lives were most intertwined.

Taylor offered up guitar backing to many of King’s best known songs — “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman,’’ “So Far Away,’’ “Where You Lead’’ — while King lent piano accompaniment to a passel of his — “Sweet Baby James,’’ “Your Smiling Face,’’ “Fire and Rain.’’

They harmonized with tenderness on her still heart-rending “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,’’ his melancholy lullaby “You Can Close Your Eyes,’’ and the King-penned Everly Brothers hit “Crying in the Rain.’’ Where their catalogs literally intersect — his hit covers of her “You’ve Got a Friend’’ and “Up on the Roof’’ — they expertly stitched their arrangements together, as photos of the singer-songwriters as young’uns floated on video screens over their rotating, central stage.

They both also took the opportunity to do a little getting down. His typical charming self, Taylor got silly and funky on “Steamroller’’ and the spirited King turned into free-range Carole for “I Feel the Earth Move,’’ bounding around with an infectious energy. In a night of highs and continuous ovations, the one-two punch of what Taylor called “hymns for agnostics’’ — her “Beautiful,’’ his “Shower the People’’ — was particularly moving.

In addition to sharing songs and voices throughout the years Taylor and King also shared band members. The Troubadour-era trio returned in as good form as their bandleaders. Russ Kunkel gave the backbeat of everything from the soft ballads to the gospel shouters a crisp bite. Leland Sklar kept the pulse with his bass. And Danny Kortchmar — a talented songwriter in his own right — added stinging and supple guitar solos throughout with special mention going to his lyrical interludes during “It’s Too Late’’ and “Jazzman.’’ Taylor’s trio of gifted backing vocalists and King’s multi-instrumentalist former son-in-law Robbie Kondor filled out the sound perfectly.

Given the strength of the performance there’s no doubt that many new memories were formed Saturday night.

Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com.

NJ.COM – Carole King and James Taylor at Madison Square Garden: a night of good vibrations

By Tris McCall

NEW YORK — With a satisfying snap of strings, James Taylor plucked a chord on his acoustic guitar. Everyone at Madison Square Garden roared with recognition.

Well, everyone but Taylor.

“I don’t actually know what song I’m playing yet,” he told the sold-out crowd, Tuesday, “but I appreciate your enthusiasm.”

It was that kind of night. People came to adore Taylor, 62, and Carole King, 68, and why not?; their songs have acted as analgesics for several generations of listeners. Including their two encore sets, the pair played 27 late-’60s and early-’70s soft-rock standards, and if they’d wanted to, they could have played 27 more. When Taylor said that their original plan for the show would have run six hours long, nobody took it as a joke.

King and Taylor have both made plenty of music since the early ’70s. Much of it is quite good. But the current Reunion Tour sought to recapture an earlier moment in time: the pair’s performances at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles. Taylor, whose bone-dry humor remains astringent enough to pickle apples, claimed to be unable to remember what the pair played at the Troubadour.

It hardly mattered: in ’71, the pair were at the height of their powers, setting trends for singer-songwriters that last to this day. Taylor and King pioneered a new style — comfortable, stripped-down folk-soul, indebted to Motown but far more relaxed. The songs were reassuring, patient, kind; they sang of perseverance in troubled times. Here was the pop star not as distant hero, but as intimate friend and confidante, casual, identifiable, pleasant to hang with.

Onstage, King and Taylor played up that intimacy, showering love on each other, their bandmates, and sometimes even on themselves. King, in particular, sustained her overjoyed attitude for two hours, bouncing around the stage like a kid at a picnic, and pointing at her complementary musicians with a gigantic smile on her face. (The flinty Taylor doesn’t get worked up like that.) The pair brought down the house with a warm rendition of King’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” then hugged straight through the final encore.

Some of pop’s hardest-working sidemen accompanied King and Taylor: the supple Russ Kunkel on drums, longtime JT running-mate Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar on lead guitar, Methusaleh-bearded Leland Sklar on bass. This was the original Troubadour band, and their empathy for the material remains commendable. King and Taylor are excellent instrumentalists, too, and their characteristic styles are perfectly complementary. The guitarist can be a bit uptight and is loosened by the pianist’s exuberance; the pianist can get wild, and is aided by the guitarist’s restraint.

Taylor, who does not use a pick, pulls at his guitar strings with his fingertips, and produces a knotty, precise sound; King hits her piano keys hard, and punctuates her verses with glissandos and big, multi-octave chords. On King’s delicate “Song Of Long Ago,” Taylor’s guitar counterpoint was finely wrought, and King returned the favor on “Carolina In My Mind,” enlivening the song with her energetic playing.

Taylor may be the most agreeable-sounding singer in the pop world: there’s nothing flashy about his delivery, but his voice is honeyed, and he’s got a knack for drawing listeners into his narratives. His third verse is, invariably, better than his first. King, by contrast, battled hoarseness and occasional pitch problems, and flagged toward the ends of some of her upbeat numbers. She threw away some of the best lines on “Sweet Seasons,” the kickoff cut on her underrated “Music” album.

But unlike Taylor, King has rarely been considered an outstanding singer. Many of her best-known songs (and her best-known songs could fill a songbook) were written for other vocalists — including Taylor. “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” penned for the Shirelles in 1960, captures teenage romantic anxiety as few songs do; King’s performance at MSG, while not technically flawless, felt absolutely real. It was the high point of the two-hour show, and a reminder that much of King’s indispensable material preceded “Tapestry” and the ’70s singer-songwriter movement she did so much to define.

The pair performed in the round on a slowly rotating stage. It was a democratic gesture, but also a frustrating one: for half of the performance, whatever it was that you most wanted to see was in eclipse. At times, it felt like King and Taylor were riding an extremely poky tilt-a-whirl. The best seats in the house were the ones right up against the stage; alas, they were also the most expensive. But they were priced that way for a good reason — they were offered to the public through Tickets For Charity (ticketsforcharity.com), an organization that pairs with artists to set aside hard-to-find seats at concerts. All proceeds from ticket sales go to the artist’s charity of choice. Tickets For Charity will be making those seats available at the King and James show at Prudential Center on June 25.

SET LIST
Something In the Way She Moves
So Far Away
Machine Gun Kelly
Carolina In My Mind
Way Over Yonder
Smackwater Jack
Country Road
Sweet Seasons
Mexico
Song Of Long Ago
Long Ago and Far Away
Beautiful
Shower the People
(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman

INTERMISSION

Been To Canaan
Crying In the Rain
Your Smiling Face
Sweet Baby James
Jazzman
Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
Steamroller
It’s Too Late
Fire and Rain
I Feel the Earth Move
You’ve Got a Friend

ENCORE
How Sweet It Is
You Can Close Your Eyes

NY DAILY NEWS – Carole King and James Taylor Keep Hummin’ at Madison Square Garden

By Jim Farber

On the surface, it didn’t sound terribly rare.

A concert featuring two of the world’s most familiar superstars – Carole King and James Taylor – the first of whom tours frequently, the second of whom plays relentlessly.

Each would be performing songs spun daily, if not hourly, somewhere on the radio dial.

Yet, this new joint tour between Taylor and King, which stopped by the Garden last night, has struck something deep in the boomer generation’s soul. It’s one of the most successful, and buzzed about, tours of the year. And last night showed why.

For one thing, the paring of these two brings them back to a pivotal point in their lives – and in the culture’s.

It’s a re-imagining of their very first shows together from 1970, when Taylor was just breaking, and King was about to morph from a behind-the-scenes player into the hippie earth mother icon of her time.

Together, they helped create the quiet revolution of singer-songwriters that dominated the start of the ’70s.

To stress their connection, the two stars remained on stage together for the entire show, trading harmonies and, at times, seeming to play as much to each other as to the audience.

For a deeper bond, the tour finds King and Taylor employing the same attuned backing band they used at those 40-year-old shows, including drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Lee Sklar, and guitarist Danny Kortchmar.

The musicians’ rapport brought a special warmth to a tour that’s about precisely that. It didn’t hurt that Taylor has lost none of his diamond-hard diction, or his resonant vibrato, over the decades.

While King has gained some gravel in her voice, and lost some of her ability to sustain a note, that only added to the character of a singer whose voice has always had more to do with exuding a sense of sisterly protection than with displaying great skill or range.

Of course, the hits came non-stop, from his stalwart “Fire and Rain” to her song of first possible love, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”

Understandably, the night’s 29 song repertoire stalled stubbornly in the stars’ prime period (1970 to ’72).

Yet the mood they created wasn’t entirely nostalgic. Songs of such melodic perfection, and tailored with such lyrical care, can’t be contained by any era.

Also, watching them performed by these two singers, so far down the line, turned their main themes of loyalty and endurance into something you could see.

If hits like “So Far Away” or “Fire and Rain,” couldn’t be more common in their exposure, the connection that flowed between the stars last night transcended boomer cliches and made you wish these two singers would keeping playing together just as long as they, and we, shall live.

THE NEW YORK TIMES – A Pair of Durable Troubadours, Contrasting and Complementing

By Ben Ratliff

They were a strange pair, actually: dry and wet. He, 62, with the guarded, narrow excellence of his fingerpicking, putting his voice through a heavy soul-compressor, like Marvin Gaye in a telephone booth; she, 68, practicing generosity, singing as loudly as possible and straining at the high edges, coming down hard on her songs’ pivot-point chord changes.

If there still exists an idea of the American singer-songwriter as a conveyor of sympathy, sincerity and trust — Bob Dylan notwithstanding — James Taylor and Carole King are the reasons. They were grown-up sentimentalists. They sang about appreciating change. Their songs did not kick and scream. As a result they came through slim and intact. Their tandem show at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday put them both in the light that looks best on them: as collaborators and as loyalists.

How important is it that they were never lovers? Very. There might have been some references to physical abandon here and there — in Ms. King’s “I Feel the Earth Move” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” — but this was a concert about stability and mutual esteem for craft.

Their loyalty extends not just to each other — they worked together at the Troubadour in Los Angeles during the early 1970s, and Ms. King talked about how Mr. Taylor inspired her to write and perform her own music and lyrics — but to their musicians. The backing band for Tuesday’s concert, and for their intercontinental tour thus far, was essentially the band they used to play with in the clubs and studios: Russ Kunkel, drums; Leland Sklar, bass; Danny Kortchmar, guitar. The West Coast soft-rock wrecking crew.

They were right up there with major-to-minor chord changes and sincerity on the list of reasons that this music worked in the first place. On Tuesday, in Mr. Taylor’s songs especially — “Carolina in My Mind,” “Shower the People” — the wide-ranging, counterintuitive bass lines, brushed drums and behind-the-beat groove made it all breathe.

A rigorous fairness prevailed. Mr. Taylor and Ms. King played on all of each other’s songs, took turns singing their own and closed with a proper duet on “You’ve Got a Friend.” The stage, set up in the middle of the arena, turned constantly throughout the two and a half hours so that all concertgoers got equal face time.

The concert stayed mostly within the early ’70s: material from Ms. King’s “Tapestry” and “Music” and Mr. Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James” and “Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon.”

Among the exceptions were Mr. Taylor’s “Your Smiling Face,” from 1977, and Ms. King’s “Crying in the Rain,” which was from either earlier or later, depending on your definition: she helped write it for the Everly Brothers in 1962 but didn’t record it herself until 1983. The many chapters of Ms. King’s life — Brooklyn girl, Brill Building operative, earthy pop star, Idaho environmentalist — never really came up as topics in the between-song patter, but their complexity might have been evident to anyone listening.

It was a concert full of bits of American roots — gospel and country and blues — but aside from Mr. Taylor’s Chicago-blues exaggerations in “Steamroller,” each singer’s individual style heavily overrode the background influences.

That individual style came out not only in composition but also in performance: Mr. Taylor’s elastic phrasing in “Your Smiling Face” and “Sweet Baby James”; Ms. King’s stretched vowels, sung with her head back. What she did to the middle of the word “pleasure” in “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” made it clear how important it is to the song. And what she did toward the end of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” — singing the most intimate lines directly to the band members, going so far as to kiss their hands — made it clear how important the songs are to her.

Carole King and James Taylor will perform at the TD Garden in Boston on Saturday and Sunday and return to Madison Square Garden on June 30.

MASSLIVE.COM – James Taylor, Carole King dazzle Mohegan Sun crowd with ‘Troubadour Reunion’

By Kevin O’Hare

UNCASVILLE, CONN. – With the down economy and a whole lot of people with a lot less disposable income, there aren’t many tours raking in big bucks at the box office so far this year.
One of the exceptions is the nostalgia-filled “Troubadour Reunion” featuring veteran songwriters James Taylor and Carole King.

The two have been drawing capacity crowds in practically every market they’ve played and Saturday proved to be no exception as they performed before a capacity crowd during the first of a two-night stand at the Mohegan Sun arena.

Delivering a truckload of hits over the course of two sets and approximately two-and-a-half hours on stage, Taylor and King showed plenty of reasons why they’re the perfect match for this summer. The inspiration for the tour came from a 2007 reunion the pair staged at West Hollywood’s fabled Troubadour, celebrating their own legendary 1970 and 1971 shows at the venue.

As Taylor told the tale Saturday, when they started rehearing for this tour earlier this year, their initial set list was six hours long. That’s not surprising considering the extraordinary depth of their respective back catalogs. They did manage to whittle it down though and for the tour they have even re-assembled the band that played those original shows at the Troubadour 40 years ago, including bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Russ Kunkel and hotshot guitarist Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar, the latter who has been one of Taylor’s closest friends since their pre-fame days in the late 1960s playing together in the Flying Machine.

Together with three backing vocalists and additional keyboards, they performed on a slowly revolving round stage set in the middle of the arena. The set-up was made more intimate with the inclusion of a nightclub-style special seating area that surrounded the stage. 

The show opened with Taylor singing lead and King taking the harmonies on his “Something in the Way she Moves,” which was followed by King’s “So Far Away,” before a rockin’ take of the Kortchmar-penned Taylor hit “Honey Don’t Leave L.A.”

It seemed like the singers were keenly aware of the large venues they are playing on this tour and while they are primarily known as balladeers they succeeded in delivering numerous uptempo tracks during the night.

Taylor’s voice has aged almost perfectly. King’s was always a bit raspy, but it’s gotten raspier with the years and her range is fairly limited on the high end. Nevertheless it was a joy to hear them together again, and to be reminded in particular of the amazing scope of King’s material.
Among the first set highlights were King’s “Smackwater Jack,” which featured her switching from piano to guitar to join Taylor in powering the band; Taylor’s “Mexico;” and what he referred to as their “hymns for agnostics” – King’s “Beautiful” and Taylor’s “Shower the People.”

Her classic “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” which was a huge hit for Aretha Franklin, closed the first set to a standing ovation, and they returned 20 minutes later, opening strong with King’s ever-gorgeous “Been to Canaan” and a harmony-filled duet of “Crying in the Rain” yet another King song, that in this case was a massive hit for the Everly Brothers.

Taylor was extremely animated throughout the show but particularly when he tore through “Steamroller Blues,” trading guitar fire with Kortchmar. King turned in one of her best vocals of the night on “Jazzman,” and her duet with Taylor on her 1960 hit for the Shirelles, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” triggered a lengthy and well deserved ovation.

Obligatory hits such as “Fire and Rain,” “It’s Too Late,” “I Feel the Earth Move” and “You’ve got a Friend,” filled the latter part of the second set. They returned to encore with Taylor and King trading off verses in “Up on the Roof,” before a joyous “How Sweet it is (To Be Loved By You),” and the finale of “You Can Close Your Eyes,” which no doubt left a lasting image for many in the crowd of King resting her head on Taylor’s shoulder while they sang together.

THE HARTFORD COURANT – James Taylor, Carole King Masterful at Mohegan

By Donna Larcen

Reunions are always tricky.

But when it’s Carole King and James Taylor getting together to celebrate a 40-year-old concert, the meeting transcends nostalgia.

In the first of two performances Saturday at the Mohegan Sun, King and Taylor rolled out a generous 28-song retrospective of greatest hits, played in fresh ways. They tapped the talents of musicians who were with them at the beginning: guitarist Danny Kortchmar (who introduced the artists in 1969), bass player Leland Sklar and drummer Russ Kunkel.

Taylor brought along backup singers Arnold McCuller and Kate Markowitz plus Andrea Zonn, who also performed on violin.

Like two heavyweight boxers Taylor then King traded songs. But they are the most cooperative of performers, providing harmony and support as each took the spotlight.

Taylor kicked off with “Something In the Way She Moves,” the song that landed him a deal with the Beatles’ Apple label. King followed with “So Far Away,” from her mega hit album “Tapestry.”
Taylor is the introvert; King the opposite. He is likely to sit or stand behind his guitar sing smoothly and proficiently with attention to detail and harmony. She accompanied herself on piano turning out hit after hit but doing it with big smiles and, at times, grabbing a hand mike, strutting on stage and belting out her songs.

King performed a vintage version of her early hit “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” with Taylor bowing to her at the end. He then showed his goofy side on “Steamroller Blues” playing with the lyrics, duck walking across the stage and then, in a nod to his 62 years, using the guitar as a crutch to get back to an upright position.

King’s infectious good humor and musicianship challenged Taylor and each rose to a level beyond what they may do in a solo concert.

And so it went through 28 songs.

Their regular set ended with King’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” a hit for both of them.” And this was the theme of the night. These solo artists have always surrounded themselves with great collaborators: King at the start with her co-writer and then-husband Gerry Goffin. Taylor with Kortchmar in his first group as a teen and harmonizing with ex-wife Carly Simon.

It was also telling that each performing as aged without benefit of plastic surgery. She has wrinkles and he is balding. Who cares. Their life experience comes through in their music and their performances, making them resonant to a crowd with its own aging issues.

The duo played a series of concerts in 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Troubadour, a legendary club in West Hollywood. Something sparked and they talked about touring. They came up with enough material for a 6-hour show, so each night the set list has some changes. The set list includes a core of hits: Taylor’s “Fire and Rain,” “Sweet Baby James,” “Country Road” and King’s “I Feel the Earth Move,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “Up on the Roof.”

The crowd was dependable and ready for multiple sing- alongs. Sign any of them up for back up duty. They knew all the words, sang in harmony and clapped on the beat.

The staging is suggestive of the Troubadour’s interior. The circular stage rotates slowly (remember the original Oakdale?) while a ring of cabaret tables are lit with soft table lights. Video screens project the performers; a round screen above the stage showed background images, including decades old photos of a curly haired King and long-haired Taylor from their early collaborations.

After a two-hour plus show with encore, King and Taylor came for an intimate closing. He played guitar and she perched next to him as they crooned “You Can Close Your Eyes.” As they finished, she leaned into him gently placing her head on his shoulder.

It was sweet ending to a powerful night.

“Carole King & James Taylor Troubadour Reunion Tour” repeats tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Mohegan Sun’s Arena. Tickets are $75 and $95. Information: 888-226-7711 and http://www.mohegansun.com.

PHILLY.COM – Carole King & James Taylor: Aging gracefully, like their music

By Nick Cristiano

Just four songs into their show at the sold-out Wachovia Center on Thursday night, James Taylor got the age joke out of the way. He and Carole King, he said, “were trying to remember what was in the original set when we played the Troubadour in 1903.”

Yes, the two iconic artists who helped set the template for the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s are long in the tooth – King is 68 and Taylor 62.

They actually first played the Troubadour, the storied Los Angeles club, in 1970, the year they began their enduring friendship and artistic collaboration. For this Troubadour Reunion tour, however, both looked trim and fit: They appear to have aged as well as their music, as they displayed over two stirring sets.

The circular, slowly rotating stage was surrounded by tables with lamps to approximate the look of the Troubadour. It’s a silly conceit – unless you had seats there, no doubt – given the cavernous size and sterility of the Wachovia Center. But, from the vantage point of the first-level stands, King and Taylor managed to present an arena-size show that retained their music’s innate craftsmanship, intimacy, and soul while adding vigor, muscle, and showmanship.

It helped, of course, that the two had such superb accompaniment. Taylor’s acoustic guitar and King’s piano were augmented by three backup singers and a band whose three core members go all the way back to the start with the duo – guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bassist Lee Sklar, and drummer Russ Kunkel.

Taylor and King took turns presenting selections from their beloved catalogs, each providing instrumental and vocal support for the other – King’s “It’s Too Late,” for instance, seguing into Taylor’s “Fire and Rain.”

To point up their similarities, King introduced a pair of songs she said they had written separately and simultaneously – her “Song of Long Ago” gave way to Taylor’s similarly reflective “Long Ago and Far Away.” Taylor then followed King’s feel-good anthem “Beautiful” with his own hymn of sorts, “Shower the People,” goosing it into gospel transcendance with the help of a spectacular vocal by backup singer Arnold McCuller.

The alternating format also highlighted the stars’ differences. The lanky Taylor still has a Sweet Baby James charm and a slight patrician air about him. Most of his songs are defined by his precisely picked guitar and soothing voice, with its hint of a honeyed North Carolina drawl.

The huskier-voiced King may be living in Idaho these days, but an earthy R&B spirit underpins much of the native New Yorker’s work. She nearly brought down the house at the end of the first set with “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” and she did the same near the close of the second with the piano-pounding “I Feel the Earth Move.”

Fittingly, Taylor and King closed the second set with probably their most famous collaboration – “You’ve Got a Friend,” the King-penned ballad that Taylor took to No. 1.

THE WASHINGTON POST – Carole King and James Taylor make beautiful music at Verizon Center

By Dave McKenna

DuPont’s best and brightest couldn’t produce better chemistry in a lab than what James Taylor and Carole King come up with onstage.

They’re hardly alike. Appearing together at Verizon Center on Tuesday, King, now 68, was raucous beyond belief, while Taylor, at 62, exuded superhuman serenity. Fire and rain, one might say.

The old friends are touring to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their first show together, a gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. The singers are backed on the road by, as Taylor put it, all “the original cats” that appeared with them in 1969 in L.A. — a supergroup including Leland Sklar on bass, Russ Kunkel on drums and Danny Kortchmar on guitar.

To kick off the nearly 2 1/2 -hour retrospective performance, Taylor sang “Something in the Way She Moves.” That’s a fabulously appropriate set opener and hinted that their respective ties to the Beatles had helped bring Taylor and King together all those years ago. Taylor originally recorded that song for his 1968 debut LP shortly after the Fabs made him the first non-British act signed to their Apple Records. (He repaid the biggest band in the universe for their kindness by letting them cop his lyrics to open George Harrison’s “Something.”)

And years before launching Taylor’s career, the Beatles recorded “Chains,” which King had written with former husband Gerry Goffin during her days as a hitmaking machine in the Brill Building era.

On Tuesday night, King, in a rare mellow moment, offered up “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” her chronicle of young romance and all the vulnerability that goes with it, and one of the most beautiful pop songs of all time. The Beatles played that tune live in the days before coming across the pond. The cracks in King’s voice that have come with age only made the song more devastatingly great.

Taylor reminded folks of his supreme melody-making gifts and otherworldly niceness with enduring radio staples “Fire and Rain,” “Sweet Baby James” and “Carolina in My Mind,” the latter also dating back to his Apple debut. They dueted magically on songs that King wrote and Taylor recorded soft-core versions of long ago: “Up on the Roof” and “You’ve Got a Friend.” The commercial success that he found with his hyper-introspective material and other similarly low-volume singles opened doors for a lot of singer-songwriters who lacked his chops, and, for better or worse, made Taylor as responsible as anybody for taking the oomph out of pop radio for so much of the 1970s.

King, however, remains very much able to bring out the oomph. For “I Feel the Earth Move,” she got out from behind her grand piano to shimmy and kick all over the in-the-round stage. “This is my day job!” she screamed when she was done dancing.

And the night’s highlight came when she turned her glorious and soulful “Natural Woman” into a power ballad. The tune ended with much of the sellout crowd on its feet and following her lead in singing a rowdy chorus of “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Much as a famous pop band once did.

McKenna is a freelance writer.