Carole King

Carole King tried hard to not be a star; in fact, she tried not to be a performer at all. For years, she remained content to squeeze into a cubicle at 1650 Broadway in Manhattan (down the street from the Brill Building) where she and Gerry Goffin cowrote some of the greatest songs in modern musical history. That achievement earned the former married couple their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. But tonight, King becomes one of the first female double inductees for the very career path she’d once sought to avoid: performing.

It took a painful divorce, a cross-country move, a new romance, and a push from close friend James Taylor before King finally embraced the destiny she’d been heading toward since her Brooklyn childhood. A neighbor had even prophesied to the mother of 3-year-old Carol Joan Klein (b. February 9, 1942): “Mark my words . . . someday she’ll be famous.”