Carole King Reflected on Burt Bacharach – the Generosity of an Exceptional Woman of Music

Carole King, long an icon of popular music as a composer, lyricist, and performer, and now past 80 herself, wrote a wonderful and moving tribute to Burt Bacharach, her fellow composer and former Tin Pan Alley denizen, who passed away last week aged 94.

The piece, which appeared recently in the Washington Post in the opinion section, related her personal experience, describing her first time hearing his "Walk On By" on the radio, as sung by Dionne Warwick, who became the primary interpreter of his songs, though of course there were many others.

It was laudatory of his brilliant work, and I completely agree that Bacharach was an extraordinary composer and musician: I loved his songs and there were so many wonderful ones.

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With Bacharach's career so widely covered by the press, and the multitude of tributes (well-deserved) to his career, I got to thinking how men did, and still, predominate in the music world. There are many extremely talented women across the genres of music, be they rock, pop, classical, R & B, jazz...but compared to the men, how many do we regularly hear of? Yes, of course, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga are widely covered and award-winning, along with some others like Adele, but yet, the men still seem to rule.

Coincidentally, I just finished reading Like a Rolling Stone, Jann S. (don't forget the middle initial) Wenner's memoir of his creation and development of the magazine Rolling Stone. Wenner founded the magazine back in the late '60s, and it was an important powerhouse of music reviews, politics, and cultural comment. Yet what struck me maybe 100 pages in, was what an old boys' club the music business and the magazine itself, like so many others, was and is. Carole King, as just one example, never appeared, despite her enormous impact on popular music.

Bacharach's brilliance should be celebrated and remembered, and I'll continue to enjoy appreciate the his many songs, but not forgetting that many of his collaborators were women, including one of his former wives, Carole Bayer Sager, an accomplished and award-winning lyricist, and performers like Warwick and the late Karen Carpenter. What I'll also think of is King's expansive tribute, which was a great piece of writing, and so generous.