Three Among Many...Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon – and the Journey of a Generation

Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon, along with Judy Collins and a score of women who made their musical mark primarily during the singer/songwriter era (the late 60s/early 70s) were and are the soundtrack of my life. I read somewhere that the music we hear and embrace in our late teens into our late twenties becomes "our music", and I agree. 

These three women are the core for so many women of my Baby Boomer generation (though they are just a little older than most of us). When the trio of some of their most important albums, like "Tapestry" (King), "Court and Spark" (Mitchell), and "No Secrets" appeared in and around 1971, they seemed to instantly begin playing in bedrooms, dorm rooms, and studio apartments everywhere.

The award-winning journalist Sheila Weller researched and wrote this triple biography of Carole King (born 1942), Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon (both born in 1943). It hopscotches back and forth between the lives of the three women, all of whom almost simultaneously became household names around their thirtieth birthdays, even though King had already had more than a decade of great success as a Brill Building pop music composer with songs like "Up on the Roof", "The Loco-Motion", "One Fine Day", and more. Their lives sometimes intersected in the music business, through complex personal connections, and crisscrossed friendships and romantic relationships. 

Weller's book takes us deep into the culture of the period, and the music scenes in Los Angeles and New York, through extensive interviews, and adds a wealth of anecdotes and insights about the three women from many of the people who had close relationships and attachments to them. It is a kind of comfort read too, if that was your era, when so much seemed to be changing and possible for women. We can each consider what it means to "feel like a natural woman" and go from there.

No one could have predicted how that would play out for women in the five decades since the early 70s, with so many broadening opportunities and fewer restrictions (on the whole) for us. We accomplished so much, yet now after forty-plus years of advancement, we have been faced with some troubling attacks on our personal freedoms during the last five or six. I read the book when it first came out in 2013 when it was first published, with a second read just recently – a decade later. So much has happened over those ten years. 

On the plus side, despite the current social and political wars, if we look solely at women in music, we have so many huge names: Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift immediately come to mind. Each is a great example for their female peers in their 20s and 30s. Their success gives me hope.

70s Redux – Hearts of Darkness: James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Cat Stevens and the Unlikely Rise of the Singer-Songwriter

1970 and 1971 were the peak years of the Singer-Songwriter era in popular American music, according to author Dave Thompson. The phenomenon grew out of the folk and protest music of the mid to late 60s, which had already produced many iconic artists, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Tom Rush, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and many more. Many of those musicians got their start in the coffeehouses and small clubs of Greenwich Village in New York, but gradually the scene shifted west. The Mamas and Papas' "California Dreamin", released in December, 1965, sums it up perfectly. Cass Elliott, one of the "Mamas", established a home in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles that became the place where many of her fellow artists gathered. In 1970, Joni Mitchell's album, Ladies of the Canyon, referred to the area. 

In general, the late 60s and early 70s saw a tremendous number of musicians, singers and groups establish themselves, especially in Los Angeles. They were mainly among the earliest cohort of the Baby Boom Generation, and in fact, the three subjects of this book were all born in 1948. Despite the repercussions of the Vietnam War, it was a free and easy time in many respects, and youth culture reigned. Those of us who immediately followed by five to eight years also embraced their music and it became ingrained in our hearts and minds.

The Singer-Songwriters specialized in a lyric-rich songwriting style, and generally performed solo, at least in the beginnings of their careers. They were introspective and at times, brooding, writing and performing songs based on their personal life experiences, family and romantic relationships, and spoke to the social and political events of the day and how they affected them. Millions of listeners connected with both their angst and joy, and many of their songs and albums were hugely successful.

Thompson works through the chronological events of early careers of his three subjects, switching back and forth among them. There are many details and anecdotes of their interactions with the other artists, concert promoters, record producers and some family background. Some of it is interesting, some is distracting, and would have been better left out.

Two of the most appealing aspects of the book are the Epilogue, which presents updates on the various other artists, business figures and record companies that figure in the lives of the subjects; and, a Discography which lists all the recordings (studio and concert) of the three artists and their associates from 1963 through 1972.

Probably the least appealing aspect of the book is the cover art, which features a triptych of shots of Browne, Taylor, and Stevens. The picture of Taylor is an unfortunate choice. The handsome young Taylor graced the walls of many dorm rooms with his intense good looks, but here a shot was chosen in which he looks not unlike the notorious mass murderer Charles Manson (who committed his crimes in Greater Los Angeles in 1969). Perhaps that is because the author seems to have singled out Taylor (in my opinion, by far the most talented of the three subjects, and whose career has most endured) for the most criticism.