Various Artists – You’ve Got Mail (1998)

You’ve Got Mail is a 1998 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nora Ephron and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Inspired by the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklós László (which had earlier been adapted in 1940 as The Shop Around the Corner and in 1949 as In the Good Old Summertime),[3] it was co-written by Nora and Delia Ephron. It tells the story of two people in an online romance who are unaware they are also business rivals. It marked the third pairing of Hanks and Ryan, who previously appeared together in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), the latter directed by Ephron.

Kathleen Kelly is in a relationship with Frank Navasky, a left-leaning newspaper writer for The New York Observer who is always in search of an opportunity to root for the underdog. While Frank is devoted to his typewriter, Kathleen prefers her laptop and logging into her AOL email account. Using the screen name “Shopgirl”, she reads an email from “NY152”, the screen name of Joe Fox, whom she first met in an “over-30s” chatroom. As her voice narrates her reading of the email, she reveals the boundaries of the online relationship: no specifics, including no names, career or class information, or family connections.

Joe belongs to the Fox family that runs Fox Books, a chain of mega bookstores. Kathleen runs the independent bookstore The Shop Around The Corner that her mother ran before her. The two are shown passing each other on their respective ways to work, revealing that they frequent the same neighborhoods on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Joe arrives at work, overseeing the opening of a new Fox Books in New York City with the help of his best friend, branch manager Kevin. Kathleen and her three store assistants, George, Aunt Birdie, and Christina, open up her small shop that morning.

Following a day with his 11-year-old aunt Annabel and 4-year-old half-brother Matthew, Joe enters Kathleen’s store to let his younger relatives experience storytime. Joe and Kathleen have a conversation that reveals Kathleen’s fears about the Fox Books store opening around the corner. He omits his last name and makes an abrupt exit with the children. At a publishing party for New York book business people later that week, Joe and Kathleen meet again where Kathleen discovers Joe’s true identity in the Fox family. She accuses him of deception and spying, while he responds by belittling her store.

When “Shopgirl” and “NY152” finally decide to meet, Joe discovers with whom he has been corresponding. At the table, he joins her without revealing his online identity, leading them to clash once more. NY152 later resumes the online correspondence, apologizes, and promises to eventually tell her why he stood her up.

The Shop Around the Corner slowly goes under. Kathleen’s employees move on: Christina goes job hunting, George gets a job at the children’s department at the Fox Books store, and Birdie retires. Kathleen and Frank amicably end their relationship. Kathleen takes a break to figure out what she wants to do (write children’s books). As the shop goes under, Joe realizes his feelings towards Kathleen and begins building a face-to-face relationship, still keeping his online identity a secret. They slowly build a friendship.

Eventually, NY152 arranges a meeting between his online persona and Shopgirl, but right before she is to meet her online friend, Joe reveals to Kathleen his feelings for her, worrying that she will not forgive and love him even when she learns the truth. Kathleen hints at feeling the same way but cannot bring herself to forgo her feelings for NY152, not realizing they are the same man, and the two part. Upon arriving at the meeting place, she hears his voice and sees that NY152 is, in fact, Joe Fox. Kathleen cries tears of joy and reveals that she hoped it would be him.

A soundtrack was released on December 1, 1998, and featured a mixture of classics from the 1950s and 1970s, particularly the work of Harry Nilsson, as well as new original recordings and covers. The score to the film was written by the English composer George Fenton. (wikipedia)

Nora Ephron’s charming, good-natured remake of The Shop Around the Corner was the definitive upscale urban romantic comedy of the late ’90s (or at least 1998), so it’s only appropriate that the accompanying soundtrack fits the film like a glove. A canny mix of familiar oldies, forgotten treasures, new songs, and an excerpt from the score, the album is much like the movie — entertaining, occasionally supremely engaging (whether it’s Stevie Wonder’s classic “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” and Randy Newman’s “Lonely at the Top,” and no less than three Harry Nilsson songs, including a cover by Sinéad O’Connor), but ultimately ephemeral. Not that that’s a bad thing — in fact,

You’ve Got Mail is a very enjoyable listen. For many fans, that may be enough, since it is fun and evokes fond memories of the film. It just doesn’t really work as its own entity. (by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

Tracklist:
01. Harry Nilsson: The Puppy Song (Nilsson) 2.42
02. The Cranberries: Dreams (Hogan/O’Riordan) 4.30
03. Bobby Darin: Splish Splash (Darin) 2.11
04. Louis Armstrong: The Dummy Song (Brown/Henderson/Rose) 2.19
05. Harry Nilsson: Remember (Nilsson) 4.02
06. Roy Orbison: Dream (Mercer) 2.11
07. Bobby Day: Rockin’ Robin (Thomas) 2.35
08. Randy Newman: Lonely At The Top (Newman) 2.32
09. Stevie Wonder: Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours (Garrett/Hardaway/Wonder/ Wright) 2.38
10. Sinéad O’Connor: I Guess the Lord Must Be In New York City (Nilsson) 3.07
11. Harry Nilsson: Over The Rainbow (Arlen/Harburg) 3.31
12. Carole King: Anyone At All (King/Sager) 3.09
13. Billy Williams: I’m Gonna Sit Right Down (And Write Myself A Letter) (Ahlert/Young) 2.07
14. George Fenton: The “You’ve Got Mail” Suite (Fenton) 5.35
15. Jimmy Durante: You Made Me Love You (McCarthy/Monaco) 3.01

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Various Artist – Tapestry Revisited – Tribute To Carole King (1995)

Carole King Klein (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist.

Regarded as one of the most significant and influential musicians of all time, King is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005.

King’s major success began in the 1960s when she and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits, many of which have become standards, for numerous artists. She has continued writing for other artists since then. King’s success as a performer in her own right did not come until the 1970s, when she sang her own songs, accompanying herself on the piano, in a series of albums and concerts. After experiencing commercial disappointment with her debut album Writer, King scored her breakthrough with the album Tapestry, which topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971 and remained on the charts for more than six years.

King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry, which held the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her record sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide. She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a performer and songwriter. She is the recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honored. She is also a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree.

Tapestry Revisited: A Tribute to Carole King is a 1995 tribute album honoring American singer, songwriter, and pianist Carole King. It features a diverse lineup of artists including Richard Marx, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Celine Dion, The Bee Gees and Amy Grant. The idea of this release was to re-create King’s 1971 album Tapestry track-for-track using other artists.

The album peaked at number 53 on the Billboard 200 and was certified Gold by the RIAA in the United States. (wikipedia)

Carole King’s 1971 album Tapestry was one of the best-selling LPs of the early ’70s and has had a lasting influence on pop singer/songwriters ever since. The idea of this tribute album was to re-create the album track-for-track using other artists. Since King had begun her career as a songwriter, with songs such as “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” hitting for other artists before turning up on Tapestry, it was an appropriate concept. Though each artist was asked to submit a finished track, there was some musical continuity in that several tracks — “You’ve Got a Friend,” by BeBe & CeCe Winans, featuring Aretha Franklin, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” by the Bee Gees, and “Smackwater Jack,” by the Manhattan Transfer — were produced by Arif Mardin, and a couple of others — “So Far Away,” by Rod Stewart, and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” by Celine Dion — were handled by David Foster.

In such a project, casting is everything, and the best versions were turned in by artists who grew up with the original album, such as Amy Grant (“It’s Too Late”), Richard Marx (“Beautiful”), and Faith Hill (“Where You Lead”). Such artists achieved a reasonable compromise between the King versions and their own sound. Artists like the Bee Gees and Stewart, who were King’s contemporaries, seemed to be going through the motions, and a raft of newer artists, such as Eternal, Curtis Stigers, Blessid Union of Souls, All-4-One, and Dion, seemed to be on the album because someone at their management companies thought it would be a good idea and displayed little feel for the material. But King’s music has a flexibility that allows for many interpretations, and while this album could not be recommended over the original, the new performances didn’t do it much harm. (by William Ruhlmann)

Personnel:
I am too lazy to list all the musicians who participated in this album (see booklet)

Tracklist:
01. Eternal: I Feel the Earth Move(King) 4.59
02. Rod Stewart: So Far Away (King) 4.25
03. Amy Grant: It’s Too Late (King/Stern) 3.58
04. Curtis Stigers: Home Again (King) 3.41
05. Richard Marx: Beautiful (King) 3.46
06. Blessid Union of Souls: Way Over Yonder (King)  3.53
07. BeBe & CeCe Winans feat. Aretha Franklin: You’ve Got A Friend(King) 6.03
08. Faith Hill: Where You Lead (King/Stern) 3.32
09. Bee Gees: Will You Love Me Tomorrow (King/Goffin) 5.02
10. The Manhattan Transfer: Smackwater Jack (King/Goffin) 4.37
11. All-4-One: Tapestry (King) 3.12
12. Celine Dion: (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (King/Goffin/Wexler) 3.43

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More from Carole King:

Carole King – Tapestry (1971)

Tapestry is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Carole King, released in 1971 on Ode Records and produced by Lou Adler. It is one of the best-selling albums of all time, with over 25 million copies sold worldwide. In the United States, it has been certified Diamond by the RIAA with more than 10 million copies sold.[3] It received four Grammy Awards in 1972, including Album of the Year. The lead single from the album — “It’s Too Late”/”I Feel the Earth Move” — spent five weeks at number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts. In 2003, Tapestry was ranked number 36 on Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest albums of all time

King wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, several of which had already been hits for other artists such as Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (in 1960). Three songs were co-written with King’s ex-husband Gerry Goffin. James Taylor, who encouraged King to sing her own songs and who also played on Tapestry, would later have a number one hit with “You’ve Got a Friend”. Two songs were co-written with Toni Stern: “It’s Too Late” and “Where You Lead”.

The album was recorded at Studio B, A&M Recording Studios during January 1971 with the support of Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, plus various experienced session musicians. Several of the musicians worked simultaneously on Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim album.

The cover photograph was taken by A&M staff photographer Jim McCrary at King’s Laurel Canyon home. It shows her sitting in a window frame, holding a tapestry she hand-stitched herself, with her cat Telemachus at her feet.

Along with being selected Album of the Year, it also received Grammys for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year (“It’s Too Late”), and Song of the Year (“You’ve Got a Friend”), making King the first solo female artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, and the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

The album remained on the Billboard charts for 313 weeks (second only to Pink Floyd’s 724 weeks with The Dark Side of the Moon).
Grammy Awards
Year Winner Category
1972 Tapestry Album of the Year
1972 “It’s Too Late” Record of the Year
1972 “You’ve Got a Friend” Song of the Year
1972 Tapestry Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female

Tapestry was number one on the Billboard 200 for 15 consecutive weeks, and held the record for most weeks at number one by a female solo artist for over 20 years until surpassed by Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album in 1993, which spent 20 weeks at number one. It still holds the record for most consecutive weeks at number one by a female solo artist. The album was listed on the Billboard 200 for 318 weeks between 1971 and 2011 (302 weeks consecutively from April 10,1971 to January 15, 1977), the longest by a female solo artist until Adele’s 21 surpassed it in 2017. In terms of time on the charts, it ranks fifth overall, and in terms of length on the charts for solo musical acts it ranks second. Of all the albums by female artists to be certified Diamond, it was the first released, although it was not the first being certified. In Canada, the album was number one for 9 weeks beginning July 3, 1971

Several songs on Tapestry were recorded by other artists and became hits while the album was still on the charts: James Taylor’s 1971 cover of “You’ve Got a Friend” hit number one in the US and number four in the UK, and Barbra Streisand’s 1971 studio recording of “Where You Lead” reached number 40 while a live recording of a medley in which Streisand paired the song with the Sweet Inspirations hit “Sweet Inspiration” reached number 37 the following year.

Various artists combined to re-record all the original tracks for more than one tribute album. The first, released in 1995 and entitled Tapestry Revisited: A Tribute to Carole King, was certified gold. The second, in 2003, was entitled A New Tapestry — Carole King Tribute. In 2010 Australian recording artist Marcia Hines recorded a tribute album, Marcia Sings Tapestry.

“Her songs are like stories or sonic movies,” observed Tori Amos. “You want to walk into them. With ‘I Feel the Earth Move’ or ‘It’s Too Late’, you’re right there.”

In 2003, Tapestry was named number 36 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, was listed by VH1 as number 39 on their list of 100 Greatest Albums, and was one of 50 recordings chosen to be added to the National Recording Registry. Recordings added to the National Recording Registry are picked to be preserved in the Library of Congress as they are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.”

In March 2016 it was announced that Carole King would perform the album live in its entirety for the first time at the British Summer Time Festival in Hyde Park, London on 3 July 2016.. The performance was released the next year as Tapestry: Live at Hyde Park. (by wikipedia)

Carole King’s second album, Tapestry, has fulfilled the promise of her first and confirmed the fact that she is one of the most creative figures in all of pop music. It is an album of surpassing personal-intimacy and musical accomplishment and a work infused with a sense of artistic purpose. It is also easy to listen to and easy to enjoy.

Miss King’s past accomplishments have become something of a pop music legend. She and her former husband and lyricist, Gerry Goffin, were one of the three great independent pop song-writing teams of the Sixties, the other two being Burt Bacharach and Hat David, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. It is as much to their credit that they not only wrote one of Aretha Franklin‘s best songs, “Natural Woman,” but Steve Lawrence and Edyie Gorme’s best, “Go Away Little Girl,” as well. They wrote the Animals’ best pop record, “Don’t Bring Me Down,” and Bobby Vee’s best seller, “Take Good Care of My Baby.” Then there was “Chains” and “Don’t Say Nothing Bad About My Baby” for the Cookies, “One Fine Day” for the Chiffons, “The Locomotion” for Little Eva, and “Oh, No, Not My Baby” for Maxine Brown. And, of course, there were some for the groups: They wrote Herman’s Hermits best song, “Something Tells Me I’m Into Something Good,” two for the Righteous Brothers, “For Once In My Life” and the overlooked and under-rated “Hung On You,” and “Goin’ Back” and “Wasn’t Born to Follow” for the Byrds. She even had a hit for herself about ten years ago called “It Might As Well Rain Until September.” On top of them all, there was “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” for the Shirelles and “Up On the Roof” for the Drifters.

A Gerry Goffin-Carole King song was always engagingly sentimental. It was boy-girl, loneliness-togetherness, “Don’t Bring Me Down” versus “Hung On You.’ ‘My baby’s got me locked up in chains” versus “Will you still love me tomorrow” music the very core of the rock & roll lyric sensibility. The music expressed the outlook with a sweetness that ultimately shine through no matter what the context. The chorus of “Hung On You” is simply a beautiful tune. “Chains” has a blues structure but the melody is pretty, pretty pop music. Even “The Locomotion” has an amazingly distinctive melody line for a dance song. (And Little Eva ten years ago sounds so exactly like Carole King today one can only assume that Carole taught it to her note for note and breath for breath.)

The songs of Goffin and King are superb examples of the song writing craft of the Sixties. Finely honed to meet the demands of the clients who commissioned them, and written with the requirements of AM radio always firmly in mind, they still managed to express themselves in a rich and personal way. Like Hollywood directors who learned how to make the limitations of the system work for them by the use of their own imagination, Goffin and King made the limitations of AM music work for them and in the process created something of their own pop vision.

Towards the late Sixties the independent song-writing system broke down as more and more artists preferred to write their own material. Feeling the pressure, Miss King, now separated from Goffin, struck out as a performer, first in the unsuccessful group the City, and now as a solo artist. Not surprisingly, the music she is making today is closely related to the music she created in the Sixties.

The theme of both Writer and Tapestry is the search for lasting friendship, friendship that can be trusted, friendship that can be felt. Those feelings are expressed in a music that is substantially looser and more far ranging than the early melodies. No longer confined to the requirements of writing for someone else and for AM radio the music has grown more intricate, more subtle, and more technically impressive. Similarly, the production on both her albums has been in a soft-sounding, FM-oriented approach, eschewing AM style altogether. These changes have not been altogether positive.

Carole King: Writer was a blessing despite its faults. The rhythm section was made up mainly of her musical friends from Jo Mama and the arrangements sounded like they were pieced together in the studio. The production was poor, managing to sound both labored and sloppy at the same time. Carole herself was mixed too low on many cuts and the band would up with an unusually tinny sound, considering the kind of music they were playing. And yet Carole’s own personal determination and talent transcended these irritants to make the whole thing very worthwhile. (by Jon Landau, Rolling Stone, April 29, 1971)

Personnel:
Curtis Amy (flute, saxophone, strings)
David Campbell (cello, viola)
Carole King (keyboards, vocals)
Terry King (cello, saxophone)
Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar (guitar, percussion, vocals)
Russ Kunkel (drums)
Charles “Charlie” Larkey (bass)
Joel O’Brien (drums)
Tim Powers (drums)
Ralph Schuckett (piano)
Barry Socher (violin, saxophone, viola)
Perry Steinberg (bass, violin, saxophone)
James Taylor (guitar, background vocals)
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background vocals:
Joni Mitchell – Julia Tillman – Merry Clayton

Tracklist:
01. I Feel The Earth Move (King) 3.00
02. So Far Away (King) 3.55
03. It’s Too Late (King/Stern) 3.54
04. Home Again (King) 2.29
05. Beautiful (King) 3.08
06. Way Over Yonder (King) 4.49
07. You’ve Got A Friend (King) 5.09
08. Where You Lead (King/Stern) 3.20
09. Will You Love Me Tomorrow? (Goffin/King) 4.13
10. Smackwater Jack (Goffin/King) 3.42
11. Tapestry (King) 3.15
12. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (Goffin/King/Wexler) 3.59
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13. Out In The Cold (bonus track) (King) 2.44
14. Smackwater Jack (Live in Boston, May 21, 1973) (bonus track) (Goffin/King) 3.21

 

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