The distinctive opening notes to the Carole King song “So Far Away,” send a wave of memories flowing over me recently at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in New York. We were watching “Beautiful the Carole King musical. The Broadway musical tells the story of Carole King’s songwriting career which began when she was just 16 years old.  King skipped a couple of grades in high school and was a college student when she began pitching songs. As a pianist she had musical chops and creating the music was never an issue, she needed help with lyrics and that’s where Gerry Goffin her first husband comes in. He was the lyrical man, one of their first big hits with the Drifters was “Some Kind of Wonderful.” Music empresario Don Kirshner pairs the two and when Carole becomes pregnant they get married. While King and Goffin were cranking out hits like “The Locomotion” sung by their babysitter, Little Eva, their friends and songwriting competitors Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were dreaming up iconic songs like, “On Broadway,” and “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” The two couples while competitive also became good friends. The play provides insight into Carole and Gerry’s difficult marriage and her insecurities as well as the story behind some of their songs including “Up on the Roof” and “You’ve Got A Friend.”

Carole King’s Tapestry album was her declaration of independence. Her breakup with Goffin provided the motivation for Carole’s move to California and her first solo album. Tapestry was the first album I bought and every song on that album takes me back to my childhood home on 19 Mile Road in Marshall, Michigan. Those songs and her voice are the soundtrack of my life.

The cast of Beautiful are amazing and perfectly cast. Chilina Kennedy has a superb voice and a physical resemblance to King. The play’s set is simple but elegant and brings life to the scenes especially in Kushner’s two story set of offices and recording studios, which are a beehive of activity. Jessica Keenan Wynn plays Cynthia Weil and she can really belt out a tune. Jarrod Spector plays Cynthia’s hypochondriac lover/song writing partner. Spector has great timing and fires off some of the funniest lines in the play.  Beautiful ends with the triumphant release of Tapestry and Carole’s performance at Carnegie Hall. Carole King trials and triumphs are detailed in her autobiography  “A Natural Woman: a Memoir,” a worthwhile read for Kingophiles.

I often hear people say they don’t like poetry but if you’ve ever memorized the lyrics to a song, you’ve memorized a poem. Songs are poetry set to music and songs are historical markers in your life, maybe that’s why they are so powerful and so good at provoking emotion and evoking memories.