Carole King

Arguably one of the most successful female performers in music history, Carole King began as a songwriter, penning such 1960s pop hits as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "One Fine Day" and "Up on the Roof" with her husband, Gerry Goffin, before establishing herself as one of the leading voices of the singer-songwriter movement with her record-breaking 1971 album Tapestry. In both cases, King was an exceptional wordsmith whose beautiful melodies buffeted the passionate, confessional tone of her best material. The success of Tapestry led to a string of Top 10 albums, but the decline of the singer-songwriter in the late 1970s spelled the end of her days as a pop hitmaker. King would dabble in acting and songs for movie scores until the early 1990s, when she began to resurface through songs for Celine Dion, among others. In the new millennium, she revisited her '70s work for a generation of listeners who had grown up with her music via their parents' albums, which culminated in a top-grossing concert tour with her longtime friend, James Taylor. As both a songwriter and a singer, Carole King was a definite gold standard for artistic achievement in popular music.