Carole King was born to Jewish parents, Sidney Klein and Eugenia Gingold.
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Her parents met in an elevator in 1936 at Brooklyn College, and tied the knots the following year during the final years of the Great Depression.
Sidney N. Klein
King’s father, Sidney, was a firefighter. He had dropped out of college to start up a job as a radio announcer.
“My dad’s smile was so broad that it encompassed the lower half of his face. I enjoyed making my father happy”, King once said.
Eugenia Gingold
King’s mother, Eugenia, was a teacher who also dropped out of college to focus on family.
Eugenia later learned how to play piano and taught her daughter basic piano lessons.
Who Is Carole King?
Carole King is a veteran musician, songwriter, who gained relevance since the 1950s, and is regarded as the most successful female songwriter of the latter part of the 20th century in America.
Born on February 9, 1942, in New York, King was schooled at James Madison High School and went on to graduate from Queens College.
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Photo Credit: Biography
King has written no less than 118 pop hits that ranked tops on the Billboard Hot 100, and 61 hits that that topped the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005.
Aside from being a solo artiste, King has written many songs for several musicians. Her album Tapestry launched her into fame in the 1970s.
King has recorded at least 25 solo albums, and has sold over 75 million copies worldwide.
She is a four-time Grammy Award winner and is a Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee.
Additionally, on two occasions, King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a singer and songwriter.
In 2013, she became the first woman to be honored with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize, and in 2015, she became a Kennedy Center Honoree.
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