Ruth Leon recommends… You’ve Got A Friend  – James Taylor & Carole King

You’ve Got A Friend  – James Taylor & Carole King
 This song never goes out of fashion. It’s been the go-to encore in hundreds of cabaret acts throughout the world, sung by hundreds of artists, but here’s the original.

In this restored footage of “James Taylor In Concert,” James performs Carole King’s classic song, “You’ve Got a Friend” on the popular BBC series “In Concert” on November 13, 1971.

James is joined by Carole King on piano, Leland Sklar on bass and Russ Kunkel on percussion. In 1971, Carole released her album “Tapestry” and James released “Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon.”
 
“You’ve Got a Friend” appeared on both albums and James’s single of the song reached #1 on the Billboard 100 and #4 on the UK Singles Chart. Both albums won Grammy Awards for the song (Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Song of the Year). Carole has said that she wrote “You’ve Got a Friend” in response to this lyric in James’s song “Fire and Rain”: “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend”.

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