The Living Room Tour

Disc 1
1	Welcome to My Living Room 1:58
2	Peace in the Valley 3:42
3	Love Makes the World 4:22
4	Now and Forever 3:17
5	Where You Lead I Will Follow / Louise Goffin 3:24
6	Lay Down My Life 4:20
7	Jazzman 4:00
8	Smackwater Jack 4:11
9	Wishful Thinking 4:12
10	Medley: Take Good Care of My Baby/It Might as Well Rain Until ... 8:40
Disc 2
1	Loving You Forever / Gary Burr 3:32
2	It's Too Late 5:22
3	So Far Away 4:52
4	Sweet Seasons 3:20
5	Chains 4:08
6	Pleasant Valley Sunday 3:44
7	Being at War With Each Other 4:05
8	I Feel the Earth Move 4:03
9	(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman 3:58
10	You've Got a Friend 5:31
11	Locomotion 3:37

Barnes & Noble

In 2004, Carole King transformed the intimacy of a house concert into the Living Room Tour: She decorated a theater stage with some homey furniture and a piano, left some room for guests, and then sang selections from her 40-plus-year career. The two-CD The Living Room Tour documents the show, and it's an intimate, good-natured, memory-filled experience. "I'm 62 and there's so many I'd like to do, old and new," King sings in the opening ditty, "Welcome to My Living Room," and then proceeds to prove just how deeply her songs are woven into the, uh, tapestry of our culture. She reaches way back for a medley of early-'60s Brill Building hits she wrote with Gerry Goffin -- including "One Fine Day," "I'm into Something Good," and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" -- and performs classics that were hits for other artists ("Pleasant Valley Sunday," "The Locomotion"), but she focuses on a generous sampling from Tapestry and the rest of her solo career. Most songs feature King alone at the piano, in strong voice, with that characteristic raspy emotional edge; her daughter Louise Goffin joins her for "Where You Lead I Will Follow" (theme song for the WB's Gilmore Girls); some other songs, such as "Smackwater Jack," are done with guitars and harmonies from Gary Burr and Rudy Guess (and several songs become audience sing-alongs, irresistibly). The Living Room Tour is an ample reminder that King is one of the world's greatest songwriters. Steve Klinge

All Music Guide

Carole King has co-written more great songs than almost anyone. On her Living Room Tour of 2004 she ran through some of her favorites, old and new, in a very intimate manner with just her piano or acoustic guitar for accompaniment. (She was also joined by guitarists Rudy Guess and Gary Burr on acoustic guitar and occasional bass and vocals.) The double-disc set The Living Room Tour documents some highlights from various shows and works well as a career retrospective as it touches on both the songs she wrote for others and those she performed herself. There are plenty of songs from Tapestry and her early-'70s albums (including the reworked "Where You Lead I Will Follow," which features her daughter Louise Goffin on vocals), songs from soundtracks ("Lay Down My Life" from the little-seen After Dark, My Sweet, "Now and Forever" from A League of Their Own), and a couple of new compositions (the cute "Welcome to My Living Room" and "Loving You Forever"), too. King was always an idiosyncratic vocalist and she sounds a little ragged around the edges here, more gritty and lived-in than you might remember but certainly not worn out. In fact, the grit adds some emotion and strength to her voice. It definitely adds a new dimension to the versions of songs she and Gerry Goffin wrote way back in the early and mid-'60s like "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Chains." Her relaxed takes on these classics are highly entertaining; King sounds like she is having a blast and the audience responds in kind. The medley she does of "Take Good Care of My Baby"/"It Might As Well Rain Until September"/"Go Away Little Girl"/"I'm into Something Good"/"Hey Girl"/"One Fine Day"/"Will You Love Me Tomorrow" is great fun and highly educational -- no, amazing might be a better word. Knowing that those songs only touch the tip of the iceberg as far as classic Goffin/King tunes goes is mind-blowing. Fans of Carole King will be as happy as the audiences at the shows (who quite often join in with King on the choruses of the more familiar tunes) to own this charming collection. Tim Sendra