Christie’s will offer Carole King’s piano which she used to write her hits at its The Exceptional Sale in New York, scheduled for April 20th.
It’s about 1924 model ‘M’ Steinway piano which popular singer-songwriter used to compose numerous hits, including Sweet Seasons and Been to Canaan, and it is pictured on the cover of two of her best-selling 1970s albums, Music and Sweet Seasons.
From 1971 the piano sat in the living room of Carole King’s house on Appian Way in Laurel Canyon, California – a house often filled with the musicians and friends like James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Lou Adler, Betsy and Peter Asher and Toni Stern. In recent decades the piano has graced the personal recording studio of King’s Idaho ranch.
Since writing her first No. 1 hit, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, at the age of 17, Carole King has become one of America’s most prolific musicians, beloved for songs such as (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman and You’ve Got a Friend. On 20 April, King’s 1924 model ‘M’ Steinway piano will be offered in The Exceptional Sale at Christie’s in New York.
King, whose Grammy Award-winning 1971 album Tapestry has sold more than 25 million units, became the first woman to be awarded the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2013, presented to her by President Barack Obama. After she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, a bio-musical of her life, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, became a Broadway hit in 2014.
The piano is estimated at $40,000 – $60,000 and it will be on view to the public from April 12-20 at Christie’s Rockefeller Galleries.