Carole King

Across her career, Carole King wrote or co-wrote 118 hit songs that made the Billboard Hot 100—making her one of the most successful female songwriters of any era but also simply one of the most successful songwriters, period.

She’s a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was the first woman to receive the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

As a teenager, King was a music-crazy kid, attending Alan Freed’s rock ’n’ roll spectaculars at the Brooklyn Paramount.