RIALTO CHATTER: King Penning NATURAL WOMAN Musical for Broadway?

Michael Riedel reports in the New York Post this morning that Carole King is at work on a new musical showcasing tunes from her legendary songbook entitled Natural Woman.  The show, which has its sights on Broadway, according to the report, had an industry-only reading on Monday and features hits such as "Chains," Crying in the Rain," "Tapestry," and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow." Interestingly enough, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was the song that put the Shirelles on the map, yet that song is noticebly absent from Broadway's current Baby It's You, as King refused to license the rights for inclusion in her own show. Music giant EMI is the show's backer.

Writes Riedel of the show: "A lot of the show takes place at the Brill Building and 1650 Broadway, those legendary factories of chart-topping songs from the '50s and '60s. For years, Broadway producers have been trying to fashion a Brill Building musical, but lining up the rights to songs by the likes of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and Neil Diamond, all in one musical, hasn't been easy."

For the full report, click here.

Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King's album Tapestry topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks, in 1971, and remained on the charts for more than six years.

She was most successful as a performer in the first half of the 1970s, although she was a successful songwriter long before and long after. She had her first No. 1 hit as a songwriter in 1961, at age 18, with "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", which she wrote with Gerry Goffin. In 1997, she co-wrote "The Reason" for Celine Dion. In 2000, Joel Whitburn, a Billboard Magazine pop music researcher, named her the most successful female songwriter of 1955-99, because she wrote or co-wrote 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry. Her most recent non-compilation album is Live at the Troubadour, a collaboration with James Taylor, which reached #4 on the charts in its first week, and has sold over 400,000 copies.

She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her songwriting. In 2009, Carole King was inducted into the "Hit Parade" Hall of Fame. She holds the record for the longest time for an album by a female to remain on the charts and the longest time for an album by a female to hold the #1 position, both for Tapestry.