One of the most successful songwriters in American history, she wrote or co-wrote 118 pop hits appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 over the latter half of the 20th century.

[6] King's major success began in the 1960s when she and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits, many of which have become standards, for numerous artists.

[16]: 10  After King was born, her parents settled in Brooklyn and were eventually able to buy a small two-story duplex where they could rent out the upstairs for income.

When King developed an insatiable curiosity about music from the time she was about three, her mother began teaching her basic piano skills without giving her actual lessons.

[16]: 14  King's father enjoyed showing off his daughter's skill to visiting friends: "My dad's smile was so broad that it encompassed the lower half of his face.

[20] With her mother sitting beside her, King learned music theory and elementary piano technique, including how to read notation and execute proper note timing.

Other songs of King's early period (through 1967) include "Half Way To Paradise" for Tony Orlando (recorded by Billy Fury in the UK), "Take Good Care of My Baby" for Bobby Vee, "Up on the Roof" for the Drifters, "I'm into Something Good" for Earl-Jean (later recorded by Herman's Hermits), "One Fine Day" for the Chiffons, and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the Monkees (inspired by their move to suburban West Orange, New Jersey),[39] and the classic "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" for Aretha Franklin.

[46] The album was rediscovered by Classic Rock radio in the early 1980s, with the cut "Snow Queen" receiving nominal airplay for a few years.

[citation needed] While living in Laurel Canyon, King met James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, as well as Toni Stern, with whom she collaborated.

[21] King released her debut solo album, Writer, in 1970 for Lou Adler's Ode label, with Taylor playing acoustic guitar and providing backing vocals.

King followed up Writer with her sophomore effort Tapestry (1971), which featured new songs as well as renewed versions of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman".

The album was recorded concurrently with Taylor's Mud Slide Slim, with an overlapping set of musicians including King, Danny Kortchmar and Joni Mitchell.

[55] In addition to enlisting long-time friends (such as David Crosby, Graham Nash, James Taylor, and Waddy Wachtel), King reunited with ex Gerry Goffin to write four songs for the album.

After covering her song "Goin' Back" on October 17 and 18, 1975, at two of his high-profile Roxy gigs, Bruce Springsteen showed up at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on March 7, 1976, to sing "The Loco-Motion" with King for the night's final encore.

After a well-received concert tour in 1984, journalist Catherine Foster of The Christian Science Monitor dubbed King "a Queen of Rock".

King also performed her song "You've Got a Friend" with Dion, Gloria Estefan, and Shania Twain, as well as "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" with Aretha Franklin and others, including Mariah Carey.

She rarely performed the song after its original release due to the rise in the Women's liberation movement and falling out of favor of the sentiment behind the lyrics.

[63] She performed a new song, "Love Makes the World", which became a title track for her studio album in autumn 2001 on her own label, Rockingale, distributed by Koch Records.

Japanese record labels Sony and Victor reissued most of King's albums, including the works from the late 1970s previously unavailable on compact disc.

[74] King's mother, Eugenia Gingold, died in December 2010 in Delray Beach, Florida aged 94, from congestive heart failure.

For more than five decades, she has written for and been recorded by many different types of artists for a wide range of audiences, communicating with beauty and dignity the universal human emotions of love, joy, pain and loss.

In late 2012, the Library of Congress announced that King had been named the 2013 recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song[86]—the first woman to receive the distinction given to songwriters for a body of work.

[88] In June 2013, she campaigned in Massachusetts for US Representative Ed Markey, the Democratic nominee in a special election for the US Senate to succeed John Kerry who had resigned to become Secretary of State.

In her first new recording since 2011, she was inspired to re-write the lyrics to her song "One" (originally on her 1977 album Simple Things) as "One (2018)" to reflect her dream for America in the 2018 United States elections, as "Love won".

One of her earliest was in 1975 when she was the speaking and singing voice of the title character in Really Rosie, an animated TV special based on the works of Maurice Sendak.

Also in 1975, she appeared (credited under her married name, Carole Larkey) on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the episode "Anyone Who Hates Kids and Dogs".

In 1984, she starred alongside Tatum O'Neal, Hoyt Axton, Alex Karras, and John Lithgow in the Faerie Tale Theatre episode Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

From the album, Rod Stewart's version of "So Far Away" and Celine Dion's recording of "A Natural Woman" were both Adult Contemporary chart hits.

Other artists who appeared on the album included Amy Grant ("It's Too Late"), Richard Marx ("Beautiful"), Aretha Franklin ("You've Got a Friend"), Faith Hill ("Where You Lead"), and the Bee Gees ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow?").

Among the most notable are: In 1996, a film very loosely based on King's life, Grace of My Heart, was written and directed by Allison Anders.