American music legend Carole King released a snippet of her 1971 hit "So Far Away," slightly tweaked for social distancing, in a Facebook post yesterday, March 31.
The 78-year-old singer-songwriter has posted the video hoping her 1.2 million followers stay well stay well, and wish the same for all medical professionals who are doing such important and critical work"
Carole King also expressed appreciation for all the service people in this time of shelter-in-place orders, referring to the people keeping the groceries coming, the trash being picked up, and all the logistics, and all the things she said she didn't know about.
The Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee then thanked everyone for "staying in and making sure that we do our part to help this crisis go away, may it be soon."
She then performed a part of her hit song, with the lyrics adapted for social distancing. "So far away, everybody has to stay in one place anymore," she sang.
Aside from her online performance, King also passes the time in social distancing by posting throwback photos in her Instagram account. She posted a photo of her on the beach, captioned "#socialdistancing long before it was a thing" and credited to Chuck Beeson in 1975. Another photo showed an image of a younger Carole King in what appeared to be a photograph reel, with the caption saying "A simpler time. Carole in the Canyon" tagged to Jim McCrary.
Carole King's efforts to appreciate the first responders and convince people to practice social distancing is among the growing efforts of artists and celebrities to raise awareness.
Last March 29, Elton John hosted the "iHeart Living Room Concert for America," which was broadcasted live on Fox as well as on live streaming platforms. It was immediately followed by James Corden's "Homefest: The Late Late Show." Both live stream events included performances and appearances from a number of celebrities.
Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day frontman and one of the performers in the iHeart concert, launched his "No Fun Mondays", a series of Armstrong's covers such as Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put an Arm Around a Memory."
Carole King has a career spanning five decades, starting by writing songs since 1958 before launching a solo music career. She is also credited as having a hand, whether as the writer or co-writer, in more than 118 pop songs charting on the Billboard Hot 100, also writing 61 songs for the UK charts.
While her debut album "Writer" was not able to perform well commercially, she more than made up for it with her sophomore release "Tapestry", which stayed at the top of U.S. album chart for fifteen consecutive weeks and remained on the charts for six years. Over the course of her career, she released a total of 25 solo albums, with an estimated record sales of more than 75 million copies around the world.
Her achievements in music include four Grammy Awards, as well as inductions to the Rock and Roll and Songwriters' Hall of Fame. Carole King is also the first woman to be honored with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize in 2013.
