By the time of Writer, King was already co-author of some of pop’s greatest moments: “Up On The Roof,” “Goin’ Back,” “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman.” She’d also divorced her husband and collaborator, Gerry Goffin, and made an underrated folk-rock album, Now That Everything’s Been Said, with The City. But Writer is where it all really begins for King as a performer. Drawing on that bank of extraordinary Goffin/King songs, cannily choosing ones that work for her unadorned, plainly sung voice – that delivery’s a credit to King, by the way; her voice is able to make the ordinary extraordinary – Writer is a lesson both in gorgeous soul-pop song writing and understated arrangement. Plenty of highlights here, including moving takes on “Goin’ Back” and “I Can’t Hear You No More,” and hearing King sing “No Easy Way Down” and thoroughly own the song that Dusty Springfield made so sublime is a treat. Tapestry was next, a fourteen-times platinum seller that overshadowed King’s debut. It’s great, but Writer still lives in its shadow, unfairly so.

– Jon Dale