Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name

And now, how 'bout something lovely?

Our next guests are two legendary

Grammy award-winning singer/songwriters

and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,

and tickets for their Troubadour Reunion Tour

go on sale on Saturday -- please welcome to the program

Carole King and James Taylor.

James Taylor is a major force in music,

one of the most popular

and prolific songwriters of our time.

I think she's the best there is,

Miss Carole King, ladies and gentlemen.

Carole King began her music career when she was just a teen,

and by the early '70s she had reached the top of the charts

around the world.

James Taylor, one of my all-time favorites.

One of the most influential singer/songwriters of all time.

And now, Carole King and James Taylor

are getting ready to tour together

for the first time in 40 years.

It's a bit of history, tell us about

the original Troubadour Reunion.

In November of 2007 James called me and said,

"Let's get together and play with some of our old friends,"

and we had such a great time.

Like Carole said, it felt so good,

we decided to take it on the road.

Carole's an interesting case,

because she worked as a songwriter for 10 years, really,

before I met her, and she had this entire career

as a major songwriter.

Mostly with Gerry Goffin,

but with a couple of other people too.

In -- in all cases the music came through me,

and when it was somebody else's lyric it integrated;

when it was my own music and lyrics together

sometimes it would just, all together, pop out of me.

I asked her to be a part of my band --

I -- I wanted her to play piano in my band.

But of course, she was also this major musical source,

that she'd written all of these amazing tunes,

that some of which were my favorite songs,

so I felt this thing that Carole really should be,

you know, singing her own songs.

And you -- I remember you pushed me out on stage,

and I was your side man, and that's all I ever wanted to be,

and then you said to me, "I want you to go on stage tonight

and sings your song."

"Wha-wha-wha-wait! What? What? No! No! I can't do it!"

"No, you're going to do it, no, don't worry,"

and you gave me the loveliest introduction,

and you said that, "Okay, everybody, I'm gonna turn

the stage over to Carole King, you all know her

as a songwriter, she wrote blah-blah-blah-blah,"

and he listed the whole thing,

and what he did was he made me pre-loved,

because everybody knew all those songs.

I know that many of you are admirers of James Taylor.

I am myself.

I don't know, uh,

if you know he's also really a fine guitarist

as well as a fine songwriter and singer,

and I'd like to try to get him out here to help me --

he was kind enough to volunteer, so, come on, James.

We're gonna do a song for you called "So Far Away."

I guess the first time I played the Troubadour was the --

was '69 -- was a big deal,

because it was the main gig in L.A.

It had a proper stage and a backstage,

and if you did well there, people -- people noticed it

and, uh, the word got out.

The Troubadour was a community of people

who wanted to hear that kind of music

and the bands that chose to play there,

and they were often interchangeable.

But this little unit that we are right now

is an essential core of the people that were there.

We've been trying to -- to, uh...

recast our minds back and try to remember what --

what songs were in the, uh, in the set

that we played together when Carole and I did the --

the Troubadour in -- back in 1903 or whenever.

We can't, it's gone.

But probably, uh, we played pretty much everything we had

back in those days, and, uh, so this song

was probably in the set somewhere.

Carolina.

I'd like to invite a very good friend of mine to be on TV

with me, Mr. Danny "Kootch."