CAROLE KING - ALLIGATORS ALL AROUND

ALLIGATORS ALL AROUND

CAROLE KING

SONGWRITERS: CAROLE KING & MAURICE SENDAK

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: REALLY ROSIE

LABEL: ODE

GENRE: POP

YEAR: 1975

Carole King (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist. She is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1952 and 2005.

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. She has continued writing for other artists since then. King's success as a performer in her own right did not come until the 1970s, when she sang her own songs, accompanying herself on the piano, in a series of albums and concerts. After experiencing commercial disappointment with her debut álbum Writer, King scored her breakthrough with the album Tapestry, which topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971 and remained on the charts for more than six years.

King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry, which held the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her record sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide. 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. She is the recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honored. She is also a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree.

Really Rosie is a musical with a book and lyrics by Maurice Sendak and music by Carole King. The musical is based on Sendak's books Chicken Soup with Rice, Pierre, One was Johnny, Alligators All Around (which comprise 1962's The Nutshell Library), and The Sign on Rosie's Door (1960). Sendak based the story on a demonstrative little girl who used to sing and dance on the stoop of her building, whom he observed while he was a little boy growing up in Brooklyn. The show follows a typical summer day in the life of the Nutshell Kids, a group of several neighborhood friends, including Pierre, Alligator, Johnny, and Chicken Soup from the Nutshell Library books, and Rosie and Kathy from The Sign on Rosie's Door. Rosie, the self-proclaimed sassiest kid on her block of Brooklyn's Avenue P, entertains everyone by directing and starring in a movie based on the exciting, dramatic, funny (and slightly exaggerated) story of her life.

A half-hour animated television special aired on CBS TV on February 19, 1975. It was directed by Maurice Sendak, animated by Ronald Fritz and Dan Hunn of D&R Productions Inc., with Carole King voicing the title character. King was ultimately selected as the voice of Rosie when casting directors had difficulty selecting a child actor whose voice could complement the pre-recorded songs. An album of the songs by King and lyrics by Sendak is available on Ode/Epic/SME Records. In the animated special, only the first seven songs and Really Rosie (Reprise) were showcased.

Sendak expanded the piece for London and Washington, DC, stage productions in 1978, and na off-Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch with designs by Sendak, which opened on October 14, 1980, at the Westside Theatre, where it ran for 274 performances. During its off-Broadway run, the lead role of Rosie was first played by a then-12-year-old Tisha Campbell-Martin. Midway through the run, Tisha left the cast and was replaced by cast member and "Rosie" understudy Angela Coin, age 10. Angela also sang the role of "Rosie" on the cast recording.

The musical has become a mainstay of children's theater groups. It was also one of John Mulaney's main inspirations for his Netflix Special John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch.

A - alligators all around

B - bursting balloons

C - catching colds

D - doing dishes

E - entertaining elephants

F - forever fooling

G - getting giggles

H - having headaches

I - imitating Indians

J - juggling jellybeans

K - keeping kangaroos

L - looking like lions

M - making macaroni

N - never napping

O - ordering oatmeal

P - pushing people

Q - quite quarrelsome

R - riding reindeer

S - shockingly spoiled

T - throwing tantrums

U - usually upside down

V - very vain

W - wearing wigs

X - x-ing x's

Y - yackety-yacking

Z - zippity zound

A - alligators ALL around!