1971 · Behind the Songs
Tapestry’s rowdiest character sketch, driven by a barrelhouse piano.
Tapestry is remembered as an intimate album, but “Smackwater Jack” is its loudest three minutes — a full-tilt outlaw tale set to a pounding, barrelhouse piano. The music is Carole King’s; the lyric is Gerry Goffin’s, her former husband and longtime writing partner, who conjures a frontier villain being chased down by the law. It is the album’s one true character sketch, and King plays it with a grin.
The track was cut at A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood during the January 1971 Tapestry sessions, with producer Lou Adler and the core band that would soon be famous as The Section: Danny Kortchmar on guitar, Charles Larkey on bass, and Joel O’Brien on drums. Their loose, live feel gives the song its barroom stomp — nobody is showing off, everybody is swinging.
The record company clearly heard a single in it: “Smackwater Jack” was issued as the B-side of “So Far Away,” and the two-sided single climbed to number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 — a hit hiding on the flip side. It is a reminder of how deep Tapestry ran: even its B-sides charted.
Quincy Jones later gave the song a brassy big-band reading, but King’s original remains the definitive version — a songwriter having fun with a tall tale, and a piano doing most of the talking.