Women in Entertainment (HD)

Vocalist, composer and instrumentalist Esperanza Spalding fell in love with music as a little girl in Portland, Oregon. She first drew acclaim as a child violinist before discovering the upright bass as a teenager. Within months she was playing in local clubs, exploring pop, rock, hip-hop and especially jazz. By age 20 she was an instructor at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music, and was performing with singer Patti Austin and a stellar roster of jazz greats. Her 2008 album Esperanza topped Billboard's Contemporary Jazz chart. The following year, she was invited to perform at the White House and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Stockholm. At the 53rd annual Grammy Awards, she was honored as Best New Artist of the Year. With her 2011 album Chamber Music Society, she became the bestselling contemporary jazz artist in the world. On the follow-up, Radio Music Society, she played her own compositions alongside an eclectic selection of tunes by everyone from the Beach Boys to one of her heroes, jazz great Wayne Shorter. In this podcast, recorded at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco, Esperanza Spalding performs solo, and in duet with Wayne Shorter. Excerpts from her interview with the Academy of Achievement are interspersed with highlights of that performance.

The most successful and admired female songwriter in the history of pop music, Carole King proves that one woman alone at the piano can be more powerful than a four-piece rock band or a 30-piece orchestra. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where her mother was a teacher and her father a firefighter. She learned to play the piano at age four and formed her first band in high school. At age 18, she scored her first Number One hit record – the first of 118 pop hits on the Billboard charts, including such classics as “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “The Loco-Motion,” “Up on the Roof,” It’s Too Late, Baby,” “I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet,” “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” and “You’ve Got a Friend.” To date, she has recorded 25 solo albums, the most successful of which, Tapestry, sold 25 million copies, and for a quarter of a century held the record for a female artist for most weeks at the top of the charts. The recipient of the 2013 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2013 Gershwin Prize, she is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For more than a half century, she has given voice to her innermost truth, and struck a resounding chord in the hearts of listeners around the world. Composer and performer, author and activist, she has brought the same passion, courage and unyielding honesty to her life, to her work, and to her defense of the woods and wildlife of her beloved Rocky Mountains. Carol King received the Gold Medal of the Academy of Achievement in a ceremony at the Academy's headquarters in Washington, D.C. on February 12, 2014. In this podcast, recorded on that occasion, Carole King discusses her life and career. Her remarks are interspersed with excerpts from her performance at the Academy earlier that evening.