Advance for Sunday, July 11 Eds.: Future tour stops include Salt Lake City; Las Vegas; Oakland, Calif.; Anaheim, Calif. James Taylor, Carole King bring their 'intimate' show to arenas Between the two of them, James Taylor and Carole King defined much of the music that came out of the '60s and '70s. One listen to their most recent disc, 'Live at the Troubadour' -- the inspiration behind their current tour -- and it's impossible to dodge the hit songs. Some of King's classics were written for '60s vocal groups, la 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' and 'Up on the Roof.' Taylor's catalog helped define the singer-songwriter genre in the late-'60s and early-'70s, such as 'Something in the Way She Moves' and 'Fire and Rain.' Another song, 'You've Got a Friend,' was penned by King and made popular by Taylor. The Troubadour experience, recorded in 2007 in Los Angeles but released earlier this year, was a telling reunion for Taylor and King. 'What was lovely about the CD and DVD, we had not had a whole lot of rehearsals before we went back into that situation,' King said recently. 'We got together, and we had a day or two to rehearse it. What people are seeing is a reconnection that is raw. It's still new and fresh and almost tentative in a way. It's fully present in one way. In another way, we hadn't settled into how we were going to do it.' Taylor agrees: 'We were experiencing the surprise and delight of it as much as the audience,' he said. 'The place was so packed. Everyone was standing. They took the chairs and tables out of the place. It had that sense of what its feels like to be in that close and crowded and intimate club.' Taylor and King are touring the U.S. to celebrate the music that made their careers, and we chatted with them about their intertwined history, their 'intimate' arena shows and their shared love of backing each other up. QUESTION: How have the shows been going? James Taylor: We've been on the road since March. It's been great -- spectacular on all levels, artistically and in terms of the reception by the public. Q: How are you two pulling off this intimate show in these big rooms -- arenas and such? Carole King: It's actually remarkable how well it's working. Initially when we were talking about arenas, both of us were horrified because an arena doesn't sound like it could be intimate. But James came up with the idea of doing it in the round so nobody is more than a half an arena away. We teamed up with a set designer so it's designed to look like a club with lamps and banquettes to suggest a club atmosphere, and with that, it just works. We can feel as intimate as the shows get with just James and me playing. Everyone in the highest seats is on stage with us. JT: We approached it by using a lot of video so that every seat in the house is given a front-row seat. So we and the crew, who is amazing and puts this thing up every night, can pull it off. Q: Would you say you've recreated the Troubadour stage for this big tour? CK: Maybe not 'recreate' the Troubadour stage but suggested it. Q: When did you two technically meet -- in the late '60s or the early '70s? CK: If you count 1970 as the '60s, we met in the '60s. Q: Carole, is it true that it was James who first encouraged you to get out there on your own and sing? CK: It is true. He didn't just encourage me. He said, 'You're going to sing 'Up on the Roof' tonight.' He had no idea of the monster he was creating. Q: Where was that? CK: Queens College, my alma mater. Q: James, do you remember the moment that made you ask her to get up there? JT: It was a sense that Carole had behind her a decade of writing some of the most classic songs in pop culture, and this was really a thing that was waiting to happen -- for Carole to come forward and put these songs out in her own voice. It's true she had a hit record in the '60s, so it wasn't the first time she had taken a stab at it. But I definitely remember feeling it was something that was waiting to happen. It was an energy that felt like it needed to be connected. Q: And now you two are connecting that original energy via this tour. Are you enjoying yourselves? CK: I'm so excited. I'm having the most amazing time doing this show with the band members. The core of it is James and me, and every night I get to hear 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' with James' guitar and the magic comes in and sings, 'When the night meets the morning sun.' It's moments like that ... JT: One of the things that makes this such a reunion is we're out with the original band -- Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel and Lee Sklar. Danny Kortchmar on guitar, he introduced us. All those guys played on our early tours, and so we have an extensive history with those guys. So it's a deep reunion in that sense. Q: James, what's your favorite song of Carole's that she's singing on this tour? JT: I'd have to answer in a number of different categories. There are songs that I love because the audience connects with them so deeply, like 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' gives me such a sweetheart feeling. It's a pitch over the center of the plate. ... But I've also been enjoying playing 'Sweet Seasons' and that Curtis Mayfield rhythm part of it. Carole and I are both on stage the whole time. She'll play a couple of songs. I'll play a couple of songs. We alternate, and each of us plays about a dozen or so songs. It gives me a chance to step back and be a member of the band and part of the audience. CK: When I get to play backup for James, I love it. For the audience, there's the element you can't define. It's the joy that after 40 years of songs, it's not just one-plus-one. It's the three cats, Russ and Danny and Lee, and they're driving us to play better and harder and giving us, at the same time, that foundation to fly from. Q: How much of this show is about nostalgia? JT: A lot of it is. It takes people back to a point in time. It's mainly about an audience's connection with these songs, Carole and me as performers, and where that all sits with their lives. A good deal of it -- maybe nostalgia is not the right word -- but it resonates at the front of our mind. CK: The surprising thing, and I was just remarking to James about this, is the increasing number of younger people that we're seeing in the audience. We've heard for a long time, 'Your music is the soundtrack to our life.' But now we're starting to hear that from the children and grandchildren of our generation, and they're embracing it in numbers that are so satisfying to us. 