INTERVIEW: Esther Hannaford, star of the musical Beautiful, tours Australia with Carole King’s Tapestry 50th Anniversary Tour

Text and interview: Emma Driver
Images: Liam Neal

Nostalgic music anniversaries are never hard to find these days. Every day of the week turns up an array of historic musical milestones – five years since a hit song was released, ten years of a cult favourite album, twenty years since a live show that’s now considered a never-to-be-repeated cultural moment. 

But here’s one that is truly historic for women in pop. This year marks fifty years since Carole King released her classic, 4× Grammy-winning album Tapestry in 1971, an album stuffed full of huge and enduring hits, including ‘I Feel the Earth Move’, ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, ‘It’s Too Late’, ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ and ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’. King had already written a string of mega pop hits in the 1960s with her then-husband Gerry Goffin, but Tapestry marked her emergence as a solo performer who had finally found the perfect outlet for her own unaffected, emotionally direct songs. 

To honour Tapestry’s half-century, Australian actor, singer and musical theatre star Esther Hannaford – who starred as Carole King in the Australian production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical – is touring Australia this April–May to sing the entire album from start to finish, backed by a fresh and fabulous backing band. The stellar line-up features two more women of pop – Olivia Bartley, aka Olympia, on guitars, and Melbourne singer/musician Clio Renner on keyboards – along with Mark Wilson (bassist with Jet), Louis Macklin and drummer Pete Marin.

We recently caught up with Esther, who is rehearsing the show and deep-diving into the big hits and deep cuts of this momentous album.

Thanks so much for talking to us today, Esther. 
Thank you!

Can you tell me how the Tapestry 50th Anniversary show came about? It’s been a few years since you played Carole King in the Beautiful show, back in 2017–18. 
It was actually Graham Kennedy, from Live Nation Australia, the live touring company – it was his idea. He had seen Beautiful a couple of times. I didn’t know him beforehand, and he reached out to me. He’d worked with Mark Wilson before – they’d done the Beatles show [Abbey Road Live in 2019]. It was their idea that, with the fiftieth anniversary coming up, we should do Tapestry.

How did you feel about revisiting all these Carole King songs?
I was thrilled, because I love this music and I didn’t think I was going to get to sing it again. I did over 300 shows with Beautiful, and I never got sick of singing it. That’s what I do – I do shows for long periods of time. But I never did get sick of it, honestly, I really mean that! Those songs always feel so good to sing. 

This time, I’m really excited to do that and not be Carole King on stage. I get to sing the songs again and be in the same position as the audience: just admiring the songs. And we can all be in that place together.

How are you finding working with the band? Did you all know each other beforehand?
No, I hadn’t met them before, but I think a lot of them know each other. They’re amazing artists, and they’re all very nice! We started out slowly, [rehearsing] one day a week, and we’ll get to more full-time stuff. It’s a new world for me … it’ll be fun. 

So, for the show, stylistically – and you don’t have to give anything away here! – are you reimagining any of the songs from Tapestry, or are you keeping to the ’70s style of the album? 
As far as Tapestry goes, the plan is to honour that record. We’re playing it from beginning to end, in order, as it was done, not mucking around too much with that. It doesn’t need to be mucked around with. It sounded great on the record. Stylistically the show will have a real chill vibe, trying to bring in that ’70s moment.

Then, after Tapestry, there’ll be an extra couple of songs that people will know and we’ll have some fun.

All of the Tapestry songs weren’t part of the Beautiful show, were they? Have you started working on those songs that are new to you?
Yeah, there are some songs that weren’t in Beautiful. I’m loving ‘Way Over Yonder’. It is so hard! I was starting to sing it and I was like, ‘Oh fuck, this is so hard.’

There are amazing gospel vibes on that song …
Oh yeah. I was so excited. I think it’s going to be an awesome one. We’re workin’ for it! For two or three rehearsals were still trying to wrangle the beat. It sounds really easy but actually to get the feel of it is hard. So that one I’m loving – the soul, the blues of it. It’s probably my favourite at the moment, even though we’re finding it so challenging. It’s awesome when we have those little moments where it starts to come together.

You’ve been immersed in the world of Carole King for a long time, but is there anything new about her, or about the songs, that’s jumped out at you in preparing for this show?
Probably the song ‘Tapestry’. I haven’t ever sung that song before – it wasn’t in Beautiful. We’ve been like, ‘What is this about?!’ I’ll offer the audience a beer if anyone can tell me what it’s about!

When you sing it, it makes you feel like you’re doing the anthem of some kind of musical theatre show. It’s quite dramatic. It’s kind of in a different world, even though it’s the title of the record. 

I guess that song has been intriguing me. I want to know more about it. I need to know more about it, obviously – I have to sing it!

Why do you think Carole King’s songs have endured, and stayed popular with the young and the not-so-young for so long? 
I think it comes back to the fact that she just captured these base human emotions, like love, and relationships, and the connection you have with other human beings … They’re not ever gonna not be a thing. I can’t imagine a world where those sentiments change. 

And once she had written them so perfectly, no one else could write those songs. It’s like: she’s taken it. So, instead of us having to figure out new ways to say things and get things across, she’s already done it. And that’s why you go back to it, because no one can do it again. No one can arrange the words. You’re like, ‘She nailed it. Good. That’s it.’

She was such a great composer, wasn’t she? It seems to be her melodies that make the songs come alive, because there’s an incredible musicality behind them.
And complexity, too, in a way that balances out these simple – well, seemingly simple – lyrics. Her songs sound easy … and then you go, ‘That is not easy.’ I certainly couldn’t write them! To nail it in such a simple way is probably the most challenging thing to do. I’m in awe.

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Carole King’s Tapestry 50th anniversary tour with Esther Hannaford tours Australia this April–May. Tickets on sale now: www.livenation.com.au

Read our upcoming feature on Carole King and Tapestry in Women In Pop issue 10, on sale June 2021