Toni Stern, Who Wrote Songs With Carole King, Dies at 79

Toni Stern, a breezy young Californian who became a trusted lyricist for Carole King, providing the words for the enduring standard “It’s Too Late” and many other songs during Ms. King’s flowering as a chart-topping solo artist, died on Jan. 17 at her home in Santa Ynez, Calif., near Santa Barbara. She was 79.

Her husband and only immediate survivor, Jerry Rounds, confirmed the death. He did not specify the cause.

Ms. Stern, a Los Angeles native, was an aspiring painter and poet living in Laurel Canyon, an enclave popular with the Los Angeles rock elite, in the late 1960s. It was there that she met Ms. King, who had moved west from New Jersey after a painful breakup with her husband and songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, with whom she had formed one of the decade’s powerhouse hit-making duos.

The two hit it off immediately. “When I moved to California in 1968, she was the epitome of a free-spirited Laurel Canyon woman,” Ms. King wrote in a Facebook post after Ms. Stern’s death. “She lived in a hillside house with her dog, Arf, surrounded by books, record albums, plants and macramé.”

The two would soon share songwriting credits. When Ms. King stepped into the limelight as a solo performer, Ms. Stern provided lyrics to the songs “What Have You Got to Lose” and “Raspberry Jam” on her first solo album, “Writer,” released in 1970.

Their partnership continued on the follow-up, “Tapestry” (1971), a pop music colossus that topped the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks and went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time. Ms. Stern provided the words for “It’s Too Late,” which was No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart for five weeks, and “Where You Lead.”