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King was born Carol Joan Klein on February 9, 1942, in Manhattan, New York City, to Jewish parents Eugenia, a teacher, and Sidney N. Klein, a firefighter. When King developed an insatiable curiosity about music from the time she was about three, her mother began teaching her basic piano skills, without giving her actual lessons. King's mother began giving her real music lessons when she was four. With her mother sitting beside her, King learned music theory and elementary piano technique, including how to read notation and execute proper note timing. In the 1950s, she went to James Madison High School. She formed a band called the Co-Sines, changed her name from Carol Klein to Carole King. King attended Queens College, where she met Gerry Goffin, who was to become her songwriting partner. When she was 17, they married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island in August 1959 after King became pregnant with her first daughter, Louise. They quit college and took day jobs, Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary. They wrote songs together in the evening.