Gerry Goffin, who collaborated with Carole King to write some of the biggest hits of the 1960s, songs that endured through generations and became classics, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75.

Together they composed a catalog of pop standards so diverse and irresistible that they were recorded by performers as unalike as the Drifters, Steve Lawrence, Aretha Franklin and the Beatles. They were inducted together into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2004 the Recording Academy presented them jointly with a Trustees Award for lifetime achievement.