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Carly Simon

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Carly Simon
Carly Simon at the 1989 Academy Awards
Background information
OriginRiverdale, New York, USA
Years active1970–present

Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1945 in New York City) is an American musician who emerged as one of the leading lights of the early 1970s singer-songwriter boom.

Biography

Family

Simon's father was Richard L. Simon (co-founder of Simon & Schuster, Inc.), an accomplished pianist who often played Chopin and Beethoven at home. Her mother was Andrea Louise (Heinemann) Simon, a civil rights activist and singer. Carly was raised in the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City and has two older sisters, Joanna (b. 1940) and Lucy (b. 1943), and a younger brother, Peter (b. 1947).

Simon married fellow singer-songwriter James Taylor on November 3, 1972. Simon and Taylor had two children, Sarah Maria "Sally" (born on January 7, 1974) and Benjamin Simon "Ben" Taylor (born on January 22, 1977), prior to their 1983 divorce. She has been married to James Hart, a writer, poet and businessman, since December 23, 1987.

Early career

After a short-lived attempt at launching a career with her sister Lucy as "The Simon Sisters" (they had a minor hit in 1964 called "Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod" and made 3 albums together before Lucy left to get married and start a family), Carly hooked up with eclectic New York rockers Elephant's Memory for about 6 months. She also appeared in the 1971 Milos Forman movie Taking Off where she plays an auditioning singer. Simon sang the song "Long Term Physical Effects" which was included in Taking Off, the 1971 soundtrack for the movie. Simon launched her solo career in 1971 with the self-titled Carly Simon for Elektra Records. The album contained a top-ten hit, "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be", and was followed quickly by a second album, Anticipation, the title cut from which also scored airplay. Simon's major breakthrough, though, was 1972's No Secrets. The album spawned several successful singles, including Simon's biggest hit, "You're So Vain". (See that article for the enduring mystery of who the song is about.) In 1973 Simon performed on Lee Clayton's album Lee Clayton co-singing on the song "New York Suite 409" and on Livingston Taylor's album Over The Rainbow singing with both Livingston and James Taylor on the songs "Loving Be My New Horizon" and "Pretty Woman".

Simon followed up the success of No Secrets with the well-received albums Hotcakes (1974) and Playing Possum (1975). In 1974 she also performed on Tom Rush's album Ladies Love Outlaws. Simon co-sang with Rush on the song "No Regrets" and sang backup on "Claim On Me". In 1975 Elektra also released her first greatest-hits album The Best of Carly Simon. Her sales began moderating, though in the later 1970s she would have hits with "Nobody Does It Better" (from the 1977soundtrack to the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me; at #2, her second-biggest US hit after "You're So Vain").

On May 8, 1976, Simon made her only appearance on Saturday Night Live. It was a taped, not live, appearance during which she sang two songs: "Half A Chance" and "You're So Vain". 1976 also saw Simon contribute backup vocals on the song "Peter" on Peter Ivers's album Peter Ivers. 1977 also saw Simon co-producing Libby Titus's album Libby Titus as well as singing backup on two songs, "Can This Be Our Love Affair" and "Darkness 'Til Dawn". In 1978 Simon came out with her album Boys in the Trees from which came a top ten hit "You Belong to Me". Also in 1978, Simon and James Taylor sang backup vocals on two songs for then sister-in-law Kate Taylor's album Kate Taylor: "Happy Birthday Sweet Darling" and "Jason & Ida". She and Taylor also sang backup on three songs on John Hall's debut solo album John Hall, "The Fault", "Good Enough" and "Voyagers". Hall is from the group Orleans. Simon and Taylor would also sing backup on one song, "Power", from Hall's next album, also titled Power (1979). On November 2, 1978 Simon was the guest vocalist on the song "I Live In The Woods" at a live, four-hour concert by Burt Bacharach and the Houston Symphony Orchestra at Jones Hall in Houston, Texas. All the songs at that concert became Bacharach's album Woman, which was released in 1979. That year, shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, from September 19 to September 22, a series of concerts were held at New York's Madison Square Garden sponsored by MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy), a group of musicians against nuclear power. Simon and James Taylor were part of the concerts which later became a film documentary as well as a soundtrack called No Nukes. Also in 1979, Simon finished the decade with her last album for Elektra called Spy.

From 1972 to 1979 Simon sang backup vocals on the following James Taylor songs and albums (not counting any greatest hits or compilations): "One Man Parade" from 1972's One Man Dog, "Rock 'n' Roll Is Music Now", "Let It All Fall Down", Me and My Guitar", "Daddy's Baby" and "Ain't No Song" from 1974's Walking Man, "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" from 1975's Gorilla, "Shower the People", "A Junkie's Lament", "Slow Burning Love" and "Family Man" from 1976's In the Pocket, and "B.S.U.R." from 1979's Flag. She also co-wrote with Taylor the song "Terra Nova" on his 1977 album JT. At the end of the song, Simon sings what has come to be known as "Lambert's Cove".

1980s

In 1980, Simon signed with Warner Brothers Records. During a show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania while touring to promote her album, Come Upstairs, Simon collapsed onstage of exhaustion; she largely retired from performing in the 1980s. She had a top 20 hit with the single, "Jesse", from that album. Simon also contributed the song "Be With Me" to the 1980 album In Harmony A Sesame Street Record produced by her sister Lucy and Lucy's husband, David Levine. Simon can also be heard on the song "In Harmony" along with other members of the Simon/Taylor families. Carly and Lucy contributed a "Simon Sisters" song called "Maryanne" to the 1982 follow-up album In Harmony 2, also produced by Lucy and her husband. Both albums won the Grammy for Best Album for Children.

Torch (1981) was an album of melancholy standards reflecting her mood at the time. "Why" (1982), from the soundtrack to the 1982 movie Soup For One, was a hit single in the UK (but stalled at #74 in the US). She had another minor UK success with the single "Kissing With Confidence", a song off the 1983 album Dancing For Mental Health by Will Powers (actually Lynn Goldsmith). Simon was the uncredited singer of the song on the album. Still, few of her singles in the 1980s rose in the pop charts, although some did better among adult contemporary audiences. In 1983 she made her last album for Warner — Hello Big Man. That same year Simon performed on two albums, The Perfect Stranger by Jesse Colin Young (co-singing on the song "Fight For It" with Young) and Wonderland by Nils Lofgren (co-singing on the song "Lonesome Ranger" with Lofgren). By this time her sales were dropping and Warner cut her loose. She was picked up by Epic Records in 1985 and made only one album for them — Spoiled Girl. Because of its lacklustre sales, Epic dropped her.

During this time Simon successfully contributed to several film scores, including the songs "If It Wasn't Love" for Nothing In Common (1986), "Two Looking At One" for The Karate Kid, Part II (1986), "Coming Around Again" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider" for Heartburn (1987), and "Let the River Run" for Working Girl (for which she won the Academy Award for Best Song in 1988). The Working Girl soundtrack came out in 1989. In 1987 Simon signed with Arista Records. Her first album for them, Coming Around Again (1987), was her strongest during this decade, as exemplified by the songs, "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of", "Give Me All Night", "All I Want Is You" and the title track, "Coming Around Again" which wove in and out of the children's song "Itsy Bitsy Spider". These and older songs were featured in a picturesque HBO special set on Martha's Vineyard. Most of these songs were compiled for her 1988 album — Greatest Hits Live, her second greatest hits album. She also wrote the theme songs to several movies, including "Something More" for the 1982 movie Love Child, "Someone Waits For You" for the 1984 movie Swing Shift, "All The Love In The World" for the 1985 TV movie Torchlight as well as "It's Hard To Be Tender" for the 1986 TV miniseries Sins and "Love Of My Life" for 1992's This Is My Life. In 1987, Simon sang "The Turn Of The Tide" for a Marlo Thomas TV special called "Free to Be . . . A Family". The song was later included on the 1988 album Free To Be . . . A Family. In 1989 Simon's first of several children's books, "Amy the Dancing Bear" was published.

She also wrote a song called "You're Where I Go" as a tribute to Christa McAuliffe, who was supposed to be the first teacher in space, before she died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, when the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff with McAuliffe on board on January 28, 1986. McAuliffe was a Simon fan, and had taken a cassette of her music on board the shuttle.

1990s

In 1990 Simon came out with two albums: her second standards album, My Romance and Have You Seen Me Lately, her first album of original songs since 1987. Her second children's book, "The Boy of the Bells" was also published in 1990 and she wrote the score for the 1990 film Postcards From The Edge. In 1991, Simon wrote her third children's book, "The Fisherman's Song" based on the song of the same name from her 1990 album "Have You Seen Me Lately". That same year, Simon performed a duet with Plácido Domingo on the song "The Last Night Of The World" (from the Miss Saigon musical) on Domingo's album The Broadway I Love. A year later Simon was asked to write the music for the Nora Ephron film "This Is My Life". The soundtrack was released at the same time as the movie. 1993 was a busy year for Simon. She contributed the song "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" for the film Sleepless In Seattle. That year she also recorded the same song, "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning", in combo with "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry" with Frank Sinatra for his album Duets.

1993 also saw Simon recording a contemporary opera called Romulus Hunt, having been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera Association and the Kennedy Center, as well as the publishing of her fourth children's book, "The Nighttime Chauffeur". She also contributed to Andreas Vollenweider's album Eolian Minstrel. Simon co-wrote the song "Private Fires" with Vollenweider and was the featured vocalist on the song.

1994 brought a cover of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" for Ken Burns' 1994 film Baseball as well as a recording of "I've Got a Crush On You" for Larry Adler's covers album The Glory of Gershwin. That same year Simon recorded another album of original songs, Letters Never Sent and contributed a Christmas song, "The Night Before Christmas" to the movie and soundtrack Mixed Nuts. In April, 1995, Simon surprised thousands of commuters at New York's Grand Central Station with an unannounced performance which was filmed for a Lifetime Television Special. It was also released on VHS in December of that year. Also in 1995 she put aside years of stage fright long enough to stage an American concert tour in conjunction with Hall and Oates. That same year Clouds In My Coffee, a box set of her work from 1965 to 1995, was released. On August 30, 1995, Simon made a rare joint appearance with her ex-husband James Taylor for a concert on Martha's Vineyard dubbed "Livestock '95", a benefit for the Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society. Over 10,000 fans attended. She also performed a duet with Mindy Jostyn on the song "Time, Be On My Side" on Jostyn's 1995 album Five Miles From Hope.

Simon wrote the theme songs to several movies, including "Two Little Sisters" from the 1996 movie Marvin's Room and "In Two Straight Lines" from the 1998 movie Madeline. 1997 saw the release of Simon's third standards album, Film Noir, as well as her fifth children's book, "Midnight Farm". In 1998, Simon was diagnosed with breast cancer and received chemotherapy. In 1999 The Very Best Of Carly Simon: Nobody Does It Better, her third greatest hits album, was released in the United Kingdom first and eventually in the USA. That year Simon also was the featured vocalist for the song "Your Silver Key" on the album Cosmopoly by Andreas Vollenweider.

2000s

In 2000 she recorded The Bedroom Tapes, her first album since her illness and her first album of original songs in almost six years. In 2001, Simon performed on "Son of a Gun" with Janet Jackson on Jackson's album All For You. She also contributed back-up vocals on two songs, "Don't Turn Away" and "East Of Eden", for Mindy Jostyn's 2001 album Blue Stories. In November of 2001, "Let the River Run" was used in a public service ad for the United States Postal Service. Entitled "Pride", it was produced to boost public confidence and postal worker morale in the wake of the September 11, 2001 bombings and the 2001 Anthrax attacks. As the song played, images of postal workers were shown, as overlay text reminded viewers of the unofficial United States Postal Service creed and history.

In 2002, Simon recorded a Christmas album, Christmas Is Almost Here, for Rhino Records while in Los Angeles lending support to her son, Ben Taylor, and his band. That same year, Simon personally chose all the songs for a two disc anthology album titled Anthology, also for Rhino Records. 2003 saw a re-release of her 2002 Christmas album but with two extra tracks and called Christmas Is Almost Here Again, also on Rhino Records. The two extra tracks, "White Christmas" and "Forgive" were also released as a single. Simon also performed several concerts during the 2004 Holiday Season at Harlem's famous Apollo Theatre along with BeBe Winans, Simon's son Ben and daughter Sally, Rob Thomas, Livingston Taylor, Mindy Jostyn, and Kate Taylor along with other members of the Taylor and Simon family. The show was directed by Randy Johnson and produced by Kerri Brusca

Among Simon's recent work were songs for the Disney Winnie the Pooh films Piglet's Big Movie in 2003 and Pooh's Heffalump Movie in 2005. Several of her songs were also prominently featured in the 2004 movie Little Black Book starring Brittany Murphy and Holly Hunter. Simon appears in a cameo role as herself at the end of the movie. 2004 also saw the release of her fourth greatest hits album, Reflections: Carly Simon's Greatest Hits, which eventually peaked at number 22 on the Billboard charts that year.

In 2005 she released another album of standards, her fourth, titled Moonlight Serenade. Moonlight Serenade debuted at number 7 on the Billboard charts, her highest debut since Hotcakes in 1973. To promote Moonlight Serenade, Simon performed two concerts onboard the Queen Mary II which were recorded and released on DVD on November 22, 2005. She also performed in a concert tour in the United States, her first tour in 10 years. Simon also sang a duet, "Angel Of The Darkest Night", with Mindy Jostyn on Jostyn's 2005 album Coming Home which was released several months after Jostyn's death on March 10, 2005. Besides being one of Simon's closest friends, Jostyn was married to Jacob Brackman, Simon's long-time friend and musical collaborator. Also in 2005, she became involved in the legal defense of fellow musician and family friend John Forté with his struggle against a federal incarceration.

As of May 2006, she was recording a new album of "soothing songs and lullabies" for Columbia Records. That album, to be called Into White features covers of Cat Stevens, Judy Garland, The Beatles and the Everly Brothers as well as two new songs. Originally scheduled to be released in late October 2006, the release date has been delayed to January 2, 2007.

Simon is also the featured vocalist on four songs on Andreas Vollenweider's holiday album Midnight Clear, released on October 24, 2006: "Midnight Clear", "Suspended Note", "Hymn to the Secret Heart" and "Forgive". "Forgive" is a song Simon wrote for her own holiday album from 2003, Christmas Is Almost Here Again.

Simon currently lives on Martha's Vineyard and co-owns a store in Vineyard Haven named Midnight Farm, which is also the title of one of the series of children's books she wrote in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards:

Academy Award:

Golden Globe Awards:

Other awards:

Discography

Albums

Singles

  • April 1964: "Winkin, Blinkin' And Nod" (as The Simon Sisters) — US Pop #73
  • April 1971: "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" — US Pop #11/AC #6
  • December 1971: "Anticipation" — US Pop #13/AC #3
  • March 1972: "Legend In Your Own Time" — US Pop #50/AC #11
  • December 1972: "You're So Vain" — US Pop #1 (3 weeks)/AC #1 (2 weeks) <GOLD>; UK #3
  • March 1973: "The Right Thing To Do" — US Pop #17/AC #4; UK #17
  • February 1974: "Mockingbird" (with James Taylor) — US Pop #5/AC #10 <GOLD>; UK #34
  • May 1974: "Haven't Got Time For The Pain" — US Pop #14/AC #2
  • May 1975: "Attitude Dancing" — US Pop #21/AC #18
  • July 1975: "Waterfall" — US Pop #78/AC #21
  • October 1975: "More And More" — US Pop #94
  • June 1976: "It Keeps You Runnin'" — US Pop #46/AC #27
  • July 1977: "Nobody Does It Better" — US Pop #2/AC #1 (7 weeks) <GOLD>; UK #7
  • April 1978: "You Belong To Me" — US Pop #6/AC #4
  • August 1978: "Devoted To You" (with James Taylor) — US Pop #36/AC #2/Country #33
  • June 1979: "Vengeance" — US Pop #48
  • September 1979: "Spy" — US AC #34
  • August 1980: "Jesse" — US Pop #11/AC #8 <GOLD>
  • July 1982: "Why" — US Pop #74; UK #10
  • August 1983: "Kissing With Confidence" (as Will Powers) — UK #17
  • September 1983: "You Know What To Do" — US Pop #83/AC #36
  • June 1985: "Tired Of Being Blonde" — US Pop #70/AC #34
  • November 1986: "Coming Around Again" — US Pop #18/AC #5; UK #12
  • May 1987: "Give Me All Night" — US Pop #61/AC #5; UK #98
  • August 1987: "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" — US AC #8; UK #99
  • November 1987: "All I Want Is You" — US Pop #54/AC #7
  • February 1989: "Let The River Run" — US Pop #49/AC #11; UK #79
  • June 1989: "Why" (re-release) — UK #56
  • October 1990: "Better Not Tell Her" — US AC #4
  • March 1991: "Holding Me Tonight" — US AC #36
  • May 1991: "You're So Vain" (re-release) — UK #41
  • April 1992: "Love Of My Life" — US AC #16
  • November 2001: guest appearance on Janet Jackson's "Son Of A Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)", sampling "You're So Vain" and also featuring Missy Elliott and P. Diddy — US Pop #28; UK #13
  • December 2005: "Let It Snow"; US AC #6

Videography

  • Live from Martha's Vineyard, 1987
  • Carly in Concert — My Romance, 1990
  • Live at Grand Central, 1995
  • A Moonlight Serenade on the Queen Mary 2, 2005

Bibliography

  • Amy the Dancing Bear, 1989
  • The Boy of the Bells, 1990
  • The Fisherman's Song, 1991
  • The Nighttime Chauffeur, 1993
  • Midnight Farm, 1997

Trivia

  • Simon is one of the artists mentioned in the lyrics of Reunion's 1974 song "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)".
  • Simon can be heard as the voice of "Maria" in a 1995 episode of Frasier entitled "Roz in the Doghouse".
  • Simon appeared in a 1989 episode of thirtysomething as herself.
  • In an effort to make Simon more comfortable while performing, an entire 1988 episode of Late Night With David Letterman was broadcast from a hotel room at the Milford Plaza in New York.
  • During the 1990s the New York press reported on a supposed incident between Simon and the Pretenders' lead singer, Chrissie Hynde, at a Joni Mitchell concert at New York's Fez Club. The verbal confrontation between the two led to Simon's exit from the concert after a noisy Hynde insulted Simon. Some reports have Hynde grabbing Simon around the neck and punching her although a publicist for Hynde has said that Hynde was just hugging Simon.[citation needed]
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