| Carly
Simon was one of the most popular of
the confessional singer/songwriters who
emerged in the early '70s. The youngest
child in an upper-class New York family
(her father, Richard Simon, co-founded
the Simon and Schuster publishing
company), Simon got her start in music
as part of a duo with her sister Lucy
(who later wrote the music for the
Broadway show The Secret Garden). The
Simon Sisters had a chart single with "Winkin'
Blinkin' and Nod" in April 1964. But
Simon's solo debut did not come until
the release of her self-titled first
album in February 1971. It contained her
first solo hit, "That's the Way I've
Always Heard It Should Be," an
anti-marriage song co-written with Jacob
Brackman that reached the Top Ten.
Simon's second album, Anticipation
(November 1971) (which went gold in two
years), contained a Top 40 follow-up in
the title song, and she won the 1971
Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Her
third album, the gold number-one No
Secrets (November 1972), was produced by
Richard Perry and contained the gold
number-one hit "You're So Vain," which
aroused speculation about its subject.
Mick Jagger, one of those suggested,
sang backup on the recording. "The Right
Thing to Do," a second single from the
album, made the Top 40. Simon married
fellow singer/songwriter James Taylor in
November 1972. (They divorced in 1983.)
Her fourth album, the Top Ten Hotcakes
(January 1974), contained a gold Top Ten
remake of the Inez and Charlie Foxx hit
"Mockingbird" sung with Taylor and the
Top Ten hit "Haven't Got Time for the
Pain"; it became her third consecutive
gold LP. Playing Possum (April 1975),
containing the Top 40 hit "Attitude
Dancing," was another Top Ten LP.
Simon's sixth album, Another Passenger
(June 1976), was a relative commercial
disappointment. But in 1977, she sang
"Nobody Does It Better," the theme song
for the James Bond film The Spy Who
Loved Me, resulting in a gold Top Ten
hit. Her seventh album, Boys in the
Trees (April 1978), was a
million-selling success, buoyed by the
Top Ten hit "You Belong to Me" and a Top
40 duet cover of "Devoted to You" with
Taylor. Simon's eighth and ninth albums,
Spy (June 1979) and Come Upstairs (June
1980), were less successful, though the
latter contained the gold Top 40 hit
"Jesse."
In October 1980, Simon collapsed of
exhaustion on-stage, after which her
concert appearances became rare. Her
next album, Torch (September 1981), was
given over to pre- and non-rock covers.
In 1982, Simon scored a Top Ten U.K. hit
with "Why," a song produced by the disco
group Chic from the movie Soup for One.
In 1983, she returned to the U.K. Top 40
as the uncredited singer on the Will
Powers (Lynn Goldsmith) satire "Kissing
With Confidence." Simon's career in the
U.S. was in decline, however, as the
albums Hello Big Man (September 1983)
and Spoiled Girl (July 1985) were poor
sellers. She returned to the Top 40 in
1986 with another movie theme, "Coming
Around Again," from Heartburn (the
Coming Around Again LP [March 1987] went
platinum) and had yet another
movie-related hit with the Grammy- and
Oscar-winning "Let the River Run" from
the film Working Girl in 1988. In 1990,
Simon released both My Romance (March),
another album of pop covers, and Have
You Seen Me Lately? (September), an
album of original songs. She scored the
film This Is My Life in 1992. In 1993,
Simon's "family opera," Romulus Hunt,
premiered and was released on record.
1994 brought the release of a new album,
Letters Never Sent (November), and a
three-CD/cassette box set retrospective,
Clouds in My Coffee 1965-1995, appeared
in November 1995. Film Noir followed two
years later, and in the spring of 2000
Simon returned with her first record of
original material in six years, The
Bedroom Tapes. |
