Carly Simon

From Free net encyclopedia

{{Infobox_band | band_name = Carly Simon | image = Image:Carlysimon moonlightserenade.jpg | caption = Carly Simon's 2005 CD, Moonlight Serenade | years_active = 1970 to present | origin = Riverdale, New York, USA | music_genre = Pop, Rock, Pop Standards | record_label = Elektra Records, Sony Records, Warner Bros Records, Epic Records, Arista Records, Rhino Records, and Columbia Records.}}


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.

Contents

[edit]

Biography

[edit]

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 Simon, a civil rights activist and singer. Carly was raised in the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City and has two older sisters, Joanna and Lucy, and a younger brother, Peter.

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.

[edit]

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. Carly sings 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).

Simon followed up the success of No Secrets with the well-received albums Hotcakes (1974) and Playing Possum (1975). 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 soundtrack to the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me; at #2, her second-biggest US hit after "You're So Vain") and "You Belong to Me" (from Boys in the Trees, 1978). 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 Burt's album - Woman - 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 Madison Square Garden in NYC 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.

Image:Carlysimon comingaroundagain.jpg

[edit]

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. Carly also contibuted 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. Carly 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. 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 lackluster 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, "Two Looking At One" for The Karate Kid, Part II, "Coming Around Again" for Heartburn, and "Let the River Run" for Working Girl (for which she won the Academy Award for Best Song in 1988). 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 Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of", and the title track, 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.

[edit]

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". 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. In 1993 Simon 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". 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. 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. She 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.

[edit]

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. 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. 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. Her songs were also prominently featured in the 2004 movie Little Black Book starring Brittany Murphy and Holly Hunter. 2004 also saw the release of her third 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 announced a concert tour in the United States, her first tour in 10 years. 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.

In November 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 and 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.

Carly 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.

[edit]

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards:

Academy Award:

Golden Globe Awards:

Other awards:

[edit]

Discography

[edit]

Albums

[edit]

Top-20 hit singles

[edit]

Bibliography

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

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)".

[edit]

External links

fr:Carly Simon nl:Carly Simon simple:Carly Simon sv:Carly Simon

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Carly_Simon"