Carly Simon

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 & 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."