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BORN: June 25, 1945, New York, NY
On the heels of her highly acclaimed Arista album
Letters Never Sent, Carly Simon, the internationally
renowned singer, composer and lyricist, is embarking
on a prestigious U.S. tour. Simon will perform alone
and together with Daryl Hall and John Oates, who
will join her on her much anticipated return to the
stage. The tour is a departure for the very private
Simon, who has taken a fourteen year hiatus from
life on the road. However, fans need not worry that
this break from live performance might have affected
Carly's stage presence. In April 1995, Carly
surprised thousands of commuters at New York's
historic Grand Central Station with an unannounced
performance which was filmed for a Lifetime
Television Special. The concert proves that Carly is
one of the premier singers of our time, blessed with
a natural voice that conveys the emotion inherent in
her songs.
The tour will feature material from the new album,
Letters Never Sent, a brilliant and deeply personal
collection of songs. "Letters is the most
personal album, in a sea of personal albums, I have
ever made," states Carly. "The songs
evolved from letters that I had squirreled away in
the top of my closet. You know, the kind of letters
you write in the heat of the moment, and then you
have second thoughts and decide to 'sleep on it'.
About a year ago, spring cleaning, I came upon such
a box of letters. Checking them out, I found myself
reliving a lot of thoughts and feelings and
attitudes which were the genesis of the songs: my
first love, a spiritual crisis, whimsy, rebellion,
confusion, sadness and loss. Blowing off the dust, I
massaged some of the letters into songs."
Between some of the ten cuts on the album are
interludes: snippets of letters, between full-blown
ones. These pieces give the whole album continuity,
gluing the letters together like pages in a book,
which is then bookended by a charming violin and
guitar theme.
The title track, backed by a funk-style groove laid
down by drummer Sammy Merendino and Living Colour
bassist Doug Wimbish, announces what the rest of the
album is all about and how the letters came about as
songs. " Some I crumpled, some I burned, some I
tore to shreds/lifetimes later, here they are, the
ones I saved instead." The song has a powerful
hook and the vocal is delivered with Simon's
characteristically sharp-edged warmth.
The highly emotional "Like A River" was
written and recorded soon after the death of Carly's
mother, Andrea Simon. Driven by Carly's signature
piano and acoustic guitar sound, "Like A
River" came easily and quickly and was the only
letter that was "current." "My
yearning to communicate with her was so
strong," says Carly, "it seemed to me that
she could really hear me. I had one of those
experiences that many people report after a loved
one has passed away, where you feel them around you
and even believe you see them."
The coda to "Like A River" comes from a
one-act opera for young people she composed as a
commission for the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the
John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC She was the
first popular artist to receive such a commission.
The opera album was released on Angel Records in the
fall of 1993. Carly is proud to be able to merge the
two styles and especially to present these
"great voices" in her music.
Carly's new single, "Touched by the Sun,"
is an anthemic, gutsy rock ballad about faith and
courage. Introduced by Ben Taylor's singing the
interlude, "Time Works On All TheWild Young
Men," the song was co-written by Ben and Carly.
This performance will stun many listeners who will
want to hear and know more about the eighteen year
old son of Carly and James Taylor. His voice also
appears in the body of the song, joining Marc Cohn
on back-up vocals. "It's a song, originally a
letter, to a great friend of mine who was unlike
anyone I have ever known in the role model
department. From this friend, I am inspired to jump
through the hoop, to go through my fear, to do what
I have to do, say what needs to be said, in spite of
it." Her breakthrough video for "Touched
by the Sun" is played frequently on VH-1.
The well crafted narratives on Letters Never Sent
owe a lot to Carly's literary talents; she is an
author of children's books and an Oscar winning film
score composer. Her first movie song was
"Nobody Does It Better," sung for the 1977
James Bond hit "The Spy Who Loved Me." It
was eight years later that Mike Nichols asked her to
write the score for the movie "Heartburn"
and from that soundtrack came the hit single
"Coming Around Again." Following that, in
1989 she wrote and performed "Let the River
Run" for "Working Girl" which won her
not only the Oscar, but the Golden Globe and Grammy
as well. In 1991 she scored "Postcards From The
Edge" and in 1992 she wrote the soundtrack for
Nora Ephron's "This Is My Life" which
spawned the song "You're the Love of My
Life," one of Carly's best love songs.
Carly has written four books for children, including
"Amy the Dancing Bear," "The Boy Of
tThe Bells," "Fisherman's Song," and
"The Nighttime Chauffeur." Besides working
on her own projects, Carly sang with Frank Sinatra
on Duets 1, with Larry Adler on his album of
Gershwin songs, entitled "Glory Of
Gershwin", and performed two different versions
of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" for Ken
Burns' "Baseball." Along with her opera,
"Romulus Hunt," all these outings
demonstrate Carly's ability to feel at home in a
variety of musical climates. Letters Never Sent
brings many of them together.
This album is produced by Carly with Frank
Filipetti, who engineered as well. In addition,
several cuts had guest producers, including Teese
Gohl on the title track, Paul Samwell-Smith on
"Half-Way 'Round The World" and Danny
Korchmar on "The Reason." Planned for the
fall of 1995 is the Arista release of a special
boxed set of Carly's much loved hits, never before
released songs and "special suprises." The
impressive package is sure to be a "must
have" this holiday season.
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