Carly Simon – Carly Simon (1971)
Apparently Carly released three albums in the mid-sixties with her sister, though as far as I know they are unavailable and nobody really rates them anyway. This is her first and very accomplished album. Born to a wealthy Jewish father and a Catholic civil rights activist mother, whose own mother was a slave descendent from Cuba she had a complicated heritage and was raised as a Catholic. At age eight she developed a stammer, maybe brought on by a sexual encounter with a teenage boy; to help with this she was encouraged to sing – and soon started writing her own songs and learning to play piano, she was also partly dyslexic. Signed to Elektra in 1970 she began work on this debut. It was an instant success, ‘That’s The Way I Always Thought It Should Be’ was the lead off single and was a top ten record. Her voice is both strong and gentle and seems to reflect the meaning and emotion of the words incredibly well. She went on to have several hit albums and songs well into the current century. She of course was also married to James Taylor for over a decade. One of the great singer-songwriters, though her first three albums are by far her best. On this debut I also like ‘The Best Thing’ and ‘Dan, My Fling’. An excellent debut only diminished by the two Masterpieces which followed closely behind.
