Carly Simon, The #45 Artist of the Seventies*

Carly went to Riverdale Country School in New York City, and went to Sarah Lawrence College briefly before leaving to pursue a career in music.

Carly and sister Lucy performed as the Simon Sisters, and had a minor 1964 hit called "Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod".  The Sisters also released three albums before Lucy left to start a family.  Carly joined the rock group Elephant's Memory for about six months before she left for a solo career.

In 1970, Simon signed a recording contract with Elektra Records.  She appeared in the movie Taking Off in 1971, recording a song for the soundtrack album.  In 1971, Carly released her self-titled album, which contained the single "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be".  She was fortunate enough to score a #10 hit with her first release, a song that also hit #6 on the Adult chart.

 

 

 

 

 

Simon captured the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and she was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocalist for "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be".  She followed that up with the album Anticipation later in the year.  The title song reached #3 on the Adult chart and was #13 overall in the U.S.; it peaked at #9 in Canada.  Carly says she wrote it in about 15 minutes while she waited for Cat Stevens to pick her up on a date.  The song became more famous, perhaps, in the marketing of Heinz ketchup.

 

 

 

 

Simon earned her first Gold record for the album, and earned another Grammy nomination for Best Pop Female Vocalist.  The following year, Carly recorded the album No Secrets.  The single "You're So Vain" became her signature song, going to #1 for three weeks on the Popular chart and also #1 on the Adult chart in the United States, #1 in Canada, #3 in Ireland, and #4 in the U.K.  Both the single and album sold over one million copies in the United States alone. 

 

 

 

 

 

"You're So Vain" led No Secrets to #1 on the Album chart for five weeks, and Carly received Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.  "The Right Thing To Do" was the follow-up, and it hit #4 Adult and #17 overall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1974, Simon released another solid album, Hotcakes, with reached #3 and went Gold.  The single "Mockingbird" was a duet with then-husband James Taylor that soared to #3 in Canada and #5 in the U.S.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carly had another single in the chute--"Haven't Got Time For The Pain" reached #5 in Canada, and was a #2 Adult smash that peaked at #14 overall in the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1975, Simon released her compilation album The Best of Carly Simon, which has now gone over the three-million mark in sales in the U.S. alone.  Her next studio release was Playing Possum, another Top Ten album that yielded the single "Attitude Dancing".  It peaked at #21.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The album Another Passenger in 1976 failed to live up to expectations.  The following year, though, Carly was back singing the theme song to the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me.  The single "Nobody Does It Better" became another of her biggest career hits--#1 in Ireland, #2 in the U.S. and Canada, and #7 in the U.K.  The song became one of the biggest Adult songs of the decade, remaining at #1 for seven weeks.

"Nobody Does It Better" was nominated for Grammy Awards for both Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

 

 

Simon's 1978 album Boys in the Trees gave her another big hit, "You Belong To Me", which made it to #4 on the Adult Contemporary chart and #6 overall in the United States and #5 in Canada.  The album went Platinum, and Carly was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocalist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simon and James Taylor sang backing vocals for James's sister Kate Taylor and John Hall, and, after the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, performed at concerts which later became the movie No Nukes.  Simon & Taylor sang another duet, a cover of "Devoted To You", which landed at #2 on the Adult chart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1979, Simon released the album Spy.  The cut "Vengeance" received airplay on AOR stations and earned Carly a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

Carly was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994, and her smash "You're So Vain" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004.  In 1995, Simon received the Boston Music Awards Lifetime Achievement, and three years later, she received an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree from the prestigious Berklee College of Music.  Simon received the ASCAP Founders Award in 2012.

Simon scored 15 hits in the decade, with five Top 10's and a #1 song.  She sold six million albums in the Seventies.