More Room in a Broken Heart: The True Adventures of Carly Simon (56 page)

In January 2011, Carly signed a half-million-dollar music publishing deal with the Bertelsmann Music Group. She accepted an award from Our Time, a charitable foundation dedicated to those who stutter and stammer. (The recent film
The King’s Speech
had brought massive attention to this malady.) On March 2, she saw on the news that President Obama had bestowed a National Medal of Arts on James Taylor at a White House ceremony. The next month James, now sixty-three, played four sold-out nights at Carnegie Hall. (James at the White House: “I always felt like such an outsider. There’s
an element of alienation in my approach. I wonder when all this stuff is going to sink in.”) That summer, Ben Taylor opened shows on his father’s annual tour.

Carly toyed with making another album of standards with Richard Perry, trying to capture the large audience that
Moonlight Serenade
had attracted. One day, Warren Beatty called her, seemingly out of the blue, and urged her to make this record with Perry. Carly told her old friend Warren that, like always, she was keeping her options open.

Summer 2011. Carly sang with the Boston Pops at a benefit for the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. She sang at a birthday party for Bill Clinton on the Vineyard. At another venue, she appeared onstage with Ben Taylor and John Forté. She collaborated with playwright Ernest Thompson on a new song, “The Father-Daughter Dance,” for a revival of
On Golden Pond
in New Hampshire.
The Boston Globe
sent a reporter to the Vineyard to interview her. Carly explained that in general she was feeling better but was still prone to depression, due to some hormonal losses after her bout with cancer. Asked if she still thought about retiring, she answered: “I want to make the most of my time. I’m into writing poetry now, and piano concertos. My weakness is my tendency for laziness. But I’m determined to remain a body in motion. I want to rev it up!”

The reporter remarked that Carly’s voice still sounded very strong, and asked her secret.

“Letting love come into my life,” she replied. “Feeling love makes me feel like I want to shine.”

As of this writing in 2012, Carly Simon hasn’t retired. She’s still moving between her homes in New York and Martha’s Vineyard; still nurturing friends and family; still carrying a major torch; still worrying about the state of the world; and still creating when her faithful muse visits her, in the wee small hours of the morning.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the Simon family for decades of inspiration (and fun). Thanks also to the Davis family, for the same. Christopher B. Davis contributed research and maintained editorial standards. Everyone who was interviewed is a gem. Thanks to the great journalists who covered the Carly Simon story in the past. To my colleagues at Gotham Books in New York, I’m sorry this took so long, but like many things, it was too much fun to stop. Special thanks to editors Lauren Marino and Cara Bedick, plus publisher Bill Shinker. Cheers to David Vigliano and John Pelosi, Esq. As mentioned in the introduction, this biography is unauthorized. Thanks to Carly for her help.
Bonum quo antiquius eo melius.

—
STEPHEN DAVIS