Simon, Carly, 1945-

Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records including "Anticipation," "The Right Thing to Do," "Haven't Got Time for the Pain," "You Belong to Me," "Coming Around Again," "You're So Vain," "Mockingbird" (a duet with James Taylor), "Nobody Does It Better," (from the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me), and "Jesse."

Sources give conflicting dates for Simon's birth, either June 25, 1943 or 1945. She was born in New York City to Richard Leo Simon (co-founder of the Simon & Schuster publishing house and classical pianist) and Andrea Heinemann (a civil rights activist and singer). Simon grew up in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx attending the Riverdale Country School and then Sarah Lawrence College from which she dropped out to pursue a career in music.

Simon's mucial career began with her sister Lucy as the Simon Sisters. They signed with Knapp records and made their television debut on Hootenanny on April 27, 1963. The Simon Sisters put out three records and Carly Simon also collaborated with Elephant's Memory before going solo.

Simon signed with Elektra Records in 1970, releasing a self-titled album on February 9, 1971. Her breakthrough hit "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," earned her a Grammy nomination and the award for Best New Artist. Simon's second album, Anticpiation, was released in November 1971 and the lead single "Anticipation" was written in 15 minutes while Simon waited for Cat Stevens to pick her up for a date. Simon's biggest musical success came with "You're So Vain," which was the No. 1 single on the U.S. Pop and Adult Contemporary charts and sold over a million copies in the USA. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004 and on August 23, 2014 the UK Official Charts Company named it "ultimate song of the 1970s." In 1979 Simon released her last album with Elektra, titled Spy. From 1972-1979, she sang backup vocals on various songs and studio albums by James Taylor, her first husband.

In 1980, Simon signed with Warner Bros. Records and released her ninth studio album, Come Upstairs. She released another 3 albums with Warner Bros. Records before signing with Epic Records in 1985 and releasing her 13th album, Spoiled Girl. In 1986, she signed with Arista Records and her career rebounded with the 1987 album Coming Around Again. Throughout the 1980s Simon contributed to film and televsion scores.

In the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, Simon collaborated with various artists in addition to her solo singing and songwriting. She performed a duet with Plácido Domingo on the song "The Last Night of the World" (from the stage musical Miss Saigon) on Domingo's album The Broadway I Love. She recorded "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" in combination with "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" with Frank Sinatra for his album Duets (1993). In 1995, she performed with Hall & Oates on a US concert tour. That same year she made a reappearance with her ex-husband James Taylor and performed a duet with Mindy Jostyn on "Time, Be on My Side". In 1999, Simon worked again with Andreas Vollenweider, and was the featured vocalist for the song "Your Silver Key" on Vollenweider's album Cosmopoly. She collaborated with Janet Jackson on "Son of a Gun" on Jackson's album All for You (2001). She performed two concerts during the 2004 holiday season at Harlem's Apollo Theater, along with BeBe Winans, Rob Thomas, son Ben and daughter Sally, Livingston Taylor, Mindy Jostyn and Kate Taylor, along with other members of the Taylor and Simon family. In 2007, Simon released her fifth album of covers, Into White, featuring covers of songs by Cat Stevens, the Beatles, Judy Garland, and the Everly Brothers as well as vocal collaborations with her children, Ben and Sally. In 2012, Simon contributed the track "Just Like a Woman" to the Bob Dylan tribute album Chimes of Freedom. On July 27, 2013, in Foxborough, Massachusetts, Simon performed "You're So Vain" with Taylor Swift on her Red Tour. On October 30, 2013, Simon performed alongside Natasha Bedingfield at the Oceana Partners Award Gala in Los Angeles.

Simon is the first artist to win all three major awards (Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy) for a song that is composed and written, as well as performed, entirely by a single artist (the only other such artist being Bruce Springsteen for "Streets of Philadelphia", from the 1993 film Philadelphia.) In 1994, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1995, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Hall of Fame Award from the Boston Music Awards. On April 18, 2012, Simon was honored with the Founders Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. On May 4, 2022, Simon was announced as one of the seven artists in the performer category being inducted, set to take place on November 5, 2022.

In addition to her musical career, Simon has authored five children’s books and two memoirs. The children’s books are Amy the Dancing Bear (1989), The Boy of the Bells (1990), The Fisherman’s Song (1991), The Nighttime Chauffeur (1993), and Midnight Farm (1997). On November 24, 2015, Simon published Boys in the Trees: A Memoir, an autobiographical book focusing on her childhood and her early life, from age five until the year 1983. On October 22, 2019, Simon released a second memoir titled Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie, which recounts her friendship with former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

In the 1960s, Simon was briefly engaged to William Donaldson. She married fellow singer-songwriter James Taylor on November 3, 1972. They had two children, Sarah “Sally” Maria Taylor (b. January 7, 1974) and Benjamin “Ben” Simon Taylor (b. January 22, 1977). Simon and Taylor divorced in 1983. Simon was engaged to musician Russ Kunkel from 1985 to 1986. Simon married James Hart (a writer, poet, and businessman) on December 23, 1987; the couple divorced in 2007. Simon was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 1997, and underwent surgery, as well as chemotherapy. In May 2010, Simon revealed she had been one of the several celebrities who fell victim to financial advisor Kenneth I. Starr, whose Ponzi scheme lured her into "investing" millions of dollars with him, which she lost. Simon was reported to have been dating Richard Koehler (a surgeon) in 2008 and living together in Martha’s Vineyard in 2015.