Carly Simon
Stuff You Don't Know
About the 60s
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This excerpt is from the book "Follow the Music," the story of Elektra records as told by its founder, Jac Holzman.
| "It's terribly important that the song and the singer really match up, personna wise. If the singerand the song are really closely interwoven...then it's probably going to catch on." |
CARLY SIMON: I went up to the Gulf &Western Building-it was an
interesting building that swayed when you went to the top-for my first meeting
with Jac Holzman. Jac was very tall, with a leadership quality about him.
His conversation was letter perfect. He wouldn't waste a word. It was almost
as if you could read exactly what he was saying, in a letter. There's a
very organized thing about him. You have the feeling that all his desk drawers
are very neat and that every record and tape is catalogued. He was like
a machine in a lot of ways, yet he had a very fluent imaginative style.
He took a strong role in the beginning of my career, very hands-on. The
first thing was, he did not see me as a writer. Interestingly enough, Clive
Davis doesn't see me as a writer, either. Clive Davis said only a couple
of years ago that I was a singer, I wasn't really a writer. When I was inducted
into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, I think he stopped saying that. But Jac
at the beginning did not see me as a writer, either. And he said so.
He had heard my songs from the demo tape, and without hearing anything else he said, "I see you more as an interpretive singer," and "I'd like you to do songs of Tim Buckley," and he gave me various names of other people whose songs he wanted me to record-Tim Hardin, Paul Siebel, some Donovan songs. He played a lot of tunes for me.
I just went about my own business, writing my own songs. I think I was challenged by his saying that he didn't think I was a writer. Every time I wrote a song I would say, "What about this?" and he'd say, "Yes, that's good!" So he began to think of me in his own mind as a singer-songwriter, which I knew I already was, but he had to catch up with my vision. He simply had not heard what I could write, and that most of the material I sang of my own demonstrated a sincerity that was truer than when I interpreted the songs of others.
In my own mind I think I fashioned myself like a Carole King, because I wanted to be a writer more than anything else. I thought that maybe other artists would hear my songs and want to do them. People say, "Are you a singer first or a writer first?" Now I think I'm both first. And I don't always have to be the singer, I don't always have to be the writer. And within my writing, I don't always have to be the lyricist and I don't always have to be the composer. But then I didn't want to be an interpretive singer, because if I'd been an interpretive singer and made an album, I would have had to have gone out and promote it, and I didn't want to, because I was too scared of getting on the stage. I hated to get onstage. I hadn't discussed this with Jac. Or with Jerry Brandt. I almost hadn't discussed it with myself. It was more panic.
JAC HOLZMAN: Carly pulled together a fine group of songs, and now I had to select the right, the most appropriate, producer. I had a hunch about Eddie Kramer who had worked with Jimi Hendrix and who performed his magic at Electric Lady Studios, on 8th street in the Village, a studio, literally underground, that he helped design. Eddie was skilled at creating a rich, fat sound, each instrument or voice being heard with its proper weight, and for her first album Carly needed the strength of a real pro in the studio.
CARLY SIMON: Not all the songs had arrangements. A lot of them were head arrangements-just get in the studio with a bunch of people and figure it out. I would bring in other records. I was very big on James Taylor's sound at that point. I brought in 'Sweet Baby James' and said, "I want the drums to sound like Russ Kunkel on this track," or I would say I wanted a piano player that sounded like the piano player on Judy Collins's record. I gave input, but I didn't know too much about what I was doing. Eddie Kramer was producing, and he knew all the musicians. He had just done the Joe Cocker record, and I guess Jac thought he would be good for me.
JAC: The album was different from anything else I had been hearing and that buoyed me. The songs were sophisticated and openhearted, which is a rare combination. Some of the lyrics reminded me of Stephen Sondheim, with their keen sense of the crosscurrents of life and the human condition. Though Carly sang with a rock backing, her polished, well-bred voice was of a kind rarely heard in that context. Bill Harvey and I decided to give the album cover a soft, matte finish, a mark of substance and quality. The cover photo showed Carly wearing a lace dress with lace curtains behind her, sitting in a homey setting, legs gloriously akimbo, with a challenging look as if waiting for the world to finally pay attention to her.
CARLY SIMON: Jac was the one who picked 'That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be' for the single. It wasn't on the first demo tape. I had been asked to write the music for a TV documentary called "Who Killed Lake Erie?" a very early environmental documentary, and that became the melody for 'That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be.' Once I've got a melody in my head, I can't write words to it. For me, the words have to come first. So I had that melody for so long that I was blocked. I thought it would be fun to write some songs with Jake Brackman, so I gave it to him, and he came up with the lyrics. That's the first time that we ever collaborated. He was able to write from my point of view-that was what was so great about it. We didn't know that it was going to be the single. But Jac did. I think it's terribly important when you put a song out-I don't think a lot of people are aware of this-that the song and the singer really match up, persona-wise. Because every song has a character of its own, and if the singer and the song are really closely interwoven, closely enmeshed in personality and essence, then it's probably going to catch on. At least it's going to be true. And when Jac picked 'That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be'-that song was so much me. I can't really describe why. But Jac was able to see it. He was able to create a synthesis, or at least decide when it existed, and he was able to pick the songs that were most true to the artist. And so 'That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be' was a very smart choice, because it was introducing me to the public that wasn't aware of me, with a song that was unusual, that wasn't the typical single of the day. He took a chance on it.
"Follow the Music" is the must-read story of Elektra records, as told by its founder Jac Holzman and the artists and staff of one of America's legendary record companies. (441 pages, softcover, 140 illustrations) Order today from this site and from Amazon.com
Copyright 1998 by Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws. All rights reserved.