Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American musician, singer-songwriter, memoirist, and children’s author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits
One of the most popular confessional singer/songwriters who emerged in the early 1970s, Simon has 24 Billboard Hot 100-charting singles and 28 Billboard Adult Contemporary charting singles.
Among her various accolades, she has won two Grammy Awards (from 14 nominations) and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for “You’re So Vain” in 2004. AllMusic called her “one of the quintessential singer-songwriters of the ’70s”.
She was honoured with the Boston Music Awards Lifetime Achievement in 1995 and received a Berklee College of Music Honorary Doctor of Music Degree in 1998. In 2005, Simon was nominated for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but she has yet to claim her star.
In 2012, she was honoured with the Founders Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. On November 5, 2022, Simon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Did Mick Jagger sing backup for Carly Simon?
Jagger contributed uncredited backing vocals to Simon’s 1972 hit “You’re So Vain.” In her 2015 memoir Boys in the Trees, Simon revealed that the two had actually recorded another song the same day as their “You’re So Vain” session. She elaborated on this memory in a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
“We sat down at the piano and I started playing these chords – Mick asked me how I knew them all,” Simon said.
“I played the chord sequence from the line [in ‘Vain’] that goes, ‘You gave away the things you loved,’ and he started singing. We had this little back and forth at the piano for about an hour.”
Simon even sang a line of the song from memory to her Rolling Stone interviewer: “Funny, funny, funny, funny, funny/ How love can make you cry.”
But she said she didn’t know what had become of the recording, saying “[Producer] Richard Perry has been looking for that tape for years. Someone from Warner Brothers must have it.”
Now that Lee has the tape, he tells the AP that he’s sent a digital copy of the song to Rolling Stone in the hopes they can pass it on to Simon. Apparently, Simon’s remembered line does match up with the song, with the exception that she and Jagger appear to be singing the word “change” rather than “cry.”