We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago….
It’s a bit ironic that on an album called “No Secrets” there should be a secret that Carly Simon kept for decades.
Of course, that would be the identity of the self-absorbed “hero’ of the song ‘You’re So Vain”. She has admitted in recent years that, at least some of the verses in the song are about Warren Beatty. So lets just agree that it may be about a amalgamation of different lovers in Carly’s checkered past.
The song is solid musically, if not lyrically and includes some excellent background vocal work from an uncredited Mick Jagger.
The album came out soon after Simon started her long marraige with James Taylor and obviously, some of the songs (“The Right Thing To Do”, “We Have No Secrets”) are about that relationship.
The rest of the songs are kind of hit or miss although I like “Waited So Long’ and the countrified “It Was So Easy”. She also covers Taylor’s “Night Owl”.
The musicians on the record read like a who’s who of early 70’s music. Nickey Hopkins, Bill Payne, Lowell George, Klaus Voorman, Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner, Ray Cooper, Bobby Keys and on and on…with vocal support from Jagger, Bonnie Bramlett, Taylor and even Paul & Linda McCartney.
The LP is produced by Richard Perry and enigneered by Robin Cable and it’s a clean and tight production that puts Simon’s voice front and center for better and worse.
For my money Joni does these sort of personal tunes better…your tastes may differ.
