Read Online More Room in a Broken Heart: The True Adventures of Carly Simon by Stephen Davis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen Davis
Ads: Link
female baritone voice, Odetta sang an almost operatic mix of blues songs, southern ballads, and old spirituals with the moral authority of an African American priestess. By 1958 she was a favorite in the Greenwich Village coffeehouses andfolk clubs, and would soon be opening for superstar Harry Belafonte, and then headlining on the lucrative college concert circuit along with the Kingston Trio. (Bob Dylan later wrote that Odetta inspired him, in 1958, to switch from rock and roll to folk music.) Carly studied Odetta’s 1957 album,
At the Gate of Horn,
and realized that her own deep singing voice matched Odetta’s almost perfectly. This was a major inspiration, and Carly spent many nights sitting on her bed, the door closed, singing along to her idol’s hypnotic recordings. Andrea Simon said later that she used to eavesdrop outside Carly’s bedroom, tearful with joy as Carly sang along to Odetta’s records—in perfect harmony. (Carly’s high school yearbook for her senior year described her as “Riverdale’s answer to Odetta.”)
Carly: “I remember, in those days, Lucy sitting on her bed with her guitar. She had a turntable on her bureau with an LP playing. It might’ve been Pete Seeger. It might have been Harry Belafonte. She was trying to imitate what the sounds were. She taught me the C-chord and the other two chords she knew—she was excited to share them with me—and then we switched the guitar back and forth… until I was finally on the subway down to Manny’s on 48th Street, with thirty five dollars, to buy a guitar of my own. We were young and malleable, and willing to get our fingers calloused and dirty.”
Carly loved the way she and Lucy sounded when they sang together. She thought there was something ineffable in Lucy’s sweet soprano voice, a pitch and a sound that she described as “Scottish”—an ethereal presence that perfectly balanced the deeper tones of her own contralto. Carly had always loved to sing with her sisters, especially the three-part choir arrangements for standards such as “Ave Maria” that Joey was bringing home from her college’s music library. But there was
something
about the way she and Lucy sounded, alone, that moved Carly deeply. “The sheer
excitement
when we blended our voices—it just thrilled me,” Carly said later on.
In 1959, Carly began taking guitar lessons at the Manhattan School of Music. She was also one of the best singers in her school,and a soloist in the chorus of the musical that Riverdale put on every spring. That year, it was George and Ira Gershwin’s 1930
Girl Crazy
, featuring “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You.” Soon she began dating the show’s male lead, senior Tim Ratner, a tall and handsome high school hero type. One day Carly brought Tim over to the house and casually showed him the photo portrait of George Gershwin—inscribed to her parents—in its silver frame in the Simons’ living room. (When Andrea Simon got a load of this new boyfriend, and the gleam in Carly’s eye, was probably when she hauled her daughter to the doctor for that diaphragm.) Soon Tim and Carly were
the
campus sweethearts of ’59, two star-quality kids strolling hand in hand, evidently in love with each other. They sang show tunes, sang doo-wop, Danny and the Juniors, the Contours, “Get a Job.” Late at night, on “study dates,” they locked themselves in the Simons’ book-stuffed attic and stayed up until two in the morning, snuggling, listening to Frank Sinatra mournfully croon “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.”
Having fallen in love at sixteen, Carly found that her stammer had almost disappeared.
In the summer of 1959, Tim often visited Carly in Stamford. He saw the whole scene: the increasingly dysfunctional father, the highly organized (but preoccupied) mother, the glorious older sisters, the funny twelve-year-old kid brother who published a mimeographed family newsletter, the
Quaker Muffet Press
. It seemed to Tim that
At the Gate of Horn,
and realized that her own deep singing voice matched Odetta’s almost perfectly. This was a major inspiration, and Carly spent many nights sitting on her bed, the door closed, singing along to her idol’s hypnotic recordings. Andrea Simon said later that she used to eavesdrop outside Carly’s bedroom, tearful with joy as Carly sang along to Odetta’s records—in perfect harmony. (Carly’s high school yearbook for her senior year described her as “Riverdale’s answer to Odetta.”)
Carly: “I remember, in those days, Lucy sitting on her bed with her guitar. She had a turntable on her bureau with an LP playing. It might’ve been Pete Seeger. It might have been Harry Belafonte. She was trying to imitate what the sounds were. She taught me the C-chord and the other two chords she knew—she was excited to share them with me—and then we switched the guitar back and forth… until I was finally on the subway down to Manny’s on 48th Street, with thirty five dollars, to buy a guitar of my own. We were young and malleable, and willing to get our fingers calloused and dirty.”
Carly loved the way she and Lucy sounded when they sang together. She thought there was something ineffable in Lucy’s sweet soprano voice, a pitch and a sound that she described as “Scottish”—an ethereal presence that perfectly balanced the deeper tones of her own contralto. Carly had always loved to sing with her sisters, especially the three-part choir arrangements for standards such as “Ave Maria” that Joey was bringing home from her college’s music library. But there was
something
about the way she and Lucy sounded, alone, that moved Carly deeply. “The sheer
excitement
when we blended our voices—it just thrilled me,” Carly said later on.
In 1959, Carly began taking guitar lessons at the Manhattan School of Music. She was also one of the best singers in her school,and a soloist in the chorus of the musical that Riverdale put on every spring. That year, it was George and Ira Gershwin’s 1930
Girl Crazy
, featuring “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You.” Soon she began dating the show’s male lead, senior Tim Ratner, a tall and handsome high school hero type. One day Carly brought Tim over to the house and casually showed him the photo portrait of George Gershwin—inscribed to her parents—in its silver frame in the Simons’ living room. (When Andrea Simon got a load of this new boyfriend, and the gleam in Carly’s eye, was probably when she hauled her daughter to the doctor for that diaphragm.) Soon Tim and Carly were
the
campus sweethearts of ’59, two star-quality kids strolling hand in hand, evidently in love with each other. They sang show tunes, sang doo-wop, Danny and the Juniors, the Contours, “Get a Job.” Late at night, on “study dates,” they locked themselves in the Simons’ book-stuffed attic and stayed up until two in the morning, snuggling, listening to Frank Sinatra mournfully croon “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.”
Having fallen in love at sixteen, Carly found that her stammer had almost disappeared.
In the summer of 1959, Tim often visited Carly in Stamford. He saw the whole scene: the increasingly dysfunctional father, the highly organized (but preoccupied) mother, the glorious older sisters, the funny twelve-year-old kid brother who published a mimeographed family newsletter, the
Quaker Muffet Press
. It seemed to Tim that
Similar Books
