Happy 40th Anniversary to Carly Simon’s tenth studio album Torch, originally released September 29, 1981.
Excusing her intriguing (if commercially diminutive) turn as one-half of The Simon Sisters from 1964 to 1969, Carly Simon appeared to significantly broader notice in 1971 with her self-titled debut on Elektra Records. Not only did Carly Simon house an era defining smash (“That’s the Way I Always Should Be”), the album brought her critical favor in the form of two GRAMMY Award nominations in 1972: she won Best New Artist.
Over the next eight years, Simon accrued more acclaim and accolades. In 1980, she departed the Elektra fold for Warner Bros. Records—the first effort to come from this union was Come Upstairs. Her ninth long player, soused in bold new wave and power pop, was another entry in a far-reaching experimental span of projects launched with her fifth outing, Playing Possum (1975). However, the production wasn’t the only enthralling aspect of Come Upstairs. The songwriting Simon imparted was just as magnetic in exploring the marital tumult between her and fellow musician James Taylor.
The relationship was seemingly spun from the stuff of dreams—but in their ninth year as a couple their untethering was no longer something they could keep out of public view. Simon and Taylor separated just as she was reconvening with writer-producer Mike Mainieri to lay the groundwork for the follow-up to their collaboration on Come Upstairs.
Despite the upheaval on the home front, Simon remained focused—she and Mainieri’s conversations veered toward the Great American Songbook, a collection of pop and jazz staples from as early as the 1920s to as late as the 1950s. Yet the 1980s were only a year into developing a sonic identity separate from the previous decade, discussions about material from the pre-rock era were taken as an anachronistic faux pas by many.
Still, Simon was undeterred as the stock from this bygone epoch was to serve as the catalyst for her tenth studio album, Torch. During a 1981 interview while on the promotional beat for the record, Simon remarked about the initial compositions that stirred her imagination for Torch, explaining, “It was going to be an album of songs that were of that particular period; which is a period of songwriting occurring primarily around the Broadway plays of the ‘40s and ‘50s and the motion pictures as well.”
But the music Simon was seeking comfort in due to her present-day heartache wasn’t of the stardusted variety; she drew selections from the mercurial corners of the Great American Songbook where ruminations on grown-up love dwelled. And while there had been a few occasional covers strewn across previous sets, Torch was the first Carly Simon album where the bulk of it would not come from the lady herself.
It was a daring move given the limited commercial traction of the two records that preceded Torch. Escalating concerns from the decision makers at Warner Bros. further was their assumption that this direction was “too period.” However, the label acquiesced and gave Simon space to pursue this venture unobstructed. She and Mainieri wasted no time getting to work.
Simon curated pieces from some of the finest tunesmiths ever to put pen to paper: Hoagy Carmichael (“I Get Along Without You Very Well”), Alec Wilder (“I’ll Be Around”), Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (“Spring is Here”) and Duke Ellington and P.F. Webster (“I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good”).
Others like Stephen Sondheim (“Not a Day Goes By”) and Nicholas Holmes (“Blue of Blue,” “What Shall We Do with the Child?”) were (then) current scribes undoubtedly influenced by the tradition of the Great American Songbook. These lyricists—the complete roster can be found in the liners for Torch—highlight Simon’s exquisite tastes. Returning to Sondheim and Holmes, the inclusion of their work was particularly unique.
“Not a Day Goes By” featured handsomely in Sondheim’s stage musical Merrily We Roll Along; prior to its Broadway rollout in November of 1981, the composer-writer met with Simon. The two spoke about each of their forthcoming enterprises—intrigued by what Simon was attempting to do with Torch, he granted her rare access to “Not a Day Goes By.” This made Simon the first recording artist to cut the track prior to its theatre debut.
Having been introduced to Simon by Mainieri, Holmes gifted her with “Blue of Blue” and “What Shall We Do with the Child?” Likely drawn to the pair because of a perceived autobiographical sensibility, Simon requested to adjust their respective scripts ever so slightly to bring them closer to her own living story. Holmes gladly agreed to her request.
It’s plausible that her partial lyrical rework on “Blue of Blue” and “What Shall We Do with the Child” inspired Simon to provide at least one original entry for Torch with “From the Heart.” It was another unexpected choice from Simon with the record being a covers affair. Pulled from the trenches of her and Taylor’s fast-deteriorating relationship, “From the Heart” has Simon at the absolute height of her powers in transferring her experience into song, “One of us slipped last night and said “Darling” / There in the middle of the night, between dream and sleep / Did you say it or did I, I don't know / But it interrupted the war / That’s the way these cold wars are / “I love you,” we said or one of us did / And the other agreed, from the heart…”
Every vocal performance on Torch is shot through with a genuine longing and wisdom gained from sorrow—the color and texture of her rich contralto is in peak form throughout the LP but resonates best on “I’ll Be Around” and “Pretty Strange.” Given the infinite number of vocalists who have visited with these chestnuts before and after her, it speaks to Simon’s prowess as an interpreter that she made them her own so deftly.
As for the sonic backdrops on Torch, Mainieri outdoes himself as a producer. He spins a palpable atmosphere by utilizing only the finest session players to render the lush, but restrained orchestration that fuels the entirety of the record. Two of its strongest arrangements manifest via “Body and Soul” and “Hurt.” In 2017, I elaborated on Mainieri’s approach in my book Record Redux: Carly Simon, “Mainieri’s production is minimalist: the drums, strings, horns and cautious use of the synthesizer (on “I Get Along Without You Very Well”) are exacted with caring precision. Comparing it to the new wave froth of Come Upstairs, Torch feels almost avant-garde.”
Bearing an evocative image of a distressed Simon (per photographer Lynn Goldsmith) pulling on the arm of a suitor with his back turned to the viewer—it was soon-to-be friend and Dynasty heartthrob Al Corley—Torch entered retailers nationwide in September 1981.
Torch racked up rave reviews, but the promotional machine that Warner Bros. had readily at their disposal did little to market it. Only two singles (“Hurt” and “I Get Along Without You Very Well”) were elected to represent the record, neither impacted and Torch receded.
In a crushingly ironic turn of events, three women whom many considered peers to Simon—Linda Ronstadt, Barbra Streisand and Natalie Cole—were about to enjoy chart triumph with their own standards-oriented cover sets over the next several years: What’s New (1983), The Broadway Album (1985) and Unforgettable...with Love (1991). Ronstadt went further and put forward two additional albums in this vein in 1984 (Lush Life) and 1986 (For Sentimental Reasons). By the midpoint of the 1990s, the Great American Songbook, once seen as a respected relic but with no contemporaneous sway, was now an assured source of capital for artists and labels alike.
If Simon was stung by this swift industry change, she played it cool. She tendered Hello Big Man (1983) for Warner Bros. before disembarking for Epic Records; Simon’s stay there yielded Spoiled Girl (1985) to mixed reception. She then inked a deal with Arista Records in 1986 that not only kicked off her second longest imprint tenure post-Elektra, but also helped her score a bona fide bestseller with her thirteenth outing, Coming Around Again (1987).
Interspersed between accomplished rafts of her own output, Simon returned to standards three more times with My Romance (1990), Film Noir (1997) and Moonlight Serenade (2005). Each of these efforts continued to showcase her exceptional knowledge of the medium, but Moonlight Serenade struck the commercial chord; some pundits opined that Simon had fallen prey to saccharine nostalgia over meaningful innovation.
A closer examination of her vocal deliveries on Moonlight Serenade signposted something deeper beneath its supposedly conventional surface. In the LP’s sleeve notes, Simon was direct about her authority over and affinity with the Great American Songbook, “Maybe I’ve earned the right to do these songs, maybe I haven’t. Let time be the judge. I have always sung standards: from the time I was a little girl mooning, as most of us were, over Frank Sinatra’s great classic renditions.”
Unlike others who would plunder that repository searching for a quick remedy to artistic stagnation or profit, Simon’s enduring connection to this music from the past came out of how it continually impacted her present moment: personally and creatively.
Torch was not only a ravishing installment in the wider arc of imaginative recordings Simon generated from 1975 to 1983, but also the first in an eventual superlative sequence of cover albums. Four decades parted from its unveiling, Torch is an apt demonstration of Simon’s interpretive skills that are equal to her recognized abilities as a writer and a musician.
Read more about Quentin Harrison’s perspective on Carly Simon in his book Record Redux: Carly Simon, available physically and digitally now. Other entries currently available in his ‘Record Redux Series’ include Donna Summer, Madonna and Kylie Minogue. His forthcoming book is a large-scale overhaul of his first book Record Redux: Spice Girls due out September 30, 2021.
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