CARLY SIMON : LIVE AT GRAND CENTRAL

CARLY SIMON : LIVE AT GRAND CENTRAL

Touched By The Sun
Anticipation
I’ve Got To Have You
We Have No Secrets
Haven’t Got Time For The Pain
Jesse
That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be
Letters Never Sent
Legend In Your Own Time
De Bat (Fly In Me Face)
Davy
Halfway Around The World
Like A River
Coming Around Again
Let The River Run

Label : Arista

Venue : Grand Central Station, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Recording Date : April 2, 1995

Length : 64:52

Release Date : January 27, 2023

Review (PopMatters) : There’s a rumor that Carly Simon once recorded an entire album with the Band as her backup group. I’ve searched for a bootleg copy at record shows and through BitTorrent files to no avail. Perhaps the mystery record doesn’t really exist. But when the news came that a new release of a previously unissued Carly Simon record was coming out, many fans like myself presumed it would be Simon and the Band. Sadly, this one is not. Instead, MRI/Legacy has produced another historic Simon collection. Back in Apri1 1995, Simon and a set of talented players performed an unannounced concert in the middle of Grand Central Station. Simon was well-known for her stage fright. This was her first live show in 14 years. It was filmed and aired on the Lifetime network for a television special and released on VHS. MRI/Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, has digitized, converted to HD, and re-edited the video. Multi-Grammy award-winning producer and engineer Frank Filipetti remixed the audio. The concert will now be available on CD, vinyl, and digital streaming, along with a limited-edition colored vinyl version. Simon jokes with the surprised audience between songs. One can tell she is trying to be relaxed on stage, even when she self-consciously talks to herself as she improvises. Her voice never goes off-key when singing, but she doesn’t take many chances. Simon plays her familiar hits from the 1970s (“Jesse”, “Anticipation”, “That’s the Way I Always Heard it Should Be”, “Coming Around Again”) without doing much new with them. The acoustics of Grand Central limit the sonic quality of the recording. The studio versions of the songs sound better, although there are times (such as on “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain”) when she gets in a fresh groove. The crowd helps by clapping along and cheering, but there is an overall politeness to their response. The ice, so to speak, melts as time passes so that the second half of the show works better than the first half. Her group consistently keeps the energy flowing. Her backup players feature Teese Gohl / Mick Rossi on keyboards, Rick Marotta on drums, Doug Wimbush on bass, Peter Calo / Dirk Ziff on guitar, Peter Calo / Dirk Ziff on guitars, Mindy Jostyn on violin, Eric Bazilian on mandolin, and Marc Cohen / Jerry Barnes / Katreese Barnes on background vocals. They are a far cry from Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko, and Levon Helm. Then again, few bands are. There are no standout instrumental performances. This is Simon’s show. She wrote the songs she sings and owns them like a mother with her children. Speaking of which, the loveliest track is the tender ballad about her mother’s death, “Like a River”. Simon grew up in a very cultured and privileged New York City family. Instead of flaunting or bemoaning her advantages, she expresses the love she felt by detailing the little details of their intimate feminine circle that she, her sisters, and her mother shared. Presumably, the impetus for this release after more than 25 years was Simon’s recent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Her literate and confessional songwriting opened the door to a host of other artists to do the same, including recent artists such as Olivia Rodrigo and Sara Bareilles, who installed her in the Cleveland rock and roll institution. Simon truly is a gifted and talented artist. Whether this performance needed to be remastered and rereleased at this time, well… until that record with the Band ever gets released, it will have to do.

Review (Riff Magazine) : Carly Simon has had tremendous staying power in the music industry, with her successes and accolades spanning five decades, despite a shyness that sometimes made performing a difficult proposition for her. She’s hesitated to label her condition as stage fright, but she was famously one of the few artists allowed to pre-tape her “Saturday Night Live” appearance. Perhaps her anxiety was lessened by playing unannounced, as she did for a Lifetime TV special filmed at New York’s Grand Central Terminal in April 1995. With no advance hype, commuters were treated to Simon and a full band performing some of her biggest hits. Until recently, this special had been relegated to VHS tapes, but now it’s been digitized and re-edited for release on audio and Blu-ray. Grammy-winning producer and engineer Frank Filipetti obviously took great care with the remix of this performance. For a concert recorded in the cavernous Grand Central, it doesn’t sound muddy or echoey at all. The instruments are clean and distinct, with Simon’s vocals loud and clear at the top of the mix. The recording now sparkles and properly showcases her gorgeous contralto. Can an artist who’s just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame rightly be called underrated? Perhaps not, but Simon’s work is certainly due for the kind of renaissance Joni Mitchell’s has been having of late. And in that respect, this newly refurbished Grand Central concert has arrived right on time. The album, now featuring a reordered track list, opens with “Touched by the Sun,” which had just been released in 1994 on her Letters Never Sent album. Carly Simon shows off her incredible vocal control on this song about her friendship with Jackie Onassis. It was Onassis’ idea originally for Simon to perform at Grand Central, to warm up before what was at the time her first tour in 14 years. Simon proceeds to barrel through a nonstop slew of hits: “Anticipation,” “I’ve Got to Have You,” “We Have No Secrets,” “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain,” “Jesse” and her first big hit, “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be.” “We Have No Secrets” is a revelation, with its jazzy feel and Simon’s jaunty whistling. The track begins with Simon’s between-song banter as she responds to a request for “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” “Do you really think I’m capable of that?” Simon asks, before singing a few bars. She’s joking, of course, but Grand Central shows that Simon is capable of so much – from low growls to high notes to whistle solos. Simon often brings more emotion to these songs than she did on their original recordings. The country-flavored “Jesse” has far more yearning and desperation that it did on 1980’s Come Upstairs. There’s a funny moment during the intro to “De Bat (Fly In My Face)” in which Simon explains that the tune from Boys in the Trees (1978), which sounds like a traditional folk song, is based on a true story. One night, while carrying her sleeping child into the dark house, a bat “lost its radar” and flew right into her. As the tour was supporting Letters Never Sent, the song list leans heavily into that material and includes “Davy,” “Halfway Around the World” and the moving tribute to her mother, “Like a River.” “Coming Around Again,” one of the strongest songs in Simon’s large and varied repertoire, originally from the soundtrack of 1986 film “Heartburn,” sounds much bigger live, benefitting greatly from the drama of the additional instruments onstage and the strength of the background singers. The album now ends with “Let the River Run,” Simon’s gospel-tinged anthem from 1989 movie “Working Girl,” a rousing, spiritual ode to New York and its denizens. Carly Simon is a talented musician and a great communicator. Her songs have been popular throughout five consecutive decades because so many people connected so strongly with them. Fighting past her shyness to perform her songs did not always come easy for her, but when she’s on stage, she’s a dynamic presence, her voice suffused with personality. This new release of Live at Grand Central captures her command of the stage beautifully, and the remixing does it the justice it deserves.