Rhino Factoids: When Carly Met James
44 years ago today, two of the most famous singer-songwriters of the '70s met for the first time, an encounter which would lead to marriage, divorce, and - between those two bookends - not only a pair of kids but also a pair of hit singles together.
It wasn't exactly what you'd call a “Mrs. Robinson” type situation, but Carly Elisabeth Simon was three years older than James Vernon Taylor when the two met for the first time at one of Simon's concerts…and as they are thankfully still both alive and well, she remains three years older. Neither was in any way, shape or form an unknown commodity: he'd just been on the cover of TIME Magazine, and she'd just released her self-titled debut album, which featured the top-10 hit “That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be.” Funnily enough, it was a song which found Simon waxing poetic with lyrics about how marriage can really kind of suck. (Not that you should read anything into the fact that she and Taylor eventually divorced, because that sort of thing could - and does - happen to anyone.)
Taylor's status as a magazine cover star was, as it happens, directly responsible for Simon's initial interest in her future husband. In a 2014 interview with TIME, she revealed, “I was walking down the street with my sister, we had just crammed Indian food into our mouths. And were walking home, and I looked at the cover of TIME Magazine and it was James Taylor, whom I'd never met. And I looked at him from fairly far away, and I said to my sister, 'I'm gonna marry that man.'”
And so she did.
Simon and Taylor remained a couple for more than a decade, dating each other for a year before marrying in Manhattan in 1972 and remaining bound together at least legally until 1983, when their divorce was finalized. During that period, however, they had two hit singles together - “Mockingbird,” released in 1974, and “Devoted to You,” released in '78 - and also had two kids together, Ben and Sally, both of whom have become musical artists in their own right…not that that should surprise anyone, given their genetic background.
To celebrate this momentous date, we've put together a playlist which starts with “Mockingbird,” ends with “Devoted to You,” and features a center filled with the singles Simon and Taylor released during the course of their relationship. The marriage may not have lasted for the long haul, but the music they created during that period remains timeless.
