Well Friends and Countrymen,
Don't lend me your ears unless you need some more agonizing accounting. We have Obama and that is all that counts right now. How happy I am. What a great moment. How proud Martin Luther King would be. How proud my mother, Andrea Simon would be and so many millions of others.
I am up on the Vineyard, about to go to NY to see John Forte for the first time since he's been a free man. Another thing to be more than happy about. I must say that my friend Orrin Hatch (an otherwise amazing fact to process) was the one who helped me the most. He was convinced John should spend no more time there. That he had more than served his sentence. He spoke to President Bush himself, on John's behalf. He was brave and if you ever have the time to do it, write him a letter and let him know that he did a very good thing by getting interested in the case.
I'm also recording a song for an album for the Stuttering Foundation that I am a part of in NY. A song that a young girl wrote and recorded. She sings it like an angel. So much better than I could ever hope to sing it. She's about thirteen or fourteen and the stutter that she has allows her to communicate
through the medium of singing. I know most of you know that this is what I also went through as a child, a teenager and to a lesser degree, now. I'm joining a group at Berkelee School Of Music in Boston which heals through music. It is not just stuttering. In fact, stuttering is a small part of it. We go to hospitals and sing for babies who are going through chemo therapy and for the elderly who have Alzheimer's, and for the isolated and the indigent and on and on. I am lending my name and my time to this and am very excited about it.
A few years ago, Sally and I went to a rehab for head injury patients outside of Boston and sang for a small group of about thirty patients. It was heartbreaking and powerful and I had a very hard time getting through a song (that is a general problem I have!!!). I cried and cried and tried to keep it together. When Sally and I left and got back into our car, we hugged for a long time and then decided that in some way it was paradise. I don't know why that word came to both of us independently. There was something un-wordly about it and it made us crushed and spiritual and different and I have never
gotten over it. One of the girls has gotten better (though her brother sadly died) and has come to some of my concerts in a wheel chair and with a great deal of physical problems. But I get birthday and Christmas cards from her every year. It means so much to me.
I am also working on my album which is a bizarre re-working of my old songs (some hits, some not) with Ben and David and Larry and Peter. It's largely acoustic, though I recorded That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be to a loop on my keyboard (the only one I could find that seemed to fit). Jimmy Parr and I played the melody on top of it's keyboard, acoustic guitar sound and I sang over it and made up a string part. It's haunting. It will be for sale on Iris Records (Ben and Larry's company) as well as on this site and through itunes and I imagine other sites too. It will come out early this summer. I'm doing my vocal exercises in the car.
It's low budget and like an indie movie. I hope you will like it. I'm also doing some songs that weren't hits (like Three Days from Anticipation) and a new song Ben, David and I wrote called There's Just No Freedom. I started it and wrote the lyrics when Jim and I were down in the Caribbean and I was fraught with worry about my career and understood that of course freedom is not about where you are in any way. In fact, sometimes it's worse when you are in a beautiful place, because you expect more peace of mind. Other songs include: You Belong To Me which has a completely different vibe and I'm hoping to put John Forte on the track in NY, also Anticipation which has a much different meaning to me now. Never Been Gone is being done with almost a church-like feel, You're So Vain the way we did it in the live show, except with the piano/bass lick added. Coming Around Again, a very peaceful beautiful version of Let The River Run, and others (I'll save some secrets). We did some of the recording of the tracks this summer up here on the island. Frank flew up for the dearness of his soul to get some more points. It was a mess because wires were everywhere and they went up and down steps and no one could walk anywhere. Thank God it was summer and the outside was plenty gorgeous. This time I'm going to do the vocals at Jimmy Parr's and then hopefully Frank will mix it. So it will be the whole gang of the nearest and dearest. (except Mindy Joystyn who I miss every day).
I'm not letting go of the Starbucks record (This Kind Of Love). The head of Starbucks will not stop me (maybe for a little while) from releasing that record again. I love so much of it and took so much love from the process and though Starcon expected me to do all the publicity in spite of their going out of the record business three days before This Kind Of Love came out (and I was kept in the dark), the record remains a good and strong one and I'm used to this shark like behavior from record execs. No news there.
But I only want to think good thoughts. So I'll tell you that this is going to be our year. It's going to be the year that Obama has come to help heal and the music that comes out this year is going to reflect that. I hope you all are well. I'll send a few photos. I'm not sure which yet. Going to look through my little file.
Much love, Carly
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