Into White

Performer: Carly Simon
Engineer: Jimmy Parr
Producer: Carly Simon
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel: Carly Simon (background vocals); Peter Calo (guitar, dobro); Jan Hyer (cello); Teese Gohl (strings, flute, piano, keyboards, bass synthesizer, kalimba); Jimmy Parr (background vocals). Although ostensibly an album of standards for children, Carly Simon's INTO WHITE is designed to be at least as inviting for adult listeners. Featuring musical direction from Simon's son Ben Taylor, who co-wrote the tune "I'll Just Remember You" and sings harmony vocals with his sister Sally Taylor (their dad James Taylor is represented by a warm version of his lullaby "You Can Close Your Eyes"), INTO WHITE touches on folk, jazz, and country alongside Simon's standard soft rock. There's even a bossa nova tune, Antonio Carlos Jobim's classic "Manha de Carnaval." Along with these, the Cat Stevens-penned title track, Paul McCartney's "Blackbird," and other pop hits are transformed into quiet, delicate re-arrangements that focus on Simon's fine vocals. Listening to Into White, it's difficult to find a place where it begins and ends. Unlike 2005's Moonlight Serenade, or her many other standards records, this is a set that doesn't feel like one. For starters, Carly Simon has come full circle. There is no symphony orchestra here, none of the schmaltz and syrup that have plagued almost every one of her recordings since 1997's Film Noir (2000's Bedroom Tapes was an exception). This does not mean that the album is void of sentimentality. How can anyone record Stephen Foster's "Oh Susanna" or Jimmie Davis' "You Are My Sunshine" or the eternal lullaby "I Gave My Love a Cherry" without it? For starters, there is the song selection. But these songs are woven into a strange, multi-colored, intimate fabric with Lennon and McCartney's "Blackbird," and the title cut (written and performed so wonderfully by Cat Stevens on 1970s Tea for the Tillerman; it need never be done again). Simon is backed by a close-knit studio band of friends and family, from co-producer and engineer (and often duet and backing vocalist) Jim Parr, her children Ben and Sally Taylor (with James Taylor; they perform gorgeously on Taylor's "You Can Close Your Eyes"), keyboardist Teese Gohl, and others. This sense of intimacy is both a good and bad thing. Eternal songs such as Foster's or "Jamaica Farewell" deserve to be treated as both classics and prime material for experimentation, where original interpretation is a must if the song is to be pulled off. Simon fails on both of these. Her reading of "Manha de Carnival," the haunting and beautiful theme from the film Black Orpheus (written by the late guitarist Luiz Bonf�), fares much better because Simon is able to reach into her lower register and float the tune's rhythm. Her treatments of both "Scarborough Fair" and Yip Harberg and Harold Arlen's "Somewhere over the Rainbow" add to each song's immortality. The reason for this is a life-long fascination with the material that has no doubt been tried in many contexts before. There is a new version of Simon's "Love of My Life" from the film This Is My Life. It takes on new depth and dimension here. The album's closer "I'll Just Remember You," co-written by son Ben, could have been written in the '40s. Its pronounced melody and subtle atmospheric backdrop lend itself to the stuff of great balladry. In sum, Into White may be the best record Simon's made since the Bedroom Tapes, and it takes a place in her catalog alongside Torch and Boys in the Trees, though it is very different in feel and texture from either. ~ Thom Jurek

Dirty Linen (p.80) - "Overall, the disc has echoes of Simon's guitar-based singer/songwriter style, but with a more mature atmosphere and attitude."

One of the best and most popular confessional songwriters of the '70s, Carly Simon combined pop sensibilities with a folk background for a series of smash hits. During her tumultuous marriage to James Taylor, the pair scored big with a duet cover of Inez & Charlie Foxx's "Mockingbird." Simon has since branched out successfully into singing standards and providing songs for soundtracks.

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