When Carly Simon signed to Jac Holzman’s Elektra Records, it was the beginning of a relationship built on trust and mutual admiration. Carly shared:
“Jac paired me with producer/engineer: Eddie Kramer, and we began exploring my songs, one of which was, – “That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be,” a song I had written earlier that year with Jake Brackman that expressed the deep inner feelings of women. By the time we had finished, Jac thought connecting to women with noble lyrics and honest identity was unusual as a first single, but a worthy risk. So different! – but this highly successful gamble ignited a career which had ups and downs, but all of its ups were while working with Jac during the first three of my years at Elektra. There was never more care given to me. Never more respect, and I can surely say, that I would never have become a performer had it not been for that first call from Jac after listening to my first little demo cassette with one song that was self-penned.”
For this celebration of their collaboration, Jac has curated a collection of tracks from Carly’s first three Elektra albums that he feels best represents their collaboration and the arc of their partnership. With memories from Jac and Carly edited by Ted Olson, this “scrapbook” collection explores the way that a young ingenue and successful label boss interacted to create sounds that defined the singer/songwriter movement that coincided with the feminism of the early 1970s.