One of popular music's most esteemed vocalists and songwriters, Carly Simon delivers the highly anticipated This Kind of Love, her first album of all-original music in eight years and her debut recording for Hear Music. On the label she joins an equally elite roster of artists, including Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. Co-produced by Simon, Frank Filipetti, and Jimmy Webb, who also wrote or co-wrote most of the arrangements. The CD-intimate, sexy, impassioned, joyful-features 10 new songs written or co-written by the leader, one song each from her children, Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor, and a samba by Webb.

Inspired by and subtly infused with the rhythms of Brazilian music, This Kind of Love explores a wide swath of emotion-romance, reflection, melancholy, anger and humor. It's at once one of Simon's most personal albums as well as one of her most stylistically diverse outings, with songs that include the gently swaying, samba-washed title track, the gorgeously melodic "In My Dreams," the r&b-styled "So Many People to Love" and the percussively funky "People Say A Lot"-a song that traverses expansive musical territory, including an orchestral interlude that leads to a snippet of dialogue from the classic 1950 film All About Eve, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and George Sanders.

After two well-received albums of standards this decade (2005's Moonlight Serenade with classic tunes and 2006's lullaby-oriented Into White with new standards in the mix), Simon was eager to return to singing her own compositions rather than be viewed as an artist slotted into the "heritage" category. "I was working on plenty of new songs during this period," she says. "I had a huge collection of bits and pieces of songs when I was approached by Hear Music. The label requested originals, so I was thrilled."

In the liner notes to This Kind of Love, Simon reflects on the rich array of music in her house when she was growing up, noting that "there was always a celebration of Brazilian music in our music bin...[with] recordings by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa, Maria Toledo and Laurindo Almeida." She also writes that discovering the beauty and melodic longing of the classic 1959 film Black Orpheus and its Jobim-Bonfa score was a life-changing experience that made her realize "that music could evoke passion and tragedy more than painting or dancing or any other form of art."

However, Simon notes, it wasn't until her recent discovery of modern-day Brazilian artists such as Caetano Veloso and Jorge Ben that "you don't have to be singing bossa nova or samba to get the essence [of Brazilian music]. There are songs that fit no one rhythm or generic type or song progression. There is such variation and view to the ears and emotions of the listener, and it is all there."

Simon says that Veloso and Ben were instrumental in giving her a focus to This Kind of Love. "I was so turned on by Caetano's and Ben's remarkable songwriting," she says. Then she laughs and says, "So much so that I even lifted some of Caetano's ideas for the arrangements of a couple of my songs." Case in point: the synth line she plays on the upbeat "How Can You Ever Forget," which she copped from Veloso.

While Simon was thinking along Brazilian lines in preparation for this album, out of the blue, she says, Webb called her and suggested going in that same direction. "I'm not sure he realized the synchronicity of our golden idea," Simon writes in the liner notes, "but I was flattered that he did." She previously worked with Webb on Film Noir, her 1997 album of standards that he produced and co-arranged with her. On the same project she also worked with Filipetti who mixed and mastered the album. He serves in the same role on This Kind of Love. "Frank's input in making this album was invaluable," Simon says.

This Kind of Love features a core band of guitarists Peter Calo and David Saw, bassist Lincoln Goines, drummer Robbie Ameen, and percussionists Cyro Baptista and Ricky Marotta, all of whom, Simon says, formed "the groove from which we could make up songs...departing from a traditional Brazilian rhythm." Webb contributes on bass, piano and synthesizer, and Teese Gohl orchestrates most of the tracks. Special guests include Ben Taylor on guitar, Aaron Heick on saxophone, alto flute and English horn, Steve Gadd on drums and William Galison on harmonica. On selected tunes, Simon plays guitar, keyboards, bass and percussion. The album was recorded at Legacy Recording Studios in New York, with some parts recorded in Simon's kitchen on Martha's Vineyard and one track, "So Many People," produced by Wade Robson, in Los Angeles at his WaJeRo Sound Studios.

On the CD, Simon sings about her children on two of the tracks (the finger-snapped "Hold Out Your Heart" and the skipping "They Just Want You to Be There") as well as pays homage to her close friend, the humorist columnist Art Buchwald, who passed in January 2007, with the march-like waltz "Too Soon to Say Goodbye." Also included on the album are the spirited "Hola Soleil," a spontaneously created speedy samba cooked up on the spot in Simon's kitchen by the band, and the lyrical gem, "Sangre Dolce," which tells the true, tragic story of a young mother from Buenos Aires living in New York City.

Simon launched her solo career in 1971 with her eponymous debut album on Elektra Records that not only spawned the hit "That's the Way I Always Heard It Should Be" but also garnered her the GRAMMY® Award for Best New Artist. She followed with a string of noteworthy albums in the '70s, including Anticipation (with the hit title track), No Secrets (featuring another hit, "You're So Vain"), Hotcakes and Playing Possum. Simon also had a hit single in 1977 with "Nobody Does It Better," a tune she wrote for the soundtrack of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. She finished the decade with another excellent recording, Boys in the Trees, which won a GRAMMY® Award for Best Album Package.

Throughout the '80s, Simon recorded widely, as a leader (including her first album of standards, Torch), as a soundtrack composer/singer (she won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Song and a GRAMMY® Award for "Let the River Run" from the film Working Girl) and as a guest vocalist on various albums with such artists as her-then husband James Taylor, Jesse Colin Young and Nils Lofgren. In addition to her critically acclaimed recordings in the '90s, Simon was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Songwriter's Hall of Fame in 1994 and an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree from Berklee College of Music in 1998. In 2006, Simon's Moonlight Serenade CD was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category.

Dedicated to both Art Buchwald and Antonio Carlos Jobim, This Kind of Love marks the next chapter in Simon's prolific career as a top-drawer vocalist and songwriter. "Many of these tunes are autobiographical," she says. "My songs always come from something that personally happens to me or that I overhear or that are inspired by a book or film" Simon adds, "In many [of these] songs, we were led down a garden path in Rio, and most often we didn't say 'no.'"

http://carlysimon.com/