This was the era of the singer-songwriters. If you slept with one it was expected they would write a song about you. If they didn't it was tantamount to saying you weren't important enough. "Songs are like tattoos," as Joni Mitchell sang the same year. She wrote "Willy" about Graham Nash. He wrote "Our House" about her. Leonard Cohen wrote "Chelsea Hotel No 2" about Janis Joplin. That's the way it went.
Carly only saw Cat for a couple of months. She was in London making an album with his producer Paul Samwell-Smith, another lover. (That cover picture was shot in Regent's Park's inner circle.) In spring Cat introduced her to future husband James Taylor. In summer she supported Kris Kristofferson who took her back to the Gramercy Park Hotel and sang "I've Got To Have You" for her, in case she didn't get the idea.
They were all young, beautiful and would never be better. Being immortalised on somebody's next album simply heightened the romance. You could guarantee a song that featured your favourite subject - you. And of course as this branch of celebrity culture was being born that torrid summer the funny thing is the media neither knew nor cared.
A teaser from the new book? If so, sounds excellent and please post some more.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's something I've been thinking about and writing about so I suppose it's just front of mind.
ReplyDeleteI believe Graham Nash was dissappointed that "Willy" only came out as a 7" single
ReplyDeleteHaving been brought up in a council house on the East coast of Scotland in the 60's and 70's, I have to admit I've always romanticised that early 70's Californian singer-songwriter world. Nothing's ever as good as it looks, but it still must have been something to have been around Laurel Canyon with people like James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell in the early 70's. Like 50's Literary New York and the 1960's Paris of the Film world, it must be one of the great mythically iconic settings.
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