She was raised in the Riverdale section of New York City with two sisters and a brother. Her father, Richard Simon, played Chopin and Beethoven on the piano. She attended so many Brooklyn Dodgers games with her father that she was made a team mascot before they moved to Los Angeles. She once said if she could see herself in a ballplayer, it would be Pee Wee Reese; a shortstop is not quite in the infield and not quite in the outfield. Three of her uncles gained distinction in various fields of music. George, as an authority on Jazz; Henry, as a Musicologist and book editor; and Alfred, as the music director of a classical radio station. She attended Riverdale County School and spent two years at Sarah Lawrence before dropping out to form a folk duo with her sister, Lucy. They billed themselves as the Simon Sisters and managed to get work at small clubs on the eastern seaboard. Carly even did Al Jolson improvisations. Lucy eventually left the act and married a physician. Carly's eldest sister Joanna was a professional opera singer. Carly suffered from severe stage fright and one time passed out and collapsed in the middle of a concert in 1981. She met her first husband...James Taylor...as a child when their parents had summered near one another on Martha's Vineyard. (Taylor's father was director of the UNC Chapel Hill Medical College). She married Taylor in 1971 and they later divorced. She has been married to writer Jim Hart since 1981 and they live on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. She has a son and daughter from her marriage to James Taylor.
