#237: Jesse by Carly Simon
Peak Month: November 1980
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Jesse”
Lyrics: “Jesse”
Carly Elisabeth Simon was born in 1945 in The Bronx. Her father was from a German-Jewish family, and her mother was from a German family. In 1964, with her sister Lucy, she formed the Simon Sisters. They had a minor folk-pop hit with the nursery rhyme – lullaby “Winkin’, Blinkin’ and Nod”. It was a Top 50 hit in Vancouver (BC) in April ’64. The Simon Sisters released three albums between 1964 and 1969 in the folk and children’s folk genres. This included recordings of Edward Lear’s “The Owl and The Pussycat”, and Lewis Carroll’s “The Lobster Quadrille”. Lucy went on to write music for the 1991 Tony Award winning musical, The Secret Garden. In 1971 Carly Simon appeared in the film Taking Off, where she was cast as an audition singer.