Carly 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 sang 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 Golden Globe 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.