Popular music ‘divas’ seem to proliferate these days in a fairly fertile environment that is over-populated by samey-sounding, samey-genre non-entities that appeal largely to a bland and insincere audience. In many ways, the advent of the iTunes and track-sharing scenes has meant that innumerable music fans have become accustomed to chart-entry snippets, rather than the more thematic album combatants of over ten years ago.

When Carly Simon was at the zenith of her performing career, having become a multi-award winning songstress, she could command the chart scene world-wide. While there will be fans of her sound and musicality that will be grateful to hear a revised ‘best of’ of her most renowned hits (although, sadly, the Bond theme ‘Nobody Does It Better’ is a notable omission), apart from her much publicised, now dissolved marriage to fellow singer-songwriter, James Taylor, the truth is, we know very little about her. This situation, of course, adds to her allure, something that has seldom been out of focus since the arrival of ‘You’re So Vain’ and the questions about its titular value.

Naturally, this latter track is central to this CD, ‘Never Been Gone‘, which is a most appropriate title for a performer, who has not been in the limelight of late.. A very pleasant acoustic arrangement by David Saw and her son, Ben Taylor, is a feature of the sixth track (‘You’re So Vain’) of the twelve listed. Naturally, as the daughter of Richard Simon (who was one of the founding partners of famous, New York music production team ‘Simon & Schuster’), Ms Simon was brought up in a privileged environment but you should be aware that she did not ‘luck’ into the music scene and is a most accomplished musician in her own right.

Thus, her own rearrangements for ‘The Right Thing To Do’, ‘It Happens Every Day’, ‘Never Been Gone’, ‘Boys In The Trees’, ‘That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be’, ‘Coming Around Again’ and ‘Anticipation’ are no less than superb. ‘Let The River Run’, ‘You Belong To Me’, ‘No Freedom’ and ‘Songbird’ involve either Ben Taylor, Ben Thomas or David Saw, although the last two listings are brand new tracks. However, in all cases, the new treatments given to the balance of near classic tracks highlight that even in her 66th year, Ms Simon is more than capable of belting out a beauty with as much commitment as she has ever been able to muster.

For someone, who professed to suffer interminable bouts of ‘stage fright’, her voice remains in fantastically good fettle and she can revel in the fact that she is still a pinnacle performer, even though she shies away from the publicity machine with somewhat more honesty than many divas of her ilk. This is great, easy listening that offers a fresh and surprisingly broad appeal.