PORTUGU�S
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6. The EMI-Odeon Phase (1978-1986)
May 16, 1981 - "BETTE DAVIS EYES", written by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon shot to number one in the American charts and reached number seven in Britain.
In 1978 Kim Carnes duetted with Gene Cotton on "You're A Part Of Me", her first success on Billboard charts, peaking #36. She would scored numerous pop hits throughtout 9 years (1978-1986). "You're A Part Of Me" was released as single and it was included on Gene Cotton's album ("Save The Dancer"). Carnes collaborated on songs recorded by Anne Murray ("You're A Part Of Me"), Brenda Lee ("What Am I Gonna Do") and Charly McClain ("You're A Part Of Me"), waiting for her career to take off. Jim Mazza, president of EMI-United Artists Records, and Don Grierson, who, like Mazza, had once worked for Capitol Records were forming a new label and they wanted Kim to be their first artist. So they signed Carnes and she became the label's first signed artist in '79. She worked out an agreement with A&M to have them publish her songs, leaving her free to record for EMI America. She gradually began recording rock-oriented material. When Mazza first approached Ken Kragen (Kenny Rogers' manager) about taking on Carnes, he wasn't interested, but in the end Carnes signed a management contract with him. Her first EMI release, "St. Vincent's Court", consisted primarily of songs she co-wrote with Ellingson. It's the first album that she's co-produced with her husband Dave and the musician Daniel Moore. It is critically acclaimed as Kim's finest album, she has won a whole new legion of fans thanks to this album. "It is truly a devastatin work" - according Russel Wiener. A great tribute was paid to Kim when the prestigious Billboard reviewed her album. Its reviewer, Kip Kirby , said "'St. Vincent's Court' presents a different, more mature side of the singer who has obiously ripened and mellowed in her recording. Carne's true strength as a performer comes from her dramatic stylings, her aching, bluesy edges. Few singers possess her heart-wrenching natural vocal qualitity, and it is hoped that she won't allow herself to be blurrer too far into contemporary MOR arrangements that will detract from her originality." "It Hurts So Bad" reached #56. It was her fist solo success. "The ST. VICENT'S COURT ALBUM was completed, and my record company flew me to London to play the album for the UK division. On the flight home I wrote this song. We did a quick home-demo and the next day I played it for Jim Mazza. He sent me back into the studio to record it. We re-mastered the album and IT HURTS SO BAD was the first single released" - Kim Carnes admitted in her own "BEST OF" liner notes. "St. Vincent's Court" fared better in sales (about 40.000 copies) than her A&M albums, but the overall response was much the same: critical applause but public indifference. Kim Carnes looks fragile and feminine but she has a larynx of steel. There is a quirky non-conformist side to her personality; in 1979 she made a single called "She Dances With Meat" under pseudonym "Connie Con Carne".
At a post-Grammy party in 1979, Kenny Rogers (another former New Christy Minstrels) approached songwriters Carnes and Ellingson to compose an album's worth of material about the adventures of a modern-day cowboy. The couple spent six months working on the album project. The result was the platinum album "Gideon", released in 1980, featuring the Kenny Rogers/Kim Carnes top 5 duet, "Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer". Kenny and Kim recorded the spanish (or spanglish?) version of "Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer" titled "No Te Enamores De Un Loco." Another track from "Gideon", "You Were A Good Friend" peaked #20 country charts in 1983. One year later Kim Carnes would be Grammy nominated for the first time as "Best Vocal Group" (with Kenny Rogers) for "Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer." Kim tasted solo sucess with her riveting, vibrantly contemporary remake of "More Love" (#10), an earlier hit for Smokey Robinson and a song that perfectly suited her gritty, R&B-inflected singing style. Her first Top-10 record as a solo artist. She also recorded a spanish version: "M�s Amor."
"For years I had listened to Smokey Robinson and The Miracles night and day. This was always my favority song of theirs, and I ken that someday I'd cut it. Bill Cuomo came up with the classical introduction after we had recorded the track. A giant thrill for me was singing it with Smokey Robinson on his TV special." - Kim Carnes admitted in her own "BEST OF" liner notes in 1992. Another r Carnes hit - and remake - from this same year was "Cry Like A Baby," a late '60s Box Tops hit that Kim performed with seizing authority. The song reached #44. "Romance Dance" LP followed and it peaked #57 - but it didn't break any sale record, past 200.000 mark. She provided background vocals in "Deep Inside My Heart" (#22), recorded by Randy Meisner. Carnes career was lauching... May 16, 1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes", written by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon shot to number one in the American charts and reached number seven in Britain. During the summer and autumn of 1981 it was almost impossible to tune into pop radio for an hour or two anywhere in the world and not be seduced by hauting story of "Bette Davis Eyes", recollected via the husky tones of Kim Carnes. The song, though with a fabulous new arrangement, Kim's distinctive rasp and changin social times now ensuring its feminist lyric would catch sympathetic voters en masse, a sure fire winner was certain to explode, and did.
Destined for double U.S. Grammy Awards as both "Song" and "Record Of The Year", suddenly Miss Carnes' name was deservedly on eveyone's lips. This established Kim Carnes as a major talent. "Bette Davis Eyes" topped the US charts for an astonishing 9 weeks, earning to Kim her first RIAA gold record. Ironically, the song was co-written and recorded by pop singer Jackie DeSahnnon in 1975, and was a sleeper given new life by Kim Carnes's throaty delivery and Bill Cuomo's high-tech arragement. "My version didn't quite come out the way it was written," Jackie DeShannon admitted in her own BEST OF liner notes, "but I always believed in the song." Jackie DeShannon wrote the song because she never forgot the look in Paul Henreids eyes when he lighted those 2 cigarettes in the ending of "Now Voyager." Kim knew about the song for years. By the time Kim recorded it, she and her band metes updated the arrangement and taped it live with no overdubs, a method producer Val Garay employed in recording the rest of the album. Kim hadn't been doing too many concerts or television to advertise her hit song. Istead, she made a video tape of it which has, according on reviewer, "commanded a good deal of attention. " She has done a video presentation of "Bette Davis Eyes" that looks like a production number from "Scaramouche" as directed by Frederico Fellini. Russel Mulcahy was hired to direct the music video. His visually shocking promotional clip featured much pouting and face-slapping sunced to the record's trashed-out snare beats; it seemed to air almost hourly on local cable networks as an astonished audience debated the video's eccentricity. Bette herself endorsed the record and complimented Kim in a letter that led to a close friendship between the two. Very quickly, the genre-bending 45 captured Billboard's number one spot for nine weeks, and it won both "Record and Song of the Year" awards at the '82 Grammys.
Kim won something more valious than gold records and Grammy Awards: the friendship with Mrs. Bette Davis. Kim went to her house and met her for the first time the summer "Bette Davis Eyes" was popular. Kim gave one gold single to Bette, who got out the hammer and nails and put it on the wall herself. "It was a day I'll never forget. She is a legend. The first thing that struck me was a pillow in her house that was embroldered with a motto, 'No Guts, No Glory.' And I went, 'God if that isn't perfect!' It fits what I've always read and thought and heard about her too. She's a real determined lady who's always done it her way which I admire a lot". The song really fits her since she's been so well known for those eyes. "She wrote a letter to Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss saying, 'Thank you for your brilliant lyrics. How did you know so much about me?' When we got together and took some photos, she sais that again. She said, 'You know I wrote a letter to them and asked them 'How did you know so much about me?'" - she confessed to Steve Wosahla in a 1981 interview. The #1 LP hits continued, though none repeated the phenomenon. The follow-up "Draw Of The Cards" (#28) gave a prominence to a contagious, swirling organ-dominated sound that stalled inside the US Top 30. 1981 saw her score with "Mistaken Identity" (#60) in which powerful, mature, immediately identifiable contemporary sound was introduced. A fourth hi of sorts came in '85 with Dolly Parton's #3 country version of "Don't Call It Love". But beyond the singles, the album's high point was the emotional "Miss you Tonite" with Kim's voice aching above Bill Cuomo's synthesized arpeggios to deliver one of the best vocals of her career.
"The title of my album "Mistaken Identity" is really a statement of the direction I want to go," she explains. That does not mean she wants to be misunderstood but rather that she feels she has been misunderstood for too long. "Last year everyone pegged me as a country singer because Kenny is. But I want to keep a variety of styles because they all reflect different sides of me. I've always loved rock'n'roll. I'm not a manufactured product. I've made a point of changing." August 24, 1981: Kim performed live at Savoy in New York city, and the concert was recorded to King Biscuit series. She sung non-album songs as "Under My Thumb" (Rolling Stones), "Don't Be Cruel" (Elvis Presley), "Dwayne" and "What's Your Name". She also featured new songs which she would include on her next album: "Say You Don't Know Me," and "The Thrill Of The Grill." December 1st., 1981 - "Mistaken Identity" album went 3 x platinum in Canada (300,000 units sold). December 18, 1981 - Kim's raspy voice was so often compared to Rod Stewart's. They played together Los Angeles Forum along with Tina Turner. The show was broadcast around the world to a television audience of 35 million. Rod dueted with Kim in "Tonight's The Night," and after they sung "Stay With Me" with Tina Turner. This song was included on Rod's album "Absolutely Live." February 14, 1982 - "Bette Davis Eyes" won "Record Of The Year" and "Song Of The Year" at the 24th Annual Grammy Awards. Other nominations included "Mistaken Identity" for "Album Of The Year", "Bette Davis Eyes" for "Best Vocal Pop Performance (Female) and Val Garay for "Producer Of The Year (Non-classical). July 1st., 1982 - "Bette Davis Eyes" went platinum in Canada (100,000 units sold).
September 1982 - Carnes explored hard rock and high-tech arragements in the album "Voyeur." "We were never in competition with that record ('Mistaken Identity,')," said Carnes to Yardena Arar (Associated Press Writer). In fact, the singer-songwriter said the magnitude of her success with "Bette Davis Eyes" and the "Mistaken Identity" album was inspiring rather than intimidating. "We all had so much confidence from the success, and were so up from what happened last year that we could hardly wait to get into the studio and make a better album," she said. EMI staff thought 6 tracks would be a potential chart single - but only 2 tracks charted in Billboard. "Voyeur" single peaked #28, and the album reached #48. "Voyeur" single peaked #2 in France, #5 in Norway, #10 in Sweeden, #28 in Poland and #68 in U.K. In November 1st., 1982, "Voyeur" album went gold in Canada (50,000 units sold). Next year "Does It Make You Remember" would peak #36. "I've had some songs I've written that record company - people at my record company didn't want to be on the album. I had a video off my Voyeur album - was the title cut, 'Voyeur.' And MTV I think had been in existence maybe a year, year-and-a-half, and it was very different then as far as what they show now. And 'Voyeur,' they would only show at night, like, after a certain time. There was a little bit of a violent scene in the video, and by today's standarts, it would be nothing, but back then - imagine MTV censoring something. It's - but they did. Now Europe didn't. It was played, played all over Europe, but here, it was censored."" - she confessed to Ken Paulson in a 2003 interview. February 1983 - Kim Carnes was nominated for a Best Pop Vocal Performance (female) Grammy Awards , for "Voyeur." She didn't win, but just the nomination was a recognition of a remarkable singing and songwriting talent, with a great beaty and feeling.
Phil Ramone producer invited Kim to write and perform a ballad for a movie in the making titled "Flashdance." She co-wrote with Duane Hitchings and Craig Krampf "I'll Be Here Where The Heart Is." They ended up winnin� a Grammy for this song in 1984. When Kim delivered "Caf� Racers" album, the second follow-up to her platinum, chart-topping 1981 album "Mistaken Identity", radio programmers were still up for searching out a potential hit on the order of "Bette Davis Eyes," and the tracks "Invisible Hands" (#40), "You Make My Heart Beat Faster (Amd That's All That Matters)" (#54), "I Pretend" (#74) and "Hurricane" were all given a chance at Top 40, Adult Contemporary, and/or dance stations. " Caf� Racers" LP reached #97.
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Jim Mazza's EMI signed Carnes and she became the label's first signed artist in '79.
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