Kim Carnes' 1975 self-titled
A&M album resulted in her first hit,
"You're a Part of Me," which went Top 40 in 1976 on the
adult contemporary charts (a different version of her original tune, a duet with
Gene Cotton on
Ariola Records, went Top 40 two years later). The strongest track, though, is her raspy reading of
"Somewhere in the Night," an eventual hit for both
Barry Manilow and
Helen Reddy. She had competition in this race, however, as
Steve Cropper's 1975 production of
Yvonne Elliman, the
Rising Sun album, contained the same tune that
Kim Carnes and her producer,
Mentor Williams, had crafted for this outing.
Carnes and her husband,
Dave Ellingson (both alum of manager
George Greif's
New Christy Minstrels), use this vehicle to showcase their co-writes and
Kim Carnes solo originals.
"It Could Have Been Better" and
"Nothing Makes Me Feel As Good As a Love Song" are fine tunes on their own, but
Kim Carnes' artistic (and commercial) success is at its best as an interpreter of other people's music. She does a terrific job on
Dorff & Brown's
"Waiting for the Pain to Go Away" and the aforementioned
Kerr/Jennings tune
"Somewhere in the Night." That her biggest hits were covers of
Smokey Robinson and
Jackie DeShannon tunes validates the opinion that
Carnes could work magic with other people's music. That's not to take away from her strong originals like
"What Good Is Love" or the co-write with her husband,
"Good Old Days." The latter could be the sequel to
Elton John's
"Country Comforts," and either he or
Rod Stewart should give the title a shot. With mega musicians backing her, including
Steve Forman,
David Foster,
Jim Keltner, and
Leland Sklar (who also shows up on
Yvonne Elliman's Night Flight, if you're wondering the connection between these artists and how they might hear the same tunes to record), among others. Like
Elliman,
Kim Carnes enjoyed a huge worldwide smash sometime after her 1975 work; both women's albums went pretty much unnoticed, and they both deserved more chart activity. Having producer
David Briggs doing string arrangements on the
Kim Carnes album is a plus, and shows the quality surrounding this project. ~ Joe Viglione