Presenting the “Second” Debut Album by Kim Carnes

Until Kim Carnes made its debut on streaming last year, the only way to experience her eponymous second studio album was to buy the original vinyl or cassette. All those little pops and crackles from my well-worn LP are ingrained into my ears, and it’s quite surreal to hear it in crisp digital quality.

Kim’s debut album was Rest on Me, produced by Jimmy Bowen and released in 1971 through a deal with Amos Records. The album is good, with the highlights being Carnes’ two penned tracks ‘Fell in Love with a Poet’ and the equally strong ‘I Won’t Call You Back’. Despite these two excellent moments, Rest on Me offers scant insight into Carnes’ writing abilities; instead it features an array of pop and soul interpretations. It was therefore left to her second album, aptly titled just Kim Carnes, to showcase her songwriting prowess.

Kim Carnes is a true songwriters’ album, featuring a collection of self-penned tracks and a sprinkling of AC covers. It opens with Carnes’ most frequently recorded composition, ‘You’re a Part of Me’, later picked up by country legends including Anne Murray, Johnny Cash and Annie Whittle. Kim herself later re-recorded it with Gene Cotton, and their duet became her first charting hit. Her solo version features a gorgeous texture of backing vocals, shining brightly beneath Kim’s falsetto on the refrain: “Take me away”.

‘And Still Be Loving You’ is another of the album’s enduring tracks, co-written with her husband Dave Ellingson. Carnes later revisited it for her 1980 album Romance Dance. It opens with one of her most outstanding lyric couplings: “You’re the poet’s finest song / and like a painter you can move me with your sunrise / Touch me with the look I see in your eyes / and I fall again”.

The album marked the start of Carnes’ habitual use of parentheses with ‘Hang On to Your Airplane (Honeymoon)’ and ‘What Good Is Love (Later on the Equator)’. They make like two sides of the same coin, acting as songs with two alternative titles. The latter track showcases a young David Foster on piano; later a legendary producer for some of music’s all-time greats.

Foster plays a prominent role in ‘Do You Love Her’, with the piano oscillating between two octave notes like a ticking clock as Carnes sings, “I’ve seen you dancing with her / when there wasn’t any music playing / I couldn’t hear the words you were saying, oh no / Do you love her?” The lines are sung with gut-wrenching vulnerability, perfectly replicated during her recorded Mistaken Identity tour in 1981.

Aside from her own compositions, the album allows Carnes to display her excellent skill of interpreting songs by other writers. ‘Waiting for the Pain to Go Away’ is a devastating track, made especially despondent through her wavering rasp and soft delivery. Meanwhile ‘Somewhere in the Night’, a hit for Helen Reddy around the same time, showcases Kim’s extensive range.

The record ends with ‘Good Old Days’, finely balancing nostalgia and hope for the future as she sings: “Like summer leaves the grapes on the vine / each day leaves the last behind / And when we find that now is then / we’ll play the record once again”.

Kim Carnes is available worldwide — download and stream it here.