So, when I left off, The Bedroom Tapes was just being released. What a fiasco. Here is my personal best, coming off the press, and Clive Davis gets fired from Arista. The man who took over, was more interested in making an urban label and had not any interest in me. It was released on Arista and sold well under the unhappy circumstances of no one in my court.

One of the reasons I knew they didn't care at all is that I was scheduled to go on a Radio tour during the summer of 2000 in a Winnebago, where Entertainment Tonight and other big TV promotional camera crews could fit in. It was to be glistening with tinsel and space and glamor and leis. The day the Winnebago arrived to pick up myself and Michael Lockwood (who just got married to Lisa Marie Presley a few days ago!!!) and Jim, my husband, we laughed. The Winnebago was like a Potemkin mini car. Like a drawing of a Winnebago. The three of us could hardly fit in much less any single camera man. I got the picture. Oh yes, the man who took over at Arista was called L. A. Reid - I had almost forgotten.

In spite of the smite, Michael, Jim and I hobbled through the East Coast until the Winnebago got stuck in a driveway of a mouse house where we were booked to stay in Providence. It was a normal driveway. It was just not a normal Winnebago. We changed to a Ford and got deep into Pennsylvania. I remember there was a concert in PA, in a rather small town that Bob Dylan was playing (found out too late to go), but we found out that it was only 2/3d's sold out. That made me see double. Anyone could have a 'less than' tour. Only I bet Bob didn't care. Because he's a rock and a troubadour and doesn't care much about anything but the music he is making on stage.

On the way back home from the far Eastern US, I got a call from John Forté. He had been arrested and I was the only call he was allowed. I mainly remember getting sick in the Ford and asking Jim to stop the car near some lawn. I got out and threw myself down on the lawn in my long white dress, sobbing. Feeling like Elvira Madigan and Scarlett O'Hara. But I did stay there for quite some time until the men came out and got me. I could not have foreseen what was to become of my life over the next five plus years (and still growing).

From that time forward, I was and remain connected to John Forté through all the phases of his first trial in Newark, to his sentencing in Houston and to all of his appeals. It has been the most upsetting and disillusioning experience in my life. This young singer, this young and gifted, uniquely brilliant, African American singer with a voice of passion and guts and a history diverse (From Brooklyn to Exeter to Brooklyn to the Fugees, to Sony, to on his own, to an arrest) as few men have. Many faceted, many rooms, many masters, but only one John and no matter how he swerved, so dangerously in that hot July of 2000, he is my constant. I believe in him. I believe not in his innocence, because he did something bad and got caught, but in his right to a fair trial, which in my opinion, he never got, and right now in 2006, as I write, to have his sentence looked at and reduced to one that is commensurate with his crime which was non-violent and a first time offense.

He has served five years now and is doing constructive things with his time behind bars; including writing songs and teaching courses. But it's time that he get seriously considered for commutation. You can go to his website and see his stirring and direct talent as a communicator. If you are a real advocate, you can look into FAMM (families against mandatory minimums) or write your Senators and Congressmen. Go to the Right and Go to the Left. You will be surprised at whom you affect. Write specifically about John Forté. Every letter will help get his name around and keep his profile up.

Before John's incarceration in Federal Prison, he was under house arrest and going every day to NYC to make a great CD called "I, John". He could never promote it because as soon as it was released, he went to Loretta Penitentiary. He was transferred to Ft. Dix in 2001 at the behest of Senator Orrin Hatch. It was a brave and forward thing of Senator Hatch to do and I will never forget it.

Let's see, how did I find myself in Los Angeles in 2002? Oh, that's right. I went with Ben to play (his performance) at a winter Olympics party being held in L.A. Ben was going to go on to Utah and I didn't want to go home, so I called Don Was, the famous and great Don Was. I had worked with him years ago and then more recently on the duet I did with Sally that she and I co-wrote: "Amity" (which is on the Reflections CD as a kind of bonus). I said on the phone the day before Ben played (amazingly) at the party. I said: "Don, what about you and I making an album in the next couple of days?" "Sure, I'm game", he said. "I've always wanted to make a Christmas album and think we should and CAN do it before you have to be in Paris to work with the Rolling Stones in FIVE DAYS". He brought to my hotel room (not suite) at the Peninsula Hotel, equipment that I hope to someday learn the name of. It had wires and the face of a computer screen. That day, Bob Clearmountain came over and had more wires and microphones and set the whole room up into a studio.

His wife, Betty was wearing a Christmas hat (not to forget this was in February of 2002, just AFTER the Christmas season) and she decorated the room with Santas and Christmas lights and bells and we lit the fire and got just about every great session player and friend to come over and share the making of this very fun and loose and diverse Christmas collection. You must get the CD to see the pictures of everybody. Indeed we did it in five days and then Don disappeared. Mostly it was mixed during the recording because there was so little on the tracks and the roughs were pretty atmospheric. Then Don oversaw some more mixing as did Jimmy Parr. I brought the disc to Bob Ludwig in Maine and he mastered it so that it was the difference between February and July. We caught the release date and I sang under the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center with Ben and Mindy (Jostyn). We sang: Silent Night which is on the CD and on other shows a larger collection of players sang more of the albums' songs. There was Christian McBride for example. And Willy Galison and Mindy and Ben. We sang at various and sundry record stores and tree lightings and snow angel parties.

I signed with Rhino records earlier in the year - for the release of the Anthology album. It was exciting to hold a small forum with the powers that be at Rhino to pick our mutual favorite songs, complete with a few voice raised disputes. There were some wonderful pictures taken by Heidi Wild (a friend of Sally's) and an intimate portrayal of my work written by Jack Mauro. In what seemed like no time Anthology was released in December of 2002. I can't remember what publicity I did, but someone I know will remind me.

Then came the writing (in The Bedroom Tapes bedroom) of the soundtrack albums for the two Winnie the Pooh movies I did. Essentially, it was the songs, but you know how the two over/inter/underlap. My studio changed and there were drawings of Pooh and his friends tacked all over my studio walls. Each album, Piglet's Big Movie and The Heffalump Movie were so much fun, I didn't want it to be over. I could fit very well into a cartoon life. I could even maneuver a tail and a high voice. Both movies were very well reviewed and I hope keep their place in the hall of Winnie the Pooh sweet young things. What could be better? No violence, just some nasty hitting and honey stealing. I loved working with Matt Walker and all the tender and sensitive folk in the tasteful and un-destructive division of Disney. Congratulations dear comrades.

The second Christmas album (which was a near cry away from the first) included the addition of two new songs: Forgive - a song written and recorded with Andreas Vollenweider (my dear friend) and White Christmas played and produced by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager). They were two stellar additions to the CD although that's the language of promo people. It doesn't come flippingly off MY tongue.

Just prior to recording these two new tracks for Christmas Is Almost Here, Sally announced that she and Dean Bragonier were going to be getting married that September. After being somewhat crushed that the wedding wouldn't be at my bucolic and rose covered locust bridge, over a stream leading to a gazebo, I bucked up and alternated between being so happy for her (them) and seething that the wedding wasn't going to be at my house. I've always been known to have an alternate emotional plan!

The wedding was Labor Day of 2003. The location was the Western facing view of Menemsha Pond, as seen from the lawn of James Taylor's house. There were rustic porta potties and poison ivy trailing through the lovely lawns of bristling short cut summer brown grass. A small path was mowed to lead the guests down to the waterfront where the wedding party was assembled, backs to sun. The father and I led the magnificent Sally down to her husband to be and to the rest of the wedding party.

After the ceremony, there was dancing and a modicum of alcohol, but spirits were high and it was a nice chance to get together with both the Simon and Taylor families. After many generous toasts to the bride and groom and to the father and stepmother, Livingston stood and most eloquently toasted the mother of the bride. The party went on all night, transferring itself to the beach at Lobsterville, and the bride and groom were not seen for several days.

Next incarnation was Reflections which was a joint BMG and Warner Brothers effort. Nifty that. An oldish Bob Gothard Picture of me taken by the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park was used as the cover. More choices. This being a single disc (as opposed to the Anthology which was a two CD disc) it took more painstaking editing. I was very pleased with it and it came out to welcoming reviews and a bonus track by Sally and me called Amity which we penned and played and sang together. Produced by Don Was.

In December 2004, The children (how long will I call them children?) and I sang together in concert at the Apollo in New York City on December 18th and the 19th. They were pretty successful concerts and much, much fun. Sally, Ben and I were joined by Mindy Jostyn, Christian McBride, BeBe Winans, T. Bone Wolk, Peter Calo and Teese Gohl and an amazing choir. Other guests including Livingston Taylor, Kate Taylor, Lucy Simon and my niece Julie Levine joined in for some pretty rousing versions of Christmas carols. Two of the truly most uninhibited concerts I've ever been a part of!!!! Good send off for Christmas 2004.

Then who knows what happened? I know peonies came out in May and then roses in June and honeysuckle in July and the Martha's Vineyard Community Services Auction in August, but this all followed Moonlight Serenade. Oh, Richard (Perry); What has thou wrought? We got enmeshed and intrigued and we followed each other down a path of songs that led to some of our favorites and some experimental songs (if not new songs, then new ideas for the new album).

What had started out to be, skeptically, a re-singing of old ideas that Richard had for Rod Stewart to sing, it turned into a sexy and novel release, much different from all my other standard horn driven albums. We recorded more cheaply than ever before and I made Richard even pay for his own dinners with Harvey Keitel. WE had fun. WE knew each other well enough to allow the jibes to turn into warmly taken non-bristly affairs. The record took off immediately and was one of my best selling albums in a along time. Sony did it's magic!!!

I went on the Queen Mary II and taped a special for PBS. All gowns and dancing close and Sally and her husband aboard. Boundaries and loose ends were lost for a while in the mist, out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. My husband came too and very much the same rules applied. We were, all of us, free agents and we were still wrapped closely in a cocoon of familiar.

After our sea journey, there was the tour to prepare for. And that we did with rehearsals at the Hot Tin Roof - which had been sold with a modicum of my knowledge ( in other words, I read about it on the front page of the Vineyard Gazette.). I had to ask particularly (with kid gloves textured with sensitive microchips enmeshed in the wools) anything I wanted to know and even that didn't glean the information I needed on a practical or on an emotional level, allowing me some satisfaction.

The Serenade Tour, which started on November 19th in Boston, was thrilling. Didn't mean I wasn't meek and trembly, but largely I turned it around and made it a readily available fun time. Ben and Sally and I had such a camaraderie and the whole band was the best. Peter Calo, John Beasley, Viktor Krauss, Alex Navarro, Jimmy Roberts, Nick Lashley, Larry Ciancia, Carmella Ramsey and Everett Bradley.

We traveled by two busses. We stayed at great hotels along the way and the bus the rest of the time. It was one of the most fun times I've ever had, especially because of Sally and Ben sleeping on the other side of the isle from me, little curtains separating us from time to time.

Christmas 2005 followed and we had Jake Brackman and the kids, along with Kate Taylor (who took plenty of care of us all) up to my home on Martha's Vineyard. When they all left, I started coalescing my new lyrics - about fifty of them. I sent off a whole batch to a producer who I am hoping to work with, although it's not going to be easy as the bi-coastal travel is not one of my all time easiest thing to stomach.

I will keep in touch. You are, all, a delight in my life, Carly