Chapter Twenty-Two
My definition of a normal life continued in 1973 with my caring for Molly, being supportive of Charlie, chauffeuring two increasingly busy schoolchildren around, and writing and recording new songs. Charlie’s definition of a normal life included playing in three bands, none of which was Jo Mama. That band had broken up. One of Charlie’s bands featured David Foster on piano and William Smith—“Smitty”—on organ. Another featured Dave Palmer, with Danny Douma on guitar, John Ware on drums, and, at one point, Michael McDonald on vocals and keyboards (yes, thatMichael McDonald). But the band that would become Charlie’s main gig was the David T. Walker band, featuring David T. on guitar, Clarence McDonald on keyboards, Harvey Mason on drums, Charlie on bass, and Ms. Bobbye Hall, a petite woman who made big sounds with percussion instruments.
As a fellow musician I understood why Charlie enjoyed playing with David T.’s band. They were such superb players that I hired them to play on my Fantasy album. Rather than being a collection of songs in random order, that album had a connecting story and a predetermined sequence, and I had written every song with the specific intention of singing it myself. Just before Fantasy was released in 1973, Charlie and Lou suggested I promote it by going on tour with the David T. Walker band as my rhythm section.
Promoting an album had never been sufficient inducement to get me to go on tour, but what interested me was the chance to share with an audience how much fun I’d had writing and recording it.
Lou sealed the deal when he said, “Not only will you be playing with David T.’s band, you’ll be playing with everyone’s dream horn section.”
He was referring to George Bohanon on trombone and euphonium, Dick Hyde, also called “Slyde,” on trombone, Oscar Brashear on trumpet, Gene Goe on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Tom Scott and Mike Altschul on saxophone.
Though the Fantasy tour didn’t last as long as the 1971 tour, it, too, was successful. More than one hundred thousand people attended our free concert in Central Park.
And though record sales never approached the level of Tapestry, the Fantasy album was critically well received. I enjoyed that tour very much, but as soon as we got home I readily slipped into my comfort zone of domesticity. Charlie took a different direction. I had always respected his dedication to music, but he was now taking it to another level. He played so many late-night club gigs that I rarely saw him.
It was probably just as well that I had come up through the ranks of the music business without having to play late-night club gigs, because I’m not a late-night person. I’m an inveterate diurnal. I’m one of those really inconsiderate early-morning people that nocturnal people hate. Never giving a thought to whether someone might be sleeping in the next room, I rattle the cereal box, clink the spoon while stirring my tea, and yell at the top of my lungs to a dawdling child, “Hurry up or you’ll miss your bus!” Nocturnals enjoy watching the sun come up only when they’re making their way home after having been out all night. I prefer to watch the sun rise after I’ve slept for eight hours.
And that was the problem. Charlie and I still cared for each other, but we were spending almost no time together. Our disparate schedules continued through 1974 and part of 1975. Some couples are able to preserve their emotional connection from different cities or on different shifts, but our overlapping hours were simply not enough. We tried marriage counseling, discussions, therapy, and other options without success until we felt that we had exhausted all possibilities available at the time.
Sadly, “at the time” was all we had. With tremendous sorrow on both our parts, we separated, then divorced. But we remained united in our resolve to be the best possible parenting team for our children. Charlie was a devoted father and a considerate coparent. Indeed, he would provide stability for our kids when my life choices were less than stable. Our shared commitment to our children’s well-being and mutual respect for each other’s rules even when we disagreed gave our kids a solid foundation. Had they tried to play us against each other, they wouldn’t have been successful. Grounded in their well-being, Charlie and I navigated cooperatively what is often treacherous territory for divorced parents and their children.
Even after our lives diverged to include other partners, Charlie and I remained friends. Periodically we wondered if we might have tried harder to work through our problems and, in so doing, perhaps could have stayed together. We’ll never know, but we’re grateful for our shared history of love, respect, children, grandchildren, friendship, and music. We had the chance to make music together again in 2001 when Charlie played on “An Uncommon Love” and “Oh No Not My Baby” for my Love Makes the World album. Written with Gerry and recorded with Charlie, “Oh No Not My Baby” could have been subtitled “Husband Reunion.”
I could not have predicted in 1975 that Charlie’s and my relationship would turn out to be an unconventional success story. All I could see then was another failure. After Charlie and I divorced I lost my center. Sometimes I felt as if I were floating away like the red balloon in the movie Le Ballon rouge. After Charlie moved out I found it too heartbreaking to stay in the house on Appian Way with the memories it held of our life together. Thankfully I could afford to move. My Goffin daughters didn’t want to leave the Canyon, but when I found a house on Encinal Beach in Trancas they were okay with that. Plus we had cool neighbors. Cheech Marin lived next door. His partner in comedy, Tommy Chong, lived just across the Pacific Coast Highway. Louise and Sherry knew two of Tommy’s daughters, Rae Dawn and Robbi, from school in Laurel Canyon. Neil Young lived in a cottage nearby on Broad Beach. Lou Adler and some of his friends lived on Carbon Beach. And J. D. Souther and Don Henley with Eagles shared a house just up the hill from mine.
Because so many of my neighbors were celebrities, the invitations I accepted brought me to high-profile events and parties. I found myself spending social time with people actively seeking the very visibility that I had tried to avoid. Some celebrities were more intellectually curious than others. In addition to being a stellar athlete, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a vast knowledge of jazz and its place in history. But more often I found myself in the company of people who enjoyed gossiping about who was wearing what, who was dating whom, who’d had plastic surgery, and what the best places were to see and be seen. Even now I can’t explain why I continued to socialize with such people. Perhaps I was still trying to make up for my high school years, when I was rarely invited anywhere. But without Charlie to say no for me, I found it difficult to say no for myself.
Though I was grateful that my family and I were free of serious problems such as illness or poverty, I was challenged by the much less serious problem of living a lifestyle I loathed, and I was upset with myself for continuing to pursue it. I was becoming a parody of a pop star. I began to dream of buying some land in the mountains with a small house and a much larger organic garden than the plot I had tried to cultivate on Appian Way. I had the means and freedom of workplace to make such a move, but I couldn’t find a way out. When I complained about my life to less affluent friends, they were predictably unsympathetic.
“Poor Carole,” I imagined them saying as soon as the door closed behind me. “Her BMW is more than a year old and her champagne’s gone flat.”
My escape from the fast lane was set in motion the night Don Henley hosted a thirtieth birthday party for J.D. John David Souther had been born in Detroit on November 2, 1945, and raised in Amarillo, Texas. Known variously in 1975 as a country rock singer, songwriter, actor, friend of Eagles, and companion of Linda Ronstadt, John David had written one of my favorite songs. Linda’s performance of “Faithless Love” on her 1974 album Heart Like a Wheel, with a gorgeous harmony by J.D., twanged every string of this city girl’s heart.
It was a good two hours past my bedtime that November 2 in 1975 when Henley sent someone down the hill to invite me up. I could hear the sounds of music and celebration from my room, and it sounded like fun. With the kids asleep, a nanny in the house, less than two hundred feet between the children and me if they needed me, and my ability to say no completely inoperative, I saw no harm in joining the party.
With each step up the hill I came one step closer to meeting a man who would bring momentous changes to the lives of my family and me. He would lead me to some of my highest highs, my lowest lows, and, ultimately, to a place I would call home for a very long time.