Lucy Simon, Singer and Broadway Composer, Dies at 82 - The New York Times

Lucy Simon, who with her sister Carly began performing and signaling arsenic the Simon Sisters during the people revival of the 1960s, and who past astir 3 decades aboriginal became a Tony Award-nominated composer for the long-running philharmonic “The Secret Garden,” died connected Thursday astatine her location successful Piermont, N.Y., successful Rockland County. She was 82.

Her household said the origin was metastatic bosom cancer.

Ms. Simon was the mediate of 3 philharmonic sisters. Her younger sister, Carly, became a best-selling popular prima aft their folk-duo days, and her older sister, Joanna, was an opera vocalist with an planetary career. Joanna Simon, astatine 85, died successful Manhattan a time earlier Lucy Simon’s death.

“We would spell to cocktail parties and bring our guitar and sing,” Lucy Simon told The New York Times successful 2015. “And radical loved it.”

Eventually, she added, they said to each other, “Let’s spot if we tin wage our mode by singing.”

Carly was a pupil astatine Sarah Lawrence College and Lucy was studying astatine the Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing successful New York successful the aboriginal 1960s when, during summertime break, they took a autobus to Provincetown, Mass. (They had wanted to hitchhike, but their parent squashed that plan.) They rapidly landed a gig astatine a barroom called Moors, whose philharmonic enactment had conscionable been drafted. They arrived for their archetypal amusement successful cautiously selected matching blouses.

“Only aboriginal did we larn that the Moors was a cheery and lesbian bar,” Carly Simon wrote successful her 2015 memoir, “Boys successful the Trees.” “What the mostly uncombed, ripped-jeans-and-motorcycle-jacketed assemblage made of these 2 sisters is mislaid to time. Lucy and I had taken our wardrobe astatine the Moors beauteous seriously, and successful instrumentality the assemblage astir apt thought we were duplicate milkmaids from Switzerland, oregon escapees from a adjacent carnival.”

They called themselves the Simon Sisters, adjacent though, arsenic Carly Simon wrote, “Lucy and I agreed that our signifier sanction sounded schlocky and borderline embarrassing, positive neither of america wanted to beryllium labeled — oregon dismissed — arsenic conscionable different novelty sister act.”

In that book, Ms. Simon recalled the sisterly dynamic during that archetypal foray into performing.

“Anyone paying adjacent attraction would person seen however hard I, Carly, the younger sister, was trying to look and enactment similar Lucy, the older sister,” she wrote. “I was present taller than Lucy, but emotionally speaking, Lucy was inactive the high-up one, the light, the beauty, the halfway of it all. Then arsenic now, my sister was my grounding influence, my heroine, my pilot.”

Soon they had a declaration with a absorption institution and were booked into the Bitter End, the Greenwich Village nine that gave galore aboriginal stars their start. An quality connected the philharmonic assortment tv amusement “Hootenanny” successful the outpouring of 1963 (along with the Chad Mitchell Trio and the Smothers Brothers) further boosted their profile. They appeared connected the amusement again successful aboriginal 1964.

Some years earlier, Lucy Simon had composed a mounting of the Eugene Field children’s poem “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” and the opus became a staple of the Simon Sisters’ performances. Released arsenic a azygous successful 1964, titled “Winkin’, Blinkin’ and Nod,” it reached No. 73 connected the Billboard chart. It besides anchored 1 of the 2 albums they rapidly recorded.

The 2 sisters toured for a time, but aft her matrimony successful 1967 to Dr. David Y. Levine, a psychiatrist, Lucy Simon pulled backmost from performing to absorption connected their 2 children. In 1975, she released a solo album, titled simply “Lucy Simon,” followed successful 1977 by another, “Stolen Time.” But she recovered she had mislaid her zeal for performing.

In the aboriginal 1980s, she and her hubby produced 2 compilation albums featuring James Taylor, her sister Carly, Linda Ronstadt, Bette Midler and different stars singing children’s songs. The albums, “In Harmony: A Sesame Street Recording” and “In Harmony 2,” some won Grammy Awards for champion children’s album.

In the 1980s, Ms. Simon took a stab astatine philharmonic theater, moving connected an effort to make a musical retired of the “Little House connected the Prairie” stories. That task ne'er bore fruit, but a transportation provided by her sister Joanna led her to 1 that did.

Lucy Simon proved to beryllium a bully acceptable for Ms. Norman’s lyrics. The amusement opened connected Broadway successful April 1991. Reviews were mixed — Frank Rich, in The Times, said that Ms. Simon’s euphony was “fetching erstwhile limning the heavy feelings locked wrong the story’s household constellations” but not ever palmy — yet the amusement was a hit, giving 709 performances implicit astir 2 years. Ms. Simon earned a Tony information for champion archetypal score. (The grant went to Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green for “The Will Rogers Follies.”)

Ms. Simon reached Broadway again successful 2015 arsenic composer of the philharmonic “Doctor Zhivago,” but the amusement lasted conscionable 23 performances.

That year, successful the interrogation with The Times, she said that she thought euphony had the imaginable to beryllium much emotionally almighty than different creation forms, similar creation oregon painting.

“There’s thing intangible and mysterious astir music,” she said. “It tin get you more; you tin sob more. It’s got a stronger engine.”

Lucy Elizabeth Simon was calved connected May 5, 1940, successful Manhattan.

“We each came retired singing,’‘ she erstwhile said of herself and her sisters. “And we kept connected singing. At meal we wouldn’t conscionable say, ‘Please walk the salt, convey you.’ We’d sing it. Sometimes successful the benignant of Gershwin. Sometimes arsenic a lieder.”

Carly Simon wrote successful her publication that the pass-the-salt singing started arsenic a mode to assistance her — Carly — with a vexing stammer. Their parent had suggested that alternatively of speaking the phrase, Carly effort singing it. With Joanna and Lucy joining successful to promote their sister, it worked.

Lucy Simon’s top deed arsenic a people singer, the “Winkin’” song, had a self-help constituent to it. At 14, she was fixed a schoolhouse duty to memorize a poem, but dyslexia made it difficult. She recovered that she could memorize the Eugene Field poem by mounting it to music. Her mentation was aboriginal recorded by galore artists.

Ms. Simon’s credits besides included composing the euphony for a chaotic 1993 HBO movie, “The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom,” which won Emmy Awards for Holly Hunter and Beau Bridges.

Ms. Simon’s brother, Peter, a photographer, died successful 2018. In summation to her hubby and her sister Carly, she is survived by 2 children, Julie Simon and James Levine, and 4 grandchildren.

In 1985, Ms. Simon was successful the infirmary for surgery. She told a newsman that her 2 sisters had turned up to springiness her support.

“When the stretcher came to instrumentality maine to the operating room, we sang three-part harmony,” she said. “It lifted me.”