CARLY SIMON WAS DRESSED FAIRLY CONSERVATIVELY when she turned up at legendary photographer Norman Seeff’s Los Angeles studio to shoot the cover for her 1975 album Playing Possum. But after a couple of glasses of wine, Seeff posed a provocative question: “Well, don’t you have something on under that?” Simon gamely stripped down to her black teddy and began dancing around the studio to the Shaft soundtrack as Seeff snapped away. “It was a matter of being caught in the moment,” she recalled later. “I was dancing, I was all over the place.” As racy as it appears, the shot eventually chosen for the cover had a fairly innocent origin. “There was no eroticism intended,” Seeff said. “Carly was in the process of a yoga exercise while I spontaneously photographed her.” Simon, who had recently given birth to her first daughter, nonetheless felt the photo sent the message that she would not sacrifice her sexuality. “I thought it was pretty hot, actually,” she said. “Looking at myself I thought, ‘My god, I had a baby four months ago. That doesn’t go along exactly with the image of new motherhood.’ But I liked it.”

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