The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 224

JULY 19, 1987 PAGE 3 COVER STORY A PECS Cover Carly Simon stars in an all-new music special for HBO. "Carly in Concert: Coming Around Again" premieres Saturday night at 1 1. -m mm Index Cable movies 38 Daytime update 32 Insider 2 Movie reviews 44 Sports 46 Talk shows 11 Weekday cable movies 9 Weekday mornings 10 TV stations 2 WMAR NBC, Baltimore 3 KVW NBC, Philadelphia 5 WTTQ Washington 6 WPVI ABC, Philadelphia 8 WGAL NBC, Lancaster 10 WCAU CBS, Philadelphia 11WBALCBS, Baltimore 12 WHYY PBS, Philadelphia 13WJZ ABC, Baltimore 16 WBOC CBS, Salisbury 17 WPHL Philadelphia 23 WNJS PBS, Camden 28 WCPB PBS, Salisbury 29 WTAF Philadelphia 45 WBFF Baltimore 47 WMDT ABC, Salisbury 57 WGBS Philadelphia 64 WDPB PBS, Seaford 67 WMPB PBS, Baltimore On cable ART ARTS BET Black Entertainment Network CBN Christian Network DIS The Disney Channel ESN ESPN HBO Home Box Office UF Lifetime MAX Cinemax NIK Nickelodeon TNN The Nashville Network PSM PRISM SHO Showtime TBS WTBS, Atlanta TDC The Discovery Channel TMC The Movie Channel UNI Univision (Spanish) USA USA Network WNS Rollins Cablevision 2 WOR WOR, New York RCV Rollins local access 22 HBO gives rare look at stage-shy singer Carly Simon suffers from a dreaded disease: She has stage fright. The singer's occupational illness doesn't make any sense. Here is a woman who tells all in her songs "You're So Vain," "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" and the current "Coming Around Again" and nearly shows all on her racy record covers.

Yet, she gets the willies when she just shows up on stage. "There are lots of contradictions in me," she admits during a telephone interview from her home on Martha's Vineyard. "I'm full of them. All people are. "But lots of people try to present one image to the world.

They try to eliminate in conversation a lot of things that are contradictory in their nature. "I don't do that. I recognize that we're all fairly paradoxical if we are intelligent, sensitive and self-aware. Yet, how do I explain that I love to perform and hate it at the same time?" Performing in public has never sat well with Simon's psyche. In the early '60s, she passed out on stage when she spotted folk singer Odetta in the crowd.

During her last tour in 1981, she became so frightened in Pittsburgh that she asked members of the audience to join her on stage. They did, and after they told her they loved her and gave her a back rub, she finished the show. But the tour was done for. Simon collapsed before playing another concert. Six years after her last show, Simon made another attempt to conquer her fear.

On June 9 in the Martha's Vineyard town of Gay Head, she climbed onto a makeshift stage at the foot of a boat basin and sang 14 songs for 300 people, a flock of sea gulls and an HBO camera crew. The HBO special, "Carly in Concert: Coming Around Again," airs Saturday at 11 p.m. (The show repeats July 30 and other dates through August.) During the show Simon sang her songs and kept her fears in check. "I really like performing for a small number of people," she says. "I like a club atmosphere as opposed to a concert stage.

If I could afford to play clubs, I would." The clubs are there. Her music is ready. Her children from her marriage to James Taylor are old enough to go on the road. Ben is 10; Sully is 13. "But I would lose money," Simon complains.

"I can't afford to do that. See, I'm a perfectionist. The sound would have to be just right. I'd lose $5,000 a night. By the HBO photo Carly Simon is captured in a live perfor-mance on the HBO special.

end of the tour, I'd be close to $100,000 in debt." Simon has sought professional help "tons of it" for her stage jitters. "It has helped to the degree that I was able to do this show." But not even the professionals could put her on the road. "I doubt I will go on tour," she says. "That's why this show was a natural for me. Since I don't go on the road, people can get to see me in a performance setting." Simon's fans will see that she's not just a face glued on a record cover.

"I'm sure people will find it surprising. They'll see that I'm short and fat and ugly when they thought I was slim, 5-foot-10 and fairly pretty." Simon was being too tough on herself. But then, that's her way. "I'm always being too judgmental about other people and myself," she says. "I don't have an easygoing nature.

I wish I could learn to let things slide off my back and lighten up." Simon wants to lighten up so much, she's willing to make a devil's bargain. "I would give up being a writer to have more of a lighter approach to life." But then she wouldn't be the Carly Simon who sings about "Jesse" and "Anticipation" and "The Right Thing to Do" and "Haven't Got Time for the Pain." Contrary to that last-named song, she always seems to have time for the pain. "I'm always getting knocked around in life," she says. "There is so much that hurts. You can either toughen up or keep your heart soft.

I don't ever want to toughen up. If I did, it would be like I wasn't living anymore. "So, after I get hurt, I open up again. My heart is still soft and always very, very capable of being hurt." Cliff Radel Gannett News Service Listings Program listings are provided by the stations, and are as accurate as possible. Last-minute changes are included in the daily listings in The Morning News and Evening Journal.

TView is a supplement to the Sunday News lournal, a Gannett newspaper published in Wilmington, Del. Listings editor Dennis Sandusky 1987, The News-Journal Co. TView Sunday News Journal Week ot July 19-25, 1987.