Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an
American
singer-songwriter, known
for his success beginning in 1965 as part of the duo
Simon & Garfunkel, with musical
partner
Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote
most of the pair's songs, including "
The Sound of Silence", "
The Boxer", "
Mrs.
Robinson", and "
Bridge
Over Troubled Water". In 1970, at the height of their
popularity, the duo split and Simon began a successful solo career,
highlighted by his 1986 experiment with
African music on the album
Graceland, which was decisive in the
introduction of
world music into the
mainstream. Simon's work has been generally praised by critics and
the public, and has enjoyed notable commercial success for over
four decades of production. In 2006,
Time magazine called him one of the 100
"people who shape our world."
Biography
Early life and career
Paul Simon
was born in Newark, New
Jersey
to Jewish Hungarian parents
Bella (b. 1910, d. June 16, 2007), an elementary school
teacher, and Louis Simon (b. circa 1916, d. January 17, 1995), a
college professor, bassist, and dance bandleader who performed
under the name "Lee Sims". In 1941 his family moved to
Kew Garden Hills, Queens in New York
City.
Simon's musical career began at
Forest Hills High School when he
and his friend
Art Garfunkel began
singing together, occasionally performing at school dances. Their
idols were
the Everly Brothers,
whom they imitated in their use of close two-part harmony. Simon
also developed an interest in jazz, folk and blues, especially
musical legends
Woody Guthrie and
Lead Belly.
In 1957, while in their mid-teens, Simon and Garfunkel recorded the
song "Hey, Schoolgirl" under the name Tom and Jerry, given to them
by their label
Big Records.
The single reached number forty-nine on the pop charts.
After
graduating from high school, Simon attended Queens College, while Garfunkel studied at
Columbia University in Manhattan
. Simon was a brother in the
Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. Simon earned a
degree in English literature and briefly attended
Brooklyn Law School, but his real
passion was
rock and roll.
Between 1957 and 1964, Simon wrote, recorded, and released more
than thirty songs, occasionally reuniting with Garfunkel as Tom
& Jerry for some singles, including "Our Song" and "That's My
Story". Most of the songs Simon recorded in the six years after
1957 were performed alone or with musicians other than Garfunkel.
They were released on several minor record labels, such as Amy,
Big, Hunt, King, Tribute, and Madison. He used several different
pseudonyms for these recordings, including Jerry Landis, Paul Kane
(from
Orson Welles's film
Citizen Kane) and True Taylor. Simon
enjoyed some moderate success in recording a few singles as part of
a group called
Tico and the Triumphs, including a song
called "Motorcycle" which reached No. 97 on the
Billboard charts in 1962. Tico and
the Triumphs released four 45s. Marty Cooper, known as Tico, sang
lead on several of these releases.
Bobby
Susser, children's songwriter and record producer, and
childhood friend of Simon's, co-produced the Tico 45s with Simon.
That year, Paul reached No. 99 on the pop charts as Jerry Landis
with the hit "The Lone Teen Ranger." Both chart singles were
released on
Amy Records.
In 1965 Simon moved to England and started touring
folk clubs and
coffee
houses.
At the first club he played, the Railway Inn
Folk Club in Brentwood,
Essex
, he met Kathy Chitty
who became his girlfriend and inspiration for "Kathy's Song",
"America" and
others. He performed at Les
Cousins
in London and toured provincial folk clubs where he
was exposed to a wide range of musical influences. In 1965
he recorded his solo LP
The
Paul Simon Songbook in England. During his time in the UK
Simon co-wrote several songs with
Bruce
Woodley of the Australian pop group
The
Seekers including "I Wish You Could Be Here," "Cloudy", and
"
Red Rubber Ball"; Woodley's
co-author credit was incorrectly omitted from "Cloudy" on the
Parsley, Sage,
Rosemary and Thyme album. The American group
The Cyrkle recorded a cover of "Red Rubber Ball",
which reached number two in the US. Simon also contributed his solo
composition to The Seekers catalogue, "Someday One Day," which was
released in March 1966.
Simon & Garfunkel
In early 1964, Simon and Garfunkel got an audition with
Columbia Records, whose executive
Clive Davis was impressed enough to sign the duo
to a contract to produce an album. Columbia decided that the two
would be called simply "Simon & Garfunkel," which Simon claimed
in 2003 was the first time that artists' ethnic names had been used
in pop music.
Simon and Garfunkel's first LP,
Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. was
released on October 19, 1964 and comprised twelve songs in the folk
vein, five of them written by Simon. The album initially flopped,
but East Coast radio stations began receiving requests for one of
the tracks, Simon's "
The Sound of
Silence." Their producer,
Tom
Wilson, overdubbed the track with
electric guitar,
bass, and
drum,
releasing it as a single that eventually went to number one on the
pop charts in the USA.
Simon had gone to England in 1965 after the initial failure of
Wednesday Morning, 3
A.M., pursuing a solo career. But he returned to the US to
reunite with Garfunkel after "The Sound of Silence" had started to
enjoy commercial success. Together they recorded four influential
albums,
Sounds of
Silence; Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and
Thyme; Bookends; and
Bridge over Troubled
Water. Simon and Garfunkel also contributed extensively to
the soundtrack of the 1967
Mike Nichols
film
The Graduate (starring
Dustin Hoffman and
Anne Bancroft). While writing "
Mrs. Robinson," Simon originally toyed with
the title "Mrs. Roosevelt." When Garfunkel reported this indecision
over the song's name to the director, Nichols replied, "Don't be
ridiculous! We're making a movie here! It's Mrs. Robinson!"
Simon pursued solo projects after the duo released their popular
album
Bridge over Troubled Water. Occasionally, he and
Garfunkel did reunite, such as in 1975 for their Top Ten single
"
My Little Town," which Simon
originally wrote for Garfunkel, claiming Garfunkel's solo output
was lacking "bite." The song was included on their respective solo
albums; Paul Simon's
Still Crazy After All These
Years, and Garfunkel's
Breakaway. Contrary to
popular belief, the song is not at all autobiographical of Simon's
early life in New York City. In 1981, they got together again for
the famous
concert in
Central Park, followed by a world tour and an aborted reunion
album
Think Too Much, which was eventually released
(without Garfunkel) as
Hearts and
Bones. Together, they were inducted into the
Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame
in 1990.
In 2003, the two reunited again when they received a
Grammy Lifetime Achievement
Award.
This reunion led to a U.S. tour—the acclaimed
"Old Friends" concert series—followed by a 2004 international
encore, which culminated in a free concert at the Colosseum
in Rome. That final concert drew 600,000
people.
1971–76: success as a solo artist
After Simon and Garfunkel split in 1970, Simon began to write and
record solo material. His eponymous album
Paul Simon was released in January
1972, preceded by his first experiment with world music, the
Jamaican-inspired "
Mother and
Child Reunion", considered one of the first examples of
reggae attempted by a white musician. The
single was a hit, reaching both the American and British Top 5. The
album was particularly well received, with critics praising the
variety of styles and the confessional lyrics, reaching No. 4 in
the U.S. and No. 1 on the UK and Japan. It later spawned another
Top 30 hit with "
Me
and Julio Down by the Schoolyard".
Simon's next project was the pop-folk masterpiece,
There Goes Rhymin' Simon,
released in May 1973. It contained some of his most popular and
polished recordings - the lead single, "
Kodachrome", was a No. 2 hit in America,
and the follow-up, the gospel-flavored "
Loves Me Like a Rock" was even bigger,
topping the
Cashbox charts. Other songs,
like the weary "
American Tune" or the
melancholic "Something So Right" – a tribute to Simon's first wife,
Peggy – became standards in the musician's catalogue. Critical and
commercial reception for this sophomore album were even stronger
than for his debut. At the time, it was remarked how the songs were
very fresh and unworried on the surface while they were exploring
socially and politically conscious themes on a deeper level. The
album reached No. 1 on the Cashbox album charts. As a souvenir for
the tour that came next, in 1974 it was released as a live album,
Live Rhymin', which was
moderately successful and displayed some changes in the Simon's
music style, adopting world and religious music.
Highly anticipated,
Still Crazy After All These
Years was his next album. Released in October 1975 and
produced by Simon and
Phil Ramone, it
was viewed as one of his finest works, marking another departure.
The mood of the album was darker, as he wrote and recorded it in
the wake of his divorce. Preceded by the feel-good duet with Phoebe
Snow, "Gone at Last" (a Top 25 hit) and the Simon & Garfunkel
reunion track "My Little Town" (a No. 9 on Billboard), the album
managed to be his only No. 1 on the Billboard charts to date, and
eventually won a
Grammy Award for Album of the
Year. With Simon in the forefront of popular music, the third
single from the album, "
50
Ways to Leave Your Lover" reached the top spot of the Billboard
charts, his only single to reach No. 1 on this list.
1977–85: lack of success and production
After three back-to-back successful studio albums, Simon became
less productive during the second half of the seventies. He dabbled
in various projects, including writing music for the film
Shampoo (a project which was eventually scrapped) and
acting (he was cast as Tony Lacey in
Woody
Allen's film
Annie Hall). He
achieved another hit in this decade, with the lead single of his
1977 compilation,
Greatest Hits,
Etc., "Slip Slidin' Away", reaching No. 5 in
America.
In 1980 he released
One Trick
Pony, his debut album with
Warner Bros. Records and his first in almost five
years. It was paired with the motion picture of the same name, in
which Simon starred. Although it produced his last Top 10 hit with
the upbeat "Late in the Evening" (also a No. 1 hit on the
Radio & Records American charts),
the album did not sell well, in a music market dominated by
disco music. Simon recorded
Hearts and Bones, a polished and
confessional album that was eventually viewed as one of his best
works, but that marked a lull in his commercial popularity; both
the album and the lead single, "Allergies", missed the American Top
40.
Hearts and Bones including "
The Late Great Johnny Ace", a song
partly about
Johnny Ace, an American
R&B singer, and partly about slain
Beatle John Lennon
The album remains a favorite with fans - many viewing it far above
the succeeding album "Graceland" as his greatest work. Musicians
Anthony Jackson, Rob Mounsey, Dean Parks, Michael Mainieri, Eric
Gale, Richard Tee, Steve Gadd, Airto Moreira, Greg Phillinganes,
Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards, Steve Ferrone, Jeff Porcaro, Marcus
Miller Rob Sabino and Sid Mcginnis contributed, however the album
was not a huge hit. A successful US solo tour featured Simon and
his guitar, with a recording of the rhythm track and horns for
"Late In The Evening". In January 1985 Simon lent his talent to
USA for Africa and performed on the
relief fundraising single "
We Are the World".
1986–91: Triumphal return, commercial and critical acclaim
Around 1985, while he was driving his car, Simon listened to a
cassette of the
Boyoyo Boys'
instrumental "Gumboots". Inspired by the unusual sound, he wrote
lyrics to sing over a re-recording of the song, which became the
first song of his next musical project,
Graceland, an eclectic mixture of
musical styles including
pop,
a cappella,
isicathamiya,
rock,
and
mbaqanga. Much of the album was
recorded in
South Africa and featured
many South African musicians and groups, particularly
Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Warner Bros. Records had serious doubts about
releasing an album of this category, but when it did, in August of
1986,
Graceland was praised by critics and the public and
became Simon's most successful album. It reached No. 1 in many
countries, including Australia and the UK, and peaked at No. 3 in
the U.S. It was the second-best-selling album of 1987 there, and
eventually reached a 5x Platinum certification, recognizing five
million copies sold only in America. Another seven million copies
were sold internationally, becoming his best-selling album. The
singles "
You Can Call Me Al" (a
British Top 5 hit), "Graceland", "The Boy in the Bubble" and
"Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" became standards and were
highly praised. Simon, at age 45, back in the forefront of
introducing popular music, received the
Grammy Award for Album of the
Year for
Graceland, and embarked on the successful
"Graceland Tour".
After "Graceland", he decided to extend its roots with the
Brazilian music-flavored
The Rhythm of the Saints,
which was released on October 1990. The album received excellent
critical reviews and achieved very respectable sales, peaking at
No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 1 in the UK. The lead single, "The
Obvious Child", was a Top 20 hit in the UK. The album received a
Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. Although not as successful
as
Graceland,
The Rhythm of the Saints was
received as a competent successor and consistent complement on
Simon's attempts to explore (and popularize) world music. The
importance of both albums allowed Simon to stage another New York
concert, and on August 15, 1991, almost a decade after his concert
with Garfunkel, Simon staged another concert in Central Park with
both African and South American bands. The success led to both a
live album and an
Emmy-winning TV
special.
1992–2007: commercial and critical up and downs
After 1991, Simon's place in the forefront of popular music dropped
notably. Since the early years of the decade he worked on
The Capeman, a musical that
finally opened on 1997 receiving terrible reviews and becoming a
commercial failure from which Simon lost 11 million dollars. The
album was received with lukewarm expectations, and it missed the
Top 40.
In 1999 Simon embarked on a North American tour with Bob Dylan
where each alternated as headline act with a 'middle' section where
they performed together, starting on the first of June and ending
September 18 (ref: http://www.paul-simon.info/). One critic Seth
Rogovoy from the Berkshire Eagle questioned the collaboration
(http://www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy/interviews/dylan716.html).
Then, Simon wrote and recorded a new album very quickly, with
You're the One
arriving in 2000. While not reaching the commercial heights of
previous albums it managed to reach the UK and US Top 20. It
received favorable reviews and received a Grammy nomination for
Album of the Year.
The same year, he was
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. In 2002 Simon wrote and
recorded "
Father and Daughter",
the theme song for the animated children's movie
The Wild Thornberrys Movie,
The track was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Song. In
2004, Simon's studio albums were re-released both individually and
together in a limited-edition nine-CD boxed set,
Paul Simon:
The Studio Recordings 1972–2000. (The expanded individual
albums feature a total of thirty bonus tracks, including original
song demos, live recordings, duets, six unreleased songs, and
outtakes from each of his nine solo albums.) At the time, Simon was
already working on a new album with
Brian
Eno –
Surprise, which was finally
released in May 2006. In commenting on US TV show
Ellen what drove him to write
material for this latest album, Simon noted the events of
September 11, 2001 and turning 60
since his previous album,
You're the One. Then, he
embarked on the successful "Surprise Tour", traveling Europe and
North America.
Current news
As of
2007, Paul Simon resides in New Canaan, Connecticut
. He is one of a small number of performers
such as
Paul McCartney,
John Lennon,
Johnny
Rivers,
Billy Joel,
Pink Floyd (from 1975's
Wish You Were
Here onward),
Queen,
Genesis (though under the members' individual
names and/or the pseudonym Gelring Limited) and
Neil Diamond who have their name as the
copyright owner on their recordings (most
records have the recording company as the named owner of the
recording). This noteworthy development was spearheaded by
supergroup The
Bee Gees after their
successful $200 million lawsuit against
RSO
Records, which remains to this day the largest successful
lawsuit against a record company by an artist or group.
Simon is also one of the practitioners of a creative and
distinctive fingerstyle guitar style in popular music. His
instrumental proficiency (influenced by British guitarist
Davey Graham as evidenced by his cover of
Graham’s very difficult "
Anji" on
Sounds of Silence) has always been highly underrated and
practically invisible as a guitarist. His
Cole Porter-esque compositional abilities with
his combination of jazz-tinged chords and seamless, romantic,
poetic lyrics ranged throughout all his different songwriting
styles.
In
February 2009, Simon performed back-to-back shows in his native
New York
City
at the Beacon
Theater, which had recently been renovated. Simon was
reunited with
Art Garfunkel at the
first show as well as with the cast of
The Capeman; also
playing in the band was
Graceland bassist
Bakithi Kumalo.
As of May 2009, Simon is touring with Art Garfunkel in Australia,
New Zealand and Japan.
Projects
Music for Broadway
In the
late 1990s, he also wrote and produced a Broadway
musical
called The Capeman, which lost $11 million
during its 1998 run. In April 2008, the Brooklyn Academy of
Music celebrated Paul Simon's works, and dedicated a week to
Songs From the Capeman with a good portion of the show's
songs performed by a cast of singers and the
Spanish Harlem Orchestra.
Simon
himself appeared during the BAM
shows, performing "Trailways Bus" and "Late In the Evening".
Film and television
Simon has also dabbled in acting. He played music producer Tony
Lacey in the 1977
Woody Allen film
Annie Hall, and wrote and
starred in 1980's
One Trick
Pony as Jonah Levin, a journeyman rock and roller. Simon
also wrote all the songs in the film. Paul Simon also appeared on
The Muppet Show (the only
episode to use only the songs of one songwriter, Simon). In 1990,
he played the character Simple Simon on the Disney channel TV
movie,
Mother Goose Rock
'n' Rhyme.
Simon has also appeared on
Saturday Night Live (SNL) either as
host or musical guest for a total of 12 times. On one appearance in
the late 1980s, he worked with his political namesake, Illinois
Senator
Paul Simon.
His most recent SNL appearance was the May 13, 2006 episode hosted
by
Julia Louis-Dreyfus. He
performed two new songs from his
Surprise album, "How Can
You Live in the Northeast?" and "Outrageous". In one
SNL
skit from 1986 (when he was promoting
Graceland), Simon
plays himself, waiting in line with a friend to get into a movie.
He amazes his friend by remembering intricate details about prior
meetings with passers-by, but draws a complete blank when
approached by
Art Garfunkel, despite
the latter's numerous memory prompts.
Simon also appeared alongside
George
Harrison as musical guest on the
Thanksgiving Day episode of
SNL
(November 20, 1976). The two performed "
Here Comes the Sun" and "
Homeward Bound" together, while Simon
performed "
50 Ways to Leave
Your Lover" solo earlier in the show. On that episode, Simon
opened the show singing "Still Crazy After All These Years" in a
turkey outfit, since Thanksgiving was the following week. About
halfway through the song, Simon tells the band to stop playing
because of his embarrassment. After giving a frustrating speech to
the audience, he leaves the stage, backed by applause.
Lorne Michaels positively greets him
backstage, but Simon is still upset, yelling at him because of the
humiliating turkey outfit. This is one of
SNL's most
played sketches.
On September 29, 2001, Simon made a special appearance on the first
SNL to air after the
September 11, 2001 attacks. On
that show, he performed "
The Boxer" to the
audience and the NYC firefighters and police officers. He is also
friends with former
SNL star
Chevy
Chase, who appeared in his video for "
You Can Call Me Al" lip synching the song
while Simon looks disgruntled and mimes backing vocals and the
playing of various instruments beside him. He is a close friend of
SNL producer
Lorne Michaels, who
produced the 1977 TV show
The Paul Simon Special, as well
as the Simon and Garfunkel concert in Central Park four years
later. Simon and Lorne Michaels were the subjects of a 2006 episode
of the Sundance channel documentary series,
Iconoclasts.
He has been the subject of two films by
Jeremy Marre, the first on
Graceland,
the second on
The Capeman.
On November 18, 2008, Simon was a guest on
The Colbert Report promoting his book
"Lyrics 1964-2008". He did an interview with
Stephen Colbert and then performed "American
Tune".
Simon performed a
Stevie Wonder song
at the White House in 2009, at an event honoring Wonder's musical
career and contributions, hosted by President
Barack Obama.
In May 2009,
The Library of Congress: Paul Simon and Friends
Live Concert was released on DVD, via Shout! Factory. The PBS
concert was recorded in 2007.
Awards and honors
Paul Simon won 13
Grammy Awards (one of
them a
Lifetime
Achievement Award) and five Grammy nominations, the most recent
for his album
You're the One in 2001. In 1998 he received
a
Grammy Hall of Fame
Award for the Simon & Garfunkel album
Bridge over Troubled Water.
He received an
Oscar nomination for
the song "Father and Daughter" in 2002.
In 2001 Paul Simon was honored as MusiCares Person Of The
Year.
Paul Simon is a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame — as a solo artist in 2001, and in 1990 as half of Simon &
Garfunkel.
In 2002, Paul Simon was one of the five annual recipients of the
Kennedy Center Honors, the
nation's highest tribute to performing and cultural artists.
In 2005 he received the Top Award of the 53rd Annual BMI Pop
Awards. His songwriting catalog has earned 39 BMI Awards including
multiple citations for "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Mrs.
Robinson," "Scarborough Fair" and "The Sound of Silence" and
amassed nearly 75 million broadcast airplays, according to BMI
surveys.
In 2006 Paul Simon was one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World"
at Time Magazine.
Paul Simon received the first annual Library of Congress Gershwin
Prize for Popular Song in 2007. Stevie Wonder got the second
Gershwin Prize in 2009. Named in honor of the legendary George and
Ira Gershwin, this newly created award recognizes the profound and
positive effect of popular music on the world’s culture. Upon being
notified of receiving this honor, Simon said, “I am grateful to be
the recipient of the Gershwin Prize and doubly honored to be the
first. I look forward to spending an evening in the company of
artists I admire at the award ceremony in May. I can think of a few
who have expressed my words and music far better than I. I’m
excited at the prospect of that happening again. It’s a
songwriter’s dream come true."Among the performers who payed
tribute to Paul Simon were Stevie Wonder, Alison Krauss, Lyle
Lovett, James Taylor, Dianne Reeves, Marc Anthony, Yolanda Adams,
and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The event is beautifully filmed, broad
casted and now available as "Paul Simon and Friends."
Personal life
Simon has been married three times, first to Peggy Harper in late
autumn 1969. They had a son,
Harper
Simon, in 1972 and divorced in 1975. The song "Train in the
Distance," from Simon's 1983 album, is about this relationship.
Simon's 1972 song "Run That Body Down," from his debut solo album,
casually mentions both himself and his then-wife ("Peg") by
name.
His second marriage was to actress and author
Carrie Fisher to whom he proposed after a
New York Yankees game. (The song
"
Hearts and Bones" was written
about this relationship.)
He married folk singer
Edie Brickell
on May 30, 1992. They have three children together, Adrian, Lulu,
and Gabriel.
Philanthropy
Simon is a proponent of music education for children. In 2003, he
signed on as an official supporter of
Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization
that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children
in public schools throughout the U.S. He sits on the organization's
board of directors as an honorary member.
Paul Simon is also a major benefactor and one of the co-founders,
with Dr.
Irwin Redlener, of the
Children's Health Project and
The
Children's Health Fund which started by creating specially
equipped "buses" to take medical care to children in medically
underserved areas, urban and rural. Their first bus was in the
impoverished South Bronx of New York City but they now operate in
12 states, including the Gulf Coast. It has expanded greatly,
partnering with major hospitals, local public schools and medical
schools and advocating policy for children's health and medical
care.
Discography
Number-one albums
Work on Broadway
See also
References
- Paul Simon - TIME
- Paul Simon, Speech given upon induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Cleveland,
OH, 2003.
- David Fricke, in the leaflet accompaniment to the Simon and
Garfunkel 1997 album "Old Friends"
- "The Boy in the Bubble" by Patrick Humphries, page 96.
- Paul Simon News on Yahoo! Music
- Lorentzen, Amy, "Simon campaigns in Iowa for Dodd,"
Associated
Press news article as printed in The
Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut, with the words
"Simon, who lives in New Canaan" added by editors at The
Advocate - the words are not found in other versions of the
article printed elsewhere, July 7, 2007
- Matt Blackett wrote in Guitar Player that "Because he’s such a
great songwriter, Paul Simon never gets enough love for his guitar
playing, and that’s just plain uncool, because this guy is
awesome." See
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/cd-review-simon/apr-09/95515
(retrieved 26 May 2009)
- Former Sen. Paul Simon Dies Fox News
- The open Paul Simon biography
- Ibid
- CHF - The Children's Health Fund
- Mobile health units bring medical care to
homeless
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