Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Simon & Garfunkel. Their blend of folk and rock, including hits such as "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", "America", and "The Boxer", served as a soundtrack to the 1960s counterculture. Their final album, Bridge over Troubled Water, is among the best-selling of all time.
As a solo artist, Simon has explored genres including gospel, reggae, and soul. His albums Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon, and Still Crazy After All These Years kept him in the public eye and drew acclaim, producing the hits "Mother and Child Reunion", "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard", and "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Simon reunited with Garfunkel for several tours and the 1981 Concert in Central Park. Simon hosted Saturday Night Live four times from 1975 to 1987 and has served as the musical guest various times on the show. He made his acting debut in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Annie Hall.
In 1986, Simon released his most successful and acclaimed album, Graceland, incorporating South African influences. "You Can Call Me Al" became one of Simon's most successful singles. Graceland was followed by The Rhythm of the Saints and a second Concert in the Park in 1991, without Garfunkel, which approximately 500,000 people attended. In 1998, Simon wrote a Broadway musical, The Capeman, that was poorly received. He continued to record and tour in the 21st century. His later albums, such as You're the One, So Beautiful or So What, and Stranger to Stranger, introduced him to new generations. His most recent album, Seven Psalms, was released in 2023.
Simon has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and has won 16 Grammy Awards, including three for Album of the Year. Two of his works, Sounds of Silence and Graceland, were inducted into the National Recording Registry for their cultural significance. He was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors in 2001 and the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize in 2007. He is a co-founder of the Children's Health Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides medical care to children.
Early life and education
Simon was born on October 13, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, to Hungarian-Jewish parents. His father, Louis, a professor of education at the City College of New York, was a double bass player and dance bandleader who performed under the name Lee Sims. His mother, Belle, was an elementary-school teacher. In 1945, his family moved to the Kew Gardens Hills section of Flushing, Queens, in New York City.The musician Donald Fagen described Simon's childhood as that of "a certain kind of New York Jew, almost a stereotype really, to whom music and baseball are very important. I think it has to do with the parents. The parents are either immigrants or first-generation Americans who felt like outsiders, and assimilation was the key thought—they gravitated to black music and baseball, looking for an alternative culture." Simon said Fagen's description was not far from the truth. He described his father as funny and smart, but said he worked late and did not see his children much. He recalls hearing "Gee" by The Crows on Make Believe Ballroom: "It was really the first thing I heard on there that I liked. And it was really the first time I heard rock and roll." He tried to explain to his father the feeling he got hearing "Earth Angel": "My father was a very good musician. And he comes from an era of very sophisticated music. Big bands, and Sinatra... He didn't buy it. But I love that record".
Simon met Art Garfunkel when they were 11 years old and performed together in a production of Alice in Wonderland for their sixth-grade graduation. The two began singing together at age 13, occasionally performing at school dances. At age 12 or 13, Simon wrote his first song, "The Girl for Me", for him and Garfunkel to perform. According to Simon, it became the "neighborhood hit". His father wrote the words and chords on paper for the boys to use, and that paper became the first officially copyrighted Simon and Garfunkel song. It is now in the Library of Congress. In 1957, in their mid-teens, they recorded the song "Hey, Schoolgirl" under the name "Tom & Jerry", a name given to them by their label, Big Records. The single reached number 49 on the Billboard charts.
After graduating from Forest Hills High School, Simon majored in English at Queens College and graduated in 1963. Garfunkel studied mathematics education at Columbia University in Manhattan. Simon was a brother in the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, and attended Brooklyn Law School for one semester in 1963.
Career
Between 1957 and 1964, Simon wrote, recorded, and released more than 30 songs. He and Garfunkel occasionally reunited as Tom & Jerry to record singles, including "Our Song" and "That's My Story". Most of the songs Simon recorded during that time he performed alone, or with musicians other than Garfunkel. They were released on minor record labels including Amy, Big, Hunt, King, Tribute and Madison. Simon used several pseudonyms for these recordings, including "Jerry Landis", "Paul Kane", and "True Taylor". By 1962, working as Jerry Landis, he was a frequent writer/producer for several Amy Records artists, overseeing material released by Dotty Daniels, the Vels and Ritchie Cordell.Simon enjoyed moderate success with singles as part of the group Tico and the Triumphs, including "Motorcycle", which reached number 99 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, but "Motorcycle" featured Simon's vocal. Also in 1962, Simon reached number 97 on the pop charts as Jerry Landis, with the novelty song "The Lone Teen Ranger".
1960s: Simon & Garfunkel
In early 1964, Simon and Garfunkel auditioned for Columbia Records, whose executive Clive Davis signed them to produce an album. Columbia decided to call them Simon & Garfunkel instead of Tom & Jerry, and according to Simon, this was the first time artists' surnames had been used in pop music without their first names. Simon and Garfunkel's first LP, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., was released on October 19, 1964. It consisted of 12 songs, five of which were written by Simon. The album initially flopped.File:SimonandGarfunkel.jpg|thumb|left|Garfunkel, left, with Paul Simon, right, performing outside at a concert in Dublin as Simon & Garfunkel
In 1965, after the album's release, Simon moved to London and performed in folk clubs. He enjoyed his time in England and said in 1970, "I had a lot of friends there and a girlfriend. I could play music there. There was no place to play in New York City. They wouldn't have me." He was welcomed by England's bohemian folk scene. He recalled, "I learnt how to finger-pick acoustic guitar from Martin Carthy, who was connected to the Watersons from Hull, which of course led to 'Scarborough Fair', and I had never heard anything like those old English songs. The closest I got was the Everly Brothers, who borrowed from Appalachian melodies, so that period was very powerful for me. I had never heard anything like those old English songs. I was 21, 22, and emotionally open to everything." He wrote "Homeward Bound" and "I Am a Rock", and learned Davey Graham's guitar instrumental "Anji". He says that “Nothing in my repertoire can’t be traced back to something I’ve heard at some point, and the two big influences were street corner doo-wop from New York and the folk music I heard in England."
In England, Simon recorded a solo album, The Paul Simon Songbook, featuring just his voice and guitar accompaniment; it was released only in the UK at the time, but later released elsewhere. He also produced Jackson C. Frank's only album and 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". Simon penned "Someday, One Day" for the Seekers, which charted around the same time as "Homeward Bound".
Radio stations on the American East Coast began receiving requests for the Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. track "The Sound of Silence". Simon & Garfunkel's producer, Tom Wilson, overdubbed the track with electric guitar, bass guitar, and drums, and it was released as a single, eventually reaching number 1 on the U.S. pop charts. Wilson did not inform the duo of his plan, and Simon was "horrified" when he first heard it. The single's success drew Simon back to the U.S. to reunite with Garfunkel, and they recorded the albums Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and Bookends.
Simon & Garfunkel also contributed to the soundtrack of Mike Nichols's film The Graduate. While writing "Mrs. Robinson", Simon 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 and Garfunkel's relationship became strained and they split in 1970. At the urging of his wife, Peggy Harper, Simon called Davis to confirm the duo's breakup. For the next several years, they spoke only two or three times a year. Their last album, Bridge over Troubled Water, was the bestselling album to date. The title track was inspired by a line from the Swan Silvertones version of "Mary Don’t You Weep". The melody was based on Bach’s four-part chorale ‘O sacred head now wounded’.
The title track reached number one, and "Cecilia" and "The Boxer" made the top ten.
1970–1976: Solo and ''Still Crazy After All These Years''
In 1970, Simon taught songwriting at New York University. He said he had wanted to teach for a while, and hoped to help people avoid some of the mistakes he had made: "You can teach somebody about writing songs. You can't teach someone how to write a song... I'd go to a course if the Beatles would talk about how they made records because I'm sure I could learn something." He contributed the lyrics of "Half of the People" to Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.Simon pursued solo work while occasionally reuniting with Garfunkel for various projects. In April 1972, he performed at the Cleveland Arena alongside Joni Mitchell and James Taylor in a benefit concert for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign. He and Garfunkel reunited in mid-June that year at Madison Square Garden in another concert for McGovern.
Simon's next album, Paul Simon, was released in January 1972. It featured an early experiment with world music, the reggae-inspired "Mother and Child Reunion", recorded with Jimmy Cliff's band. It reached both the American and British Top 5. The album received universal acclaim and critics praised its variety of styles and confessional lyrics. Paul Simon reached number 4 in the U.S. and number 1 in the UK and Japan, and produced another Top 30 hit, "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard". Simon also provided guitar on Garfunkel's 1973 album Angel Clare, and added backing vocals to the song "Down in the Willow Garden".
Simon's next project, the pop-folk album There Goes Rhymin' Simon, was released in May 1973. The lead single, "Kodachrome", was a number 2 hit in the U.S. The follow-up, the gospel-flavored "Loves Me Like a Rock", topped the Cashbox charts. Other songs like "American Tune" and "Something So Right" became part of his repertoire. The album reached number 1 on the Cashbox album charts. In March 1974 he released a live album, Live Rhymin', containing elements of Latin and religious music.
His next album, produced by Simon and Phil Ramone, was Still Crazy After All These Years, released in October 1975. The mood of the album, written after Simon's divorce, was darker. It contains "Gone at Last", a duet with Phoebe Snow, and the Simon & Garfunkel reunion track "My Little Town". Simon wrote the song for Garfunkel, whose solo output Simon felt lacked "bite", and it was included on Garfunkel's album Breakaway. Contrary to popular belief, the song was not based on Simon's early life in New York City. The album is his only number 1 on the Billboard charts to date. The 18th Grammy Awards named it the Album of the Year, and his performance on it the year's Best Male Pop Vocal. The third single from the album, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", reached the top spot on the Billboard charts. On May 3, 1976, Simon put together a benefit show at Madison Square Garden for the New York Public Library that raised over $30,000.