Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941 in Newark Heights, New Jersey) is a renowned American singer songwriter, receiving Kennedy Center Honors in 2002. He was originally best known for being half of the folk singing duo Simon and Garfunkel.
Simon has been married three times; he is currently married to Edie Brickell whom he wed on May 30, 1992. He has four children, and his first son Harper Simon is a guitarist.
Born into a Jewish family in Queens, Paul Simon's musical career began in Forest Hills High School when he and his friend Art Garfunkel began singing together as a duo, occasionally performing at school dances. Their idols were the Everly Brothers, whom they often emulated and/or imitated in their early recordings. Simon and Garfunkel fashioned themselves "Tom & Jerry," and it was under this name that the duo first tasted success. In 1957, they recorded the single "Hey, Schoolgirl," on Big Records which hit #49 on the pop charts while they were still in their late teens.
After graduating high school, Simon attended and graduated from Queens College, while Garfunkel studied at Columbia University in Manhattan. Simon was a Brother in the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. Though Simon earned a degree in English literature, his real passion was rock 'n 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", "That's My Story", and "Surrender, Please Surrender", among others. He also briefly attended Brooklyn Law School.
Most of the songs Simon would record over the six years after 1957, however, would be performed either by himself or with musicians other than Garfunkel. These were released on a multitude of minor record labels, such as Amy, ABC-Paramount, Big, Hunt, Ember, 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 mediocre success in recording a few singles under the pseudonym Tico as part of a group called Tico and the Triumphs. He wrote the song "Motorcycle", which was recorded by Tico and the Triumphs and reached #99 on the Billboard charts in 1962. That same year, he reached #97 on the pop charts with the hit "The Lone Teen Ranger" as Jerry Landis; both singles were released on Amy Records.
During this period, Simon met Carole King, with whom he recorded several unreleased demos as a duo called "The Cosines" to be recorded and released by other groups. In addition, Simon's experience in the studio led him to produce many singles for other acts, including The Vels, Ritchie Cordell, The Fashions, Jay Walker and the Pedestrians, and Dougie and the Dubs. It was also at this time that he became attracted to the New York folk music scene and made his first forays into the folk-rock genre, as is evidenced in the songs "Carlos Dominguez" and "He Was My Brother" (1963).
In early 1964, Simon and Garfunkel got an audition with Columbia Records, whose executives were 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, according to Simon, was the first time that ethnic names (both Simon and Garfunkel are of Jewish descent) were used in pop music .
Simon & Garfunkel's first LP, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., released on 19 October 1964, consisted of a set of twelve songs in the folk vein, five of them written by Simon. The album initially flopped, but radio stations on the east coast of the USA began receiving requests for one of Simon's songs on the LP called "The Sound of Silence". Simon & Garfunkel's producer, Tom Wilson, overdubbed the track with electric guitar, bass, and drums, and released it as a single that eventually went to #1 on the pop charts in the United States. Simon had gone to England after the initial failure of Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., and pursued a solo career there, releasing the album The Paul Simon Song Book in the United Kingdom in 1965, but he returned to the USA to reunite with Garfunkel after "The Sound of Silence" began to enjoy commercial success. Together they recorded several influential albums, including 1966's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, Bookends, and Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970). Simon and Garfunkel also contributed extensively to the soundtrack of the 1967 film The Graduate (starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft). They recorded an early version of "Mrs. Robinson" specifically for the film; other songs by the duo were also used in the film.
Simon pursued solo projects after the duo released their very popular album Bridge Over Troubled Water. Occasionally, he and Garfunkel would reunite, such as in 1975 for their Top Ten single "My Little Town". In 1981, they reunited for the famous concert in Central Park, followed by an aborted reunion album Think Too Much, which was eventually released (sans 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 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. This reunion led to a US 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—100,000 more than attended Paul McCartney's concert at the same venue, one year earlier.
Simon is a prolific songwriter and his output has been of the highest caliber. After Simon and Garfunkel split in 1970, Paul Simon began to write and record solo material. He released Paul Simon in 1972, and There Goes Rhymin' Simon in 1973, which featured such popular hit songs as "Something So Right" and "Kodachrome". He continued to record remarkable material during the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1986 he released the immensely popular Graceland, which featured the groundbreaking use of African rhythms and performers Ladysmith Black Mambazo. In 1990, he followed up Graceland with the commercially successful and consistent successor album The Rhythm of the Saints, which featured Brazillian and Cajun musical themes. These albums helped to popularize world music as a genre.
Paul Simon at the Olympia, Paris during the shooting of You're The One in Concert
His most recent work was the studio album You're the One, which disappointed fans expecting more of the musical adventurousness found on his previous two albums. A live CD of the same title, recorded in Paris, was released in 2000. It is also available on DVD.
During the mid-1960s, Paul Simon co-wrote the song "Red Rubber Ball" with Bruce Woodley of the Australian pop group The Seekers. When the American group The Cyrkle recorded a cover of the song, it reached #2 in the US.
In 2004, Paul Simon's record company announced the release of expanded editions of each of his solo albums, individually and together in a limited-edition nine-disc box set, Paul Simon: The Studio Recordings 1972–2000. Each of the expanded individual albums feature a total of 30 bonus tracks, including original song demos, live recordings, duets, six never-before-released songs and outtakes from each of his nine solo albums. Among the bonus tracks included in the release are: an acoustic demo of "Homeless," recorded prior to his sessions in South Africa with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, from Graceland
"Shelter Of Your Arms," a previously unreleased song featuring a solo acoustic performance from the Hearts and Bones sessions
demos of "Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard" and "Duncan" recorded in San Francisco in 1971 by Paul Simon
the original demo of "Gone At Last," with the Jessy Dixon Singers, from Still Crazy After All These Years
"Spiral Highway" and "All Because Of You," unreleased performances from One Trick Pony (which use the same music as "How the Heart Approaches What it Yearns" and "Oh Marion," respectively)
a work-in-progress called "Let Me Live In Your City," which eventually became the track "Something So Right" from There Goes Rhymin' Simon
early versions of "The Coast" and "Spirit Voices" from The Rhythm of the Saints
a duet with José Feliciano on "Born In Puerto Rico"
outtakes from Songs From the Capeman
live cuts from the You're the One concert tour
Simon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a second time in 2000 for his achievements as a solo artist.
