Perhaps best known for his contributions to the legendary duo Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon is actually the songwriter of the two. While that successful partnership catapulted him to global fame, Simon has also enjoyed a respectable solo career. The award-winning songwriter has collected 12 Grammys and a number of other impressive accolades. In 2006, he was selected as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time magazine and the following year, he was named the first recipient of the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. And it all began in New Jersey in 1941, when Simon was born to professional musicians who undoubtedly passed their passion and talents down to him.Paul Simon's father was a classically trained bass player and a first violinist on the main radio station of Budapest before he immigrated from Hungary. His mother, also Hungarian-born, was a private music tutor and elementary school teacher. Fellow songwriter and musician Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan) later 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, upon hearing Fagen's description, acknowledged that it "[wa]sn't far from the truth."
As fate would have it, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were both cast in their school's production of Alice in Wonderland when they were 11 years old. They immediately became friends, and began singing together (sometimes at school dances) when they were 13. The two boys idolized the Everly Brothers, and tried to imitate their use of close two-part harmony. Simon also looked up to legends like Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly while he wrote music, which he started doing when he was around 12 years old. His first song was called "The Girl for Me," and his father wrote out the words and chords by hand. That piece of paper became the first officially copyrighted Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel song, and it is now in the Library of Congress. By the time the boys were in their mid-teens, they had signed their first recording contract (with the Big Records label) and adopted the stage name Tom and Jerry. The first song they recorded under that name was "Hey, Schoolgirl", which reached Number 49 on the pop music charts. Simon and Garfunkel both took time off to earn university degrees, however, they both knew that they would return to music as soon as they were able.
Between 1957 and 1964, Simon wrote, recorded and released more than thirty songs. Some of these songs, including "That's My Story" and "Our Song," were collaborations with Garfunkel; others involved other partners, or were solo efforts by Simon. The singles were released on several minor record labels, and some (like, for example, "Motorcycle" sung by Tico and the Triumphs and "The Lone Teen Ranger" by Jerry Landis) enjoyed moderate success on the charts. The next highlight of Simon's musical career was in his early 20's, when he moved to England and started touring folk clubs and coffee houses. While there, he collected a number of musical influences--and he also recorded his solo LP, The Paul Simon Songbook. Among the many people he met in the UK were Kathy Chitty (who became his girlfriend and was the inspiration for "Kathy's Song" and "America") and Bruce Woodley of the Australian pop group The Seekers. Simon co-wrote several songs with Woodley: including "I Wish You Could Be Here", "Cloudy" and "Red Rubber Ball." Later, the American group The Cyrkle recorded a cover of "Red Rubber Ball" that reached the Number 2 spot in the U.S.
Simon and Garfunkel soon reunited, and landed a contract with Columbia Records. For the first time, they were encouraged to record under their real names (instead of "Tom and Jerry") and their first LP as such was Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. The 12-song album (with 5 of those songs written by Simon) initially flopped; however, East Coast radio stations began receiving requests for one of the tracks--Simon's "The Sounds of Silence." The duo's producer, Tom Wilson, overdubbed the original track with electric guitar, bass and drums, and then released it as a single. That single eventually climbed to the top of the American pop charts--and it is to this day regarded as one of Simon's best. The commercial success of "The Sounds of Silence" prompted Simon and Garfunkel to record four more influential albums together: Sounds of Silence; Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; Bookends; and the hugely successful Bridge Over Troubled Water. The pair also contributed extensively to the soundtrack of The Graduate (1967), starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. Simon wrote "Mrs. Robinson" specifically for the film.
Simon's musical career apart from Garfunkel has been just as impressive. After the pair split in 1970, Simon launched whole-heartedly into producing solo material. He released his eponymous album Paul Simon, along with the experimental Jamaican-inspired "Mother and Child Reunion." That first foray into reggae was one of the first by a white musician, and it was a hit in the U.K. and the U.S. The album was also well received, praised for its variety and confessional tone. After that came the pop-folk masterpiece There Goes Rhymin' Simon, released in 1973. The album contained "Kodachrome", "Loves Me Like a Rock", "American Tune" and "Something So Right". It was also released as a live album, Live Rhymin'. Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) was Simon's highly-anticipated follow-up album; it featured a darker mood than the songwriter was typically known for--and yet, it is still his only No. 1 album on the Billboard charts. It received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and Simon's performance also won for Best Male Pop Vocal. The album contains "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," which is Simon's only No. 1 single to date.
The following decades brought even more success for Simon, and that success was in several different fields. He wrote music for the film Shampoo, and was cast in a role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. His single "Slip Slidin' Away" (off the 1977 compilation album Greatest Hits, Etc.) reached the Number 5 spot. One Trick Pony, Simon's first album in almost five years, was released in 1980 to coincide with the release of the motion picture of the same name (which Simon wrote and starred in.) After that came Hearts and Bones, a confessional album that is widely considered to be one of his best. In the early '80's, Simon combined pop, a cappella, isicathamiya, rock, and mbaqanga sounds to create Graceland. He was then inspired by Brazilian music, and recorded The Rhythm of the Saints. One song from that album, "She Moves On", has a particularly interesting anecdote: Simon's ex-wife Carrie Fisher says in her autobiography Wishful Drinking that it is about her. She also wrote the line, "If you can get Paul Simon to write a song about you, do it. Because he is so brilliant at it."
Paul Simon still continues to perform, record and release music. He loves to experiment with genres and techniques from around the world, and often strays from his original American folk roots. In the 1990's, he wrote and produced a Broadway musical called The Capeman; he also played himself on the Disney Channel TV movie, Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live (SNL) a total of 13 times, and has performed everywhere from music festivals to the White House. Occasionally, Simon and Garfunkel reunite to record a single, perform a concert--or accept an award. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together in 1990, and they jointly received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. When they got back together in 2004 to perform a free concert at the Colosseum in Rome, that concert drew 600,000 people.
You may be a fan of Simon & Garfunkel, or Paul Simon as a solo artist. Either way, you will surely agree that he is among the truly Great American Songwriters.
