Paul Frederic Simon (13 October 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. From 1964 to 1970, he formed half of the duo Simon & Garfunkel and since 1970 has been a solo artist, alongside occasional reunions with Art Garfunkel. Simon scored various hits, including "Late in the Evening" and "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Up to and including 2018, Simon made fourteen solo albums, the best known of which is Graceland from 1986, made with South African musicians, which also features the hit single "You Can Call Me Al".
Paul Simon’s parents, Belle and Louis, were Hungarian immigrants. Paul’s grandfather – after whom he is named – fled to the United States in 1903 due to increasing antisemitism in Hungary. At the end of the 1950s, the then sixteen-year-old Simon formed the duo Tom & Jerry with school friend Art Garfunkel, a name they took from the popular cartoon series Tom and Jerry. They scored a minor hit in the United States with their first single, "Hey Schoolgirl", but further success eluded them. Using the stage name Jerry Landis, Simon joined a vocal group, Tico and the Triumphs, in the summer of 1961. Their single "Motorcycle", which Simon also produced, reached 99th place in the Billboard Hot 100. In 1964, this group disbanded. Simon and Garfunkel reunited. In October 1964, Columbia Records released their debut album Wednesday Morning, 3 AM. The album was not successful. CBS Records released Simon’s first solo album, titled The Paul Simon Songbook, in the United Kingdom in 1965. In October 1965, a new version of the song "The Sound of Silence" from Simon and Garfunkel’s debut album was released as a single. It gave them a number one hit in the United States. In the 1960s, they also recorded the albums Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966), and Bridge over Troubled Water (1970). The soundtrack of the film The Graduate (1967) also contains much of their music, including the song "Mrs. Robinson". The duo split up in 1970, after which Simon immediately began recording his second solo album. This album, titled Paul Simon, was released in 1972. In the following years, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) and Hearts and Bones (1983) followed.
Besides being an innovator of (American) folk music, Simon – in the second half of his career as a solo artist – gained fame as a skilful improviser in blending non-Western musical styles with his own Western interpretation. For this, he spent some time immersed in that other culture: Graceland from 1986, after a stay of about two weeks in South Africa, is a remarkable result of this. This album features hits such as "Homeless" (partly in Zulu), "The Boy in the Bubble" and "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes". Ladysmith Black Mambazo, one of the bands that contributed, became popular through the album. Simon was the first international artist to give a concert in South Africa after the United Nations lifted the boycott imposed on them due to apartheid. This concert took place on 11 January 1992 in Johannesburg.
On 5 February 2018, Simon announced in a letter to his fans that he would stop performing as an artist. At the same time, he announced his farewell tour, which began on 16 May that year in Vancouver, Canada. After, among others, two concerts at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on 7 and 8 July, he concluded the Homeward Bound Farewell Tour in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in New York on 22 September 2018. On 7 September 2018, his fourteenth and final solo album, In the Blue Light, was released, on which he presented new versions of previously recorded songs that, according to him, had been underappreciated in his oeuvre.
Source: Wikipedia Photo: Matthew Straubmuller (imatty35) and Miho
