Paul Simon

Danny Duncan Collum 11-21-2018

Paul Simon performs with members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo at a 2007 reunion in Washington, D.C. Jason Reed/Reuters

ON SEPT. 22, 2018, Paul Simon took to an outdoor stage in his native borough of Queens, N.Y., for the last show of his aptly named “Homeward Bound” farewell tour. After 52 years near the top of the music business, Simon was finally ready to get off the bus for good. Simon’s not taking a vow of musical silence, but he does say that he has no plans for further work.

So, let’s take the man at his word and assume that this could be a good time to assess what the singer-songwriter has meant to his audiences, his country, and, in the end, the great march of human culture.

That may sound a little grandiose for a guy who started as a hack songwriter in the Brill Building pop factory and made his first record (with Art Garfunkel, of course) under the name “Tom and Jerry.” But after the whole “The Sound of Silence,” folk-rock thing passed, Simon went on a long, long run in which he often elevated the American pop song to the level of high art. And, from “America,” dropped into the maelstrom of 1968, to the Nixon era’s “American Tune,” to “Wristband” in the age of Trump, he occasionally even captured the spirit of his age in a memorable, hummable verse, chorus, and bridge.

In brief, the guy’s a genius. And, though he started in the era when singer-songwriters were supposed to be the new poets, his real genius turned out to be musical: those infectious tunes and, from the mid-’70s on, those propulsive rhythmic arrangements.

Cathleen Falsani 6-06-2016

Since the 1960s, Simon’s musical dialogue with his audience has been an adventure: through the mean streets of pre-Bloomberg New York City, on a bus across America, with a runaway bride, into the townships of South Africa, Chernobyl, the Amazon, fatherhood, the deep South, the ups-and-downs of enduring love, questions about mortality, and dreams of the afterlife.

That conversation (and adventure) continues with Stranger to Stranger at the velvet rope of a nightclub, with a homeless “street angel,” in a hospital emergency room, at the riverbank, an insomniac’s bedside, and a village in central Brazil that some might describe as a “thin place” — where the veil between this world and whatever lies beyond it is like gossamer.

Steve Stockman 7-04-2012

It doesn’t seem seven years since Leonard Cohen’s last album because the man has spent the middle years of his 70s up to his wrinkles in a whole lot of activity including critically acclaimed concert tours that produced a plethora of CDs and DVDs and a No.1 hit single via the dubious conduit of X Factor winner Alexandra Burke!

The years between 2004's Dear Heather and his latest album Old Ideas have built Cohen’s status to a Zen guru presence. For weeks there has been anticipation about this new record not because the public is imagining some reinvention at the age of 77 but more that he is the closest thing rock music has to a spiritual sage and we are waiting for the wisdom he has to share.

Old Ideas is no disappointment for those looking for spiritual songs.

Cathleen Falsani 5-25-2012

“If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.” ~President John F. Kennedy

Twenty-five years after the release of Paul Simon's Graceland album, the singer-songwriter returned to South Africa to visit the musicians who worked with him on what many believe is his musical masterpiece. A new documentary film, Under African Skies, which premieres tonite (Friday, May 25) on A&E, chronicles Simon's journey and the role that music — and artists — may have played in bringing about the end of apartheid.

This masterful film, which debuted earlier this year to wide acclaim at the Sundance film festival, makes a convincing argument for the important role that artists play in changing the world for the better.

http://youtu.be/JPFESqwh0ks

 

 

Cathleen Falsani 1-06-2012
Paul Simon. Image via PaulSimon.com

Paul Simon. Image via PaulSimon.com

"How was all of this created? If the answer to that question is God created everything, there was a creator, than I say, great! What a great job. And I like the idea. I find it very, I don’t know, I find it comforting in some way. But if the answer to that is there is no God, I don’t feel like, well, what a jerk I’ve been. I feel, oh fine, so there’s another answer. I don’t know the answer. I’m just a speck of dust here for a nanosecond, and I’m very grateful." — Paul Simon in an interview that will air this weekend on the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.

Watch the interview in its entirety inside ...