One of Rick
Kelo’s favorite musicians, Paul Simon has most definitely stood the test of
time. Paul Frederic Simon was born in Newark,
New Jersey on October 13, 1941. His parents were
Hungarian Jews. The family moved to the
New York City suburb of Queens when Simon was four years old. Looking back on
his childhood, he stated, "I was a ballplayer. I'd go on my bike, and I'd
hustle kids in stickball…I used to listen to [baseball] games with my father. He was a
nice guy. Fun. Funny. Smart. He didn't play with me as much as I played with my
kids. He was at work until late at night...Sometimes [until] two in the
morning."
In sixth grade, at the age of eleven, Paul
Simon met another young boy, Art Garfunkel. Two years later, the duo began to
sing together. They idolized the Everly Brothers and Woody Guthrie. At college,
Garfunkel majored in mathematics and Simon in English.
Originally, Simon and Garfunkel performed
together as “Tom & Jerry”, releasing a few singles. Simon wrote the songs
(more than thirty between 1957 and 1964). Finally, in 1964, the two were given
an audition at Columbia Records, which promptly signed them to a contract.
Their previous moniker lapsed into obscurity, and they recorded and played
under their real names. Their first album was release that same year; it was
titled Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
Simon then spent some time in the UK, playing
gigs at small venues and writing songs that would become classics. One such
song was “Homeward Bound”. He also recorded a solo album.
One of the tracks from Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. started to receive increasing airplay.
This was “The Sound of Silence”. The song gained in popularity until it reached
Number 1 on the pop charts. Simon returned to the United States, recorded more
albums with Garfunkel, and provided the soundtrack to the seminal ‘60s film The Graduate.
With on-and-off battles with Garfunkel, Simon
pursued a largely solo career after the early 1970s. His 1986 album Graceland was a smash hit, and the video
to the track “You Can Call Me Al” featured comedian Chevy Chase lip-synching to
the song while Simon looked on.
In 2015, Simon toured Europe with Sting. Now
seventy-five years old, not having performed with Garfunkel in years, Simon has
stated that his most recent tour will be his last.
