Paul Simon

Did You Know?

• In 2012 Simon said that in his songwriting, music always precedes the words, and rhythm plays a crucial part in lyric-making.
• Simon received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song in 2002 for "Father and Daughter".

Early life and education

Simon was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Hungarian-Jewish parents. His father, Louis, was a professor of education and a double bass player who performed as Lee Sims; his mother, Belle, was an elementary-school teacher. In 1945 the family moved to Kew Gardens Hills in Flushing, Queens. Donald Fagen described Simon's childhood as that of a certain kind of New York Jew for whom music and baseball were central, a characterization Simon found not far from the truth.

Simon recalled hearing "Gee" by The Crows on Make Believe Ballroom as his first exposure to rock and roll. He met Art Garfunkel at age eleven, and they performed together in a sixth-grade production of Alice in Wonderland. At twelve or thirteen Simon wrote his first song, "The Girl for Me", for the duo. His father wrote the words and chords on paper, which became the first officially copyrighted Simon and Garfunkel song and is now in the Library of Congress.

In 1957, as teenagers, they recorded "Hey, Schoolgirl" under the name Tom & Jerry, reaching number 49 on the Billboard charts. Simon graduated from Forest Hills High School, majored in English at Queens College, and graduated in 1963. He was a brother in the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and attended Brooklyn Law School for one semester in 1963.

Career

Between 1957 and 1964 Simon wrote, recorded, and released more than thirty songs, often using pseudonyms such as Jerry Landis, Paul Kane, and True Taylor. He and Garfunkel occasionally reunited as Tom & Jerry for singles. Simon had moderate success with the group Tico and the Triumphs, whose single "Motorcycle" reached number 99 in 1962, and as Jerry Landis with "The Lone Teen Ranger" at number 97. In early 1964 Columbia Records signed Simon and Garfunkel, and their first LP, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., was released in October 1964 but initially flopped.

He wrote "Homeward Bound" and "I Am a Rock" during this period. Simon's solo albums Paul Simon (1972), There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) produced hits including "Mother and Child Reunion", "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard", "Kodachrome", and "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". In 1986 he released Graceland, his most successful album, which incorporated South African influences and included the single "You Can Call Me Al".

He later wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman (1998), which was poorly received. His later albums include You're the One (2000), So Beautiful or So What (2011), Stranger to Stranger (2016), and Seven Psalms (2023).

Personal life

Simon met Kathleen Mary "Kathy" Chitty in 1964 at the Railway Inn Folk Club in Brentwood, Essex, where she worked part-time. They began a relationship, and she is mentioned by name in "Kathy's Song" and "America", and referred to in "Homeward Bound" and "The Late Great Johnny Ace". Her photo appears on the cover of The Paul Simon Songbook. Simon married Peggy Harper in 1969; they had a son, Harper Simon, in 1972 and divorced in 1975, inspiring "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover".

He lived next door to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels in the late 1970s. Simon met actress Shelley Duvall while filming Annie Hall in 1976; they lived together for two years until she introduced him to Carrie Fisher. Simon and Fisher dated from 1978, married from 1983 to 1984, and resumed their relationship after divorce. He married singer Edie Brickell on May 30, 1992; they have three children: Adrian, Lulu, and Gabriel.

In 2014 Simon and Brickell were involved in a domestic dispute in Connecticut, and each received a summons for disorderly conduct. All four of his children are musicians. Simon and his brother Eddie founded the Guitar Study Center before 1973, which later became part of The New School. He is a fan of the New York Rangers, New York Knicks, and New York Yankees.

Philanthropy

Simon has advocated for music education for children. In 1970, after recording "Bridge Over Troubled Water", he held auditions for a young songwriters' workshop at the invitation of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, advertised in The Village Voice. Six teenage songwriters were selected, including Melissa Manchester, Tommy Mandel, and Joe Linus; Maggie and Terre Roche joined later. Simon invited them to Columbia studios with engineer Roy Halee, where Bob Dylan was recording Self-Portrait and violinist Isaac Stern visited.

Manchester later recorded "Ode to Paul" in homage. Simon also mentored Nick Laird-Clowes, co-founder of the Dream Academy, helping shape their hit "Life in a Northern Town". In 2003 he became a supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit providing free instruments and lessons in public schools, and serves as an honorary board member. Simon is a co-founder, with Irwin Redlener, of the Children's Health Fund, which began with specially equipped buses to deliver medical care to underserved areas, starting in the South Bronx and now operating in twelve states.