Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon, born October 13, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist whose work spans folk, rock, pop, gospel, reggae and soul. He first came to prominence in the 1960s as one half of Simon & Garfunkel with Art Garfunkel, whom he had met in elementary school in 1953. The duo’s folk-rock recordings became closely associated with the decade’s counterculture, led by songs including “The Sound of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “America” and “The Boxer.” Their final album, Bridge over Troubled Water, arrived in 1970 and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.

After Simon & Garfunkel separated, Simon built a solo career that retained his detailed songwriting while broadening his musical frame. His early solo albums, Paul Simon (1972), There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973) and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975), produced “Mother and Child Reunion,” “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” “Kodachrome” and “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” He and Garfunkel reunited periodically, including for the 1981 Concert in Central Park and several subsequent tours.

Simon released Graceland in 1986, his most successful and acclaimed album. Drawing on South African musical influences, it included “You Can Call Me Al,” one of his most successful singles. He followed it with The Rhythm of the Saints in 1990, then staged another Concert in the Park in 1991, this time without Garfunkel, for an audience of approximately 500,000 people. In 1998, he wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman, which was poorly received.

His later recordings include You’re the One (2000), So Beautiful or So What (2011), Stranger to Stranger (2016) and Seven Psalms (2023). Away from recording, Simon has appeared on Saturday Night Live several times and hosted the program four times between 1975 and 1987. He also made his acting debut in Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall.

Simon has won 16 Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year awards, and has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence and Simon’s Graceland were added to the National Recording Registry for their cultural significance. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2001 and the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Prize in 2007. Simon is also a co-founder of the Children’s Health Fund, a nonprofit that provides medical care to children.