Paul Simon
The Life
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
The Times Book of the Year
'There’s no tougher a mind, no more tender a voice than Paul Simon, and there’s no better man than Robert Hilburn to decipher the hardwiring of this hyperintellect...great songs can never be fully explained, but the great man on his way to find those songs surely can.' —Bono
Through such hits as “The Sound of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” and “Graceland,” Paul Simon has spoken to us in songs for a half-century about alienation, doubt, survival, and faith in ways that have established him as one of the most honoured and beloved songwriters in American pop music history. Yet Simon has refused to talk to potential biographers and urged those close to him to also remain silent. But Simon not only agreed to talk to biographer Robert Hilburn for what has amounted to more than sixty hours, he also encouraged his family and friends to sit down for in-depth interviews.
Paul Simon is a revealing account of the challenges and sacrifices of artistry at the highest level. He has also lived a roller-coaster life of extreme ups and downs. We not only learn Paul’s unrelenting drive to achieve artistry, but also the subsequent struggles to protect that artistry against distractions – fame, wealth, marriage, divorce, drugs, complacency, public rejection, self-doubt – that have frequently derailed pop stars and each of which he encountered. From dominating the charts with Art Garfunkel and a successful reinvention as a solo artist, to his multiple marriages and highly publicized second divorce from Carrie Fisher, this book covers all aspects of this American icon.
'When it comes to writing songs, no one does it better than Paul Simon. Robert Hilburn’s is a wise and winning account of our most nimble, nuanced, and numinous poet-musician.'
—Paul Muldoon
'A tantalizing look into the mind and writing process of the man who is arguably the finest craftsman of the American popular song since the Gershwin brothers, this book will delight any Paul Simon fan or student of popular culture.'
—Linda Ronstadt
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Music critic Hilburn (Johnny Cash: The Life) delivers an energetic and elegant biography of American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. Drawing on interviews with Simon and his family and friends including ex-wives Carrie Fisher and Peggy Harper Hilburn exhaustively narrates Simon's life, from his discovery of pop music in the 1950s via disc jockey Alan Freed to Simon and Art Garfunkel's success and contentious relationship ("Artie knew Paul wrote the songs and thus controlled the future of the pair," according to manager Mort Lewis) and Simon's successful solo career. Hilburn describes Simon's artistry: his "songwriting would begin with the music... then he'd try to figure out how to express what he was feeling in words." Though Simon often came across as controlling in the studio, according to Hilburn, he was very respectful of other musicians and their time and work, and was generous toward other musicians (he wrote a check to Claude Jeter in gratitude for Jeter's gospel singing, which inspired "Bridge over Troubled Water"). Hilburn's brilliant and entertaining portrait of Simon will likely be the definitive biography.
