Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter;
born in Newark, New Jersey. He and his friend Art Garfunkel recorded a hit record but they didn’t want to be pop musicians, they were more interested in folk, so they recorded their first folk album, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM in 1964, and it was a flop, and Paul Simon moved back in with his parents. But without telling them, a producer added electric guitar, bass, and drums to the song “The Sound of Silence” and released it as a single, and it went to number 1 on the pop charts. Paul Simon said “Facts can be turned into art if one is artful enough.” And he said “I think I have a superior brain and an inferior stature, if you really want to get brutal about it.”
He is known for his success beginning in 1965 as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles charts, "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". In 1970, at the height of their popularity, the duo split, and Simon began a successful solo career, recording three highly-acclaimed albums over the next five years. In 1986, he released Graceland, an album inspired by South African township music that helped fuel the anti-apartheid movement. Besides music, Simon wrote and starred in the film One Trick Pony in 1980 and co-wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman in 1998.
Through his solo and collaborative work, Simon has earned 13 Grammys, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, In 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2006 was selected as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time magazine. Among many other honors, Simon was named the first recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007.
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