Age, Biography, and Wiki
Paul Simon was born on October 13, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey. He rose to fame in the 1960s as part of the folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, alongside Art Garfunkel. Their timeless hits include "The Sound of Silence," "Mrs. Robinson," and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." After the duo disbanded, Simon embarked on a successful solo career, achieving international acclaim with albums such as "Graceland" and winning numerous Grammy Awards.
| Occupation | Folk Singer |
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| Date of Birth | 13 October 1941 |
| Age | 83 Years |
| Birth Place | Newark, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Libra |
| Country | Jersey |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Specific details about Paul Simon's height, weight, and measurements are not widely documented, but he is known for his distinctive voice and stage presence.
In 2005, Simon was honored at the 53rd Annual BMI Pop Awards. His songwriting catalog had earned 39 BMI Awards, including numerous citations for "Bridge over Troubled Water", "Mrs. Robinson", "Scarborough Fair" and "The Sound of Silence". By 2005, he had amassed nearly 75 million broadcast airplays, according to BMI surveys. In 2006, he was selected by Time Magazine as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World".
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Dating & Relationship Status
Paul Simon has been married three times: to Peggy Harper (married 1969, divorced 1975), Carrie Fisher (married 1983, divorced 1984), and Edie Brickell (married 1992). He is currently married to Edie Brickell.
As a solo artist, Simon has explored genres including gospel, reggae, and soul. His albums Paul Simon (1972), There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) kept him in the public eye and drew acclaim, producing the hits "Mother and Child Reunion" (1972), "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" (1972), and "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" (1975). Simon reunited with Garfunkel for several tours and the 1981 Concert in Central Park.
His father, Louis (1916–1995), a professor of education at the City College of New York, was a double bass player and dance bandleader who performed under the name Lee Sims. His mother, Belle (1910–2007), was an elementary-school teacher. In 1945, his family moved to the Kew Gardens Hills section of Flushing, Queens, in New York City.
The musician Donald Fagen described Simon's childhood as that of "a certain kind of New York Jew, almost a stereotype really, to whom music and baseball are very important. I think it has to do with the parents. The parents are either immigrants or first-generation Americans who felt like outsiders, and assimilation was the key thought—they gravitated to black music and baseball, looking for an alternative culture." Simon said Fagen's description was not far from the truth. He played baseball and stickball as a child. He described his father as funny and smart, but said he worked late and did not see his children much.
Simon met Art Garfunkel when they were 11 years old and performed together in a production of Alice in Wonderland for their sixth-grade graduation. The two began singing together at age 13, occasionally performing at school dances. At age 12 or 13, Simon wrote his first song, "The Girl for Me", for him and Garfunkel to perform. According to Simon, it became the "neighborhood hit". His father wrote the words and chords on paper for the boys to use, and that paper became the first officially copyrighted Simon and Garfunkel song. It is now in the Library of Congress. In 1957, in their mid-teens, they recorded the song "Hey, Schoolgirl" under the name "Tom & Jerry", a name given to them by their label, Big Records. The single reached number 49 on the pop charts.
In 1965, after the album's release, Simon moved to London and performed in folk clubs. He enjoyed his time in England and said in 1970, "I had a lot of friends there and a girlfriend. I could play music there. There was no place to play in New York City. They wouldn't have me." He was welcomed by England's bohemian folk scene, learned to finger-pick acoustic guitar from Martin Carthy, and was introduced to English folk music. He recalled, "I had never heard anything like those old English songs. I was 21, 22, and emotionally open to everything." The folk music he heard in England in the mid-sixties became one of his two big influences. He wrote "Homeward Bound" and "I Am a Rock", and learned Davey Graham's guitar instrumental "Anji", which later appeared on Sounds of Silence.
Simon and Garfunkel's relationship became strained and they split in 1970. At the urging of his wife, Peggy Harper, Simon called Davis to confirm the duo's breakup. For the next several years, they spoke only two or three times a year.
Simon's next album, Paul Simon, was released in January 1972, following his first experiment with world music, the Jamaican-inspired song "Mother and Child Reunion", which reached both the American and British Top 5. The album received universal acclaim and critics praised its variety of styles and confessional lyrics. Paul Simon reached number 4 in the U.S. and number 1 in the UK and Japan, and produced another Top 30 hit, "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard".
Simon's next project, the pop-folk album There Goes Rhymin' Simon, was released in May 1973. The lead single, "Kodachrome", was a number 2 hit in the U.S. The follow-up, the gospel-flavored "Loves Me Like a Rock", topped the Cashbox charts. Other songs like "American Tune" and "Something So Right" (a tribute to Simon's first wife, Peggy) became part of his repertoire. The album reached number 1 on the Cashbox album charts. It was released in 1974 as a live album, Live Rhymin', and contained elements of world and religious music.
After Graceland, Simon extended his roots with the Brazilian-flavored The Rhythm of the Saints. Sessions for the album began in December 1989 in Rio de Janeiro and New York and featured guitarist J.J. Cale and Brazilian and African musicians. The album's tone is more introspective and low-key than that of Graceland. Released in October 1990, the album received excellent reviews and sold well, peaking at number 4 in the U.S. and number 1 in the UK. The lead single, "The Obvious Child", featuring the Grupo Cultural Olodum, became Simon's last Top 20 hit in the UK and appeared near the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100. Although not as successful as Graceland, The Rhythm of the Saints received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. Simon's ex-wife Carrie Fisher wrote in her autobiography Wishful Drinking that the song "She Moves On" is about her: "If you can get Paul Simon to write a song about you, do it. Because he is so brilliant at it."
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in America, Simon sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on America: A Tribute to Heroes, a multi-network broadcast to benefit the September 11 Telethon Fund, and performed "The Boxer" at the start of the first episode of Saturday Night Live after September 11. In 2002, he wrote and recorded "Father and Daughter", the theme song for the animated family film The Wild Thornberrys Movie. The track was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
Simon had planned to retire from music, but after the success of Seven Psalms, he completed another song, composed four more guitar pieces, and was planning an album of duets with his wife, singer Edie Brickell. He was also in the early stages of working on a musical. In a May 2023 interview with The Times, he said he had lost most of the hearing in his left ear. In February 2025, Simon performed "Homeward Bound" with Sabrina Carpenter at a 50th-anniversary special for Saturday Night Live. That month, he announced the Quiet Celebration Tour, comprising performances in smaller venues in 20 cities across the U.S. and Canada and multiple nights in a row in most cities, due to kick off with 2 shows at the Saenger Theater on April 4 and 5 in New Orleans and to end with 3 shows at Benaroya Hall in Seattle on July 31, August 2 and 3, 2025.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Simon played the character of Simple Simon in the Disney Channel TV movie Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme, and provided cameos in Millennium and The Great Buck Howard. In the 2010s he appeared briefly in shows such as Portlandia, Welcome to Sweden and Horace & Pete. He appeared as an interviewee and as a musical guest on talk shows such as The Dick Cavett Show, Late Night with David Letterman, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Colbert Report, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He was the subject of two films by Jeremy Marre on the making of Graceland and The Capeman.
In 1998, Simon was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for the Simon & Garfunkel album Bridge over Troubled Water. In 2002, he received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for his song "Father and Daughter".
When Simon moved to England in 1964, he met Kathleen Mary "Kathy" Chitty at the first English folk club he played, the Railway Inn Folk Club in Brentwood, Essex, where Chitty worked part-time selling tickets. She was 18 and he was 22 when they began a relationship. Later that year they visited the U.S. together, mainly touring by bus. Kathy returned to England and Simon followed some weeks later. When he returned to the U.S. with the growing success of "The Sounds of Silence", Kathy, who was quite shy, wanted no part in success and fame, and they ended their relationship. She is mentioned by name in at least two of Simon's songs, "Kathy's Song" and "America". She is also referred to in "Homeward Bound" and "The Late Great Johnny Ace". A photo of Simon and Kathy is on the cover of Simon's 1965 album The Paul Simon Songbook.
Simon has been married three times, first to Peggy Harper in 1969. They had a son, Harper Simon, in 1972, and divorced in 1975, inspiring the song "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Simon wrote about this relationship in the song "Train in the Distance" from his 1983 album Hearts and Bones. In the late 1970s, Simon lived in New York City next door to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, who has been described as Simon's "best friend" during the period.
Simon met actress Shelley Duvall while filming Annie Hall in 1976. They lived together as a couple for two years until Duvall introduced him to her friend actress Carrie Fisher. Simon and Fisher began dating in 1978, and were married from 1983 to 1984. He proposed to her after a New York Yankees game. The song "Hearts and Bones" is about their time together, and the song "Graceland" is believed to be about seeking solace from the end of the relationship by taking a road trip. A year after they divorced, Simon and Fisher resumed their relationship, which lasted several years.
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| Husband | Peggy Harper (m. 1969-1975) Carrie Fisher (m. 1983-1984) Edie Brickell (m. 1992) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Paul Simon's estimated net worth ranges from $200 million to $250 million, depending on the source. His wealth is primarily derived from his successful music career, including sales, royalties, and strategic business decisions like selling his royalty streams to BMG.
Career, Business, and Investments
Simon's career with Simon & Garfunkel and as a solo artist has been marked by groundbreaking albums and hits. His solo work, such as "Graceland," has been particularly influential. In 2020, he sold his royalty streams from the Simon & Garfunkel catalog to BMG for reportedly $250 million, securing his financial future.
Simon has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and has won 16 Grammy Awards, including three for Album of the Year. Two of his works, Sounds of Silence (1966) (as part of Simon & Garfunkel) and Graceland, were inducted into the National Recording Registry for their cultural significance, and in 2007, he was the inaugural winner of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. He is a co-founder of the Children's Health Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides medical care to children.
In 1981, Simon & Garfunkel included eight songs from Simon's solo career in the set list of their September 19 concert in Central Park. Five were rearranged as duets and Simon performed the other three solo. The resulting live album, TV special, and videocassette (later DVD) releases were all major hits.
After the success of The Concert in Central Park, Simon & Garfunkel returned to the studio, planning to record an album of new material. This would have been their first new recordings as a duo since their 1975 single "My Little Town" and their first album of new material since Bridge over Troubled Water in 1970. Simon ultimately decided to wipe Garfunkel's vocals from the mix, and in 1983, he released Hearts and Bones as a solo album. It is a polished, confessional album that was eventually viewed as one of his best works, but it achieved the lowest sales of his career. Hearts and Bones included "The Late Great Johnny Ace", a song partly about Johnny Ace, an American R&B singer, and partly about John Lennon. In January 1985, Simon performed for USA for Africa and on the relief fundraising single "We Are the World".
The success of both albums allowed Simon to stage another concert in New York. On August 15, 1991, he gave a second concert in Central Park, with African and South American bands. The concert's success surpassed all expectations, and 48,500 people are estimated to have attended. He later remembered the concert as "the most memorable moment in my career". Its success led to a live album and an Emmy-winning TV special. Simon embarked on the Born at the Right Time Tour and promoted the album with further singles, including "Proof", which was accompanied by a humorous video featuring Chevy Chase and Steve Martin. On March 4, 1992, Simon performed in his own episode of MTV Unplugged. Simon and Garfunkel were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
Simon recorded an album of songs from the show which was released in November 1997. The album received mixed reviews. Some critics praised its combination of doo-wop, rockabilly, and Caribbean music, but Songs from The Capeman was a failure, and for the first time in Simon's career he did not reach the Top 40 of the Billboard charts. The cast album was never released on CD but eventually became available online.
After The Capeman, Simon's career was in an unexpected crisis, but he continued to record new material. In 1999, he embarked on a three-month North American tour with Bob Dylan, in which he and Dylan alternated as the headline act with a middle section where they performed together. The collaboration was generally well-received, with just one critic, Seth Rogovoy of the Berkshire Eagle, questioning the collaboration.
In March 2004, Walter Yetnikoff published Howling at the Moon, a book in which he criticized Simon and his previous business partnership with Columbia Records. In 2007, Simon was the inaugural recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and he later performed as part of a gala of his work.
After living in Montauk, New York, for many years, Simon relocated to New Canaan, Connecticut. He is one of a small number of performers who are named as the copyright owner on their recordings (most records have the recording company as the named owner). This development followed the Bee Gees' successful $200 million lawsuit against RSO Records, the largest successful suit against a record company by an artist or group. All of Simon's solo recordings, including those originally issued by Columbia Records, are distributed by Sony Records' Legacy Recordings unit. His albums were issued by Warner Music Group until mid-2010, when Simon moved his catalog of solo work from Warner Bros. Records to Sony/Columbia Records, which holds the Simon & Garfunkel catalog.
Simon has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: in 1990 as a member of Simon & Garfunkel; and in 2001 for his solo career. In 2006, he was named as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time. In 2011, Rolling Stone named him one of the 100 greatest guitarists, and in 2015 he was ranked 8th in their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. In 2023, he was ranked the 246th greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone. He was the first recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007.
In 2007, Simon received the first annual Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Named in honor of George and Ira Gershwin, this award recognized the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world's culture. Simon said, "I am grateful to be the recipient of the Gershwin Prize and doubly honored to be the first. I look forward to spending an evening in the company of artists I admire at the award ceremony in May. I can think of a few [artists] who have expressed my words and music far better than I [have]. I'm excited at the prospect of that happening again. It's a songwriter's dream come true." Among the performers who paid tribute to Simon were Stevie Wonder, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, Lyle Lovett, James Taylor, Dianne Reeves, Marc Anthony, Yolanda Adams and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The event was professionally filmed and broadcast and was released as Paul Simon and Friends. In 2012, Simon was awarded the Polar Music Prize.
Social Network
While Paul Simon is not known for a strong social media presence, his influence and legacy are widely recognized across platforms, with fans and fellow musicians often celebrating his work.
Between 1957 and 1964, Simon wrote, recorded, and released more than 30 songs. He and Garfunkel occasionally reunited as Tom & Jerry to record singles, including "Our Song" and "That's My Story". Most of the songs Simon recorded during that time he performed alone, or with musicians other than Garfunkel. They were released on minor record labels including Amy, Big, Hunt, King, Tribute and Madison. Simon used several pseudonyms for these recordings, including "Jerry Landis", "Paul Kane", and "True Taylor". By 1962, working as Jerry Landis, he was a frequent writer/producer for several Amy Records artists, overseeing material released by Dotty Daniels, the Vels and Ritchie Cordell.
Simon had been involved in creating a musical, The Capeman, that opened on January 29, 1998. He worked enthusiastically on the project for many years, and described it as "a New York Puerto Rican story based on events that happened in 1959—events that I remembered." The musical told the story of a real-life Puerto Rican youth, Salvador Agron, who wore a cape while committing two murders in New York in 1959. He became a writer while in prison. Featuring Marc Anthony as the young Agron and Rubén Blades as the older Agron, the play was not a success, receiving terrible reviews and poor box-office receipts.
In 2012, Simon released a 25th-anniversary box set of Graceland that included a remastered edition of the original album; the 2012 documentary film Under African Skies; the original 1987 "African Concert" from Zimbabwe; an audio narrative, The Story of Graceland, related by Simon; and other interviews and memorabilia. He played a few concerts in Europe with the original musicians to commemorate the anniversary. On December 19, 2012, Simon performed at the funeral of Victoria Leigh Soto, a teacher killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. On June 14, 2013, on Sting's Back to Bass Tour, Simon performed "The Boxer" and Sting's "Fields of Gold" with Sting. In September 2013, he delivered the Richard Ellmann Lecture in Modern Literature at Emory University.
Simon made a surprise appearance in The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on September 11, 2015. He performed "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" with Colbert, having been billed before the show as a Simon & Garfunkel Tribute Band. He also performed "American Tune", which was posted on the show's YouTube channel. In 2015, Dion released the single "New York Is My Home" with Simon.
For the next few months, isolated by the COVID-19 pandemic on a Texas ranch, Simon worked on a series of guitar pieces and added sounds like distant church bells produced by amplified upside-down wine glasses. He said, "I envisioned Seven Psalms as one long thought, combined with sounds powerful enough to make the thought come alive." In December 2023, Simon rehearsed Seven Psalms with two acoustic guitarists. He said he missed performing and hoped that it might be possible to play the album live.
In 2012, in an interview reprinted in American Songwriter, Simon discussed the craft of songwriting with music journalist Tom Moon and talked about the basic themes in his songwriting—love, family, social commentary, religion, spirituality, and God. He said: "The music always precedes the words. The words often come from the sound of the music and eventually evolve into coherent thoughts. Or incoherent thoughts. Rhythm plays a crucial part in the lyric-making as well. It's like a puzzle to find the right words to express what the music is saying."
Education
Simon attended Forest Hills High School in Queens, New York, and later studied at Queens College, though he did not graduate. His early interest in music was influenced by his father, a professional musician.
Paul Simon's enduring impact on music, combined with his shrewd business acumen, has cemented his status as one of the most successful singer-songwriters of his generation.
Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Simon & Garfunkel. Their blend of folk and rock, including hits such as "The Sound of Silence" (1965), "Mrs. Robinson" (1968), "America" (1968), and "The Boxer" (1969), served as a soundtrack to the 1960s counterculture. Their final album, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970), is among the best-selling of all time.
After graduating from Forest Hills High School, Simon majored in English at Queens College and graduated in 1963. Garfunkel studied mathematics education at Columbia University in Manhattan. Simon was a brother in the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, and attended Brooklyn Law School for one semester in 1963.
In 1970, Simon taught songwriting at New York University. He said he had wanted to teach for a while, and hoped to help people avoid some of the mistakes he had made: "You can teach somebody about writing songs. You can't teach someone how to write a song ... I'd go to a course if the Beatles would talk about how they made records because I'm sure I could learn something."
Simon and his younger brother, Eddie Simon, founded the Guitar Study Center sometime before 1973. The Guitar Study Center became part of The New School in New York City, sometime before 2002.
Simon is an advocate of music education for children. In 1970, after recording "Bridge Over Troubled Water", he held auditions for a young songwriters' workshop at the invitation of the NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. The auditions were advertised in The Village Voice, and brought hundreds of hopefuls to perform. Among the six teenage songwriters selected for tutelage were Melissa Manchester, Tommy Mandel and rock/beat poet Joe Linus. Maggie and Terre Roche (the Roche Sisters), who later sang back-up for Simon, joined the workshop in progress in an impromptu appearance.
