PAUL SIMON

The duo recorded a handful of highly succesful albums, containing some of Simons classic songs like "Sounds of Silence", "I Am a Rock", "Mrs Robinson" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". The partnership ended amid musical disagreements and a realization that they had grown apart.

After the break-up, Simon took songwriting classes in New York and prepared a stylistically diverse solo album, Paul Simon. The work incorporated elements of Latin, reggae and jazz and spawned the hit singles 'Mother And Child Reunion' and 'Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard'. One year later, Simon returned with the much more commercial There Goes Rhymin' Simon which enjoyed massive chart success and included two major hits, 'Kodachrome' and 'Take Me To The Mardi Gras'. A highly successful tour resulted in Paul Simon In Concert: Live Rhymin', which featured several Simon And Garfunkel standards. This flurry of creativity in 1975 culminated in the chart-topping Still Crazy After All These Years which generated two Grammy Awards (Album Of The Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance).

The wry '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover', taken from the album, provided Simon with his first US number 1 single as a soloist, while 'My Little Town' featured a tantalizing duet with Garfunkel. A five-year hiatus followed during which Simon took stock of his career. He appeared briefly in Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall, recorded a hit single with Garfunkel and James Taylor ('(What A) Wonderful World'), released a greatest hits package featuring two new tracks, including the hit single 'Slip Slidin' Away', and switched labels from CBS Records to Warner Brothers Records. In 1980, he released the ambitious One-Trick Pony, from his movie of the same name. The movie included cameo appearances by the Lovin' Spoonful and Tiny Tim but was not particularly well-received even though it was far more literate than most 'rock-related' projects. In the wake of that project, Simon suffered a long period of writer's block, which was to delay the recording of his next album.

Meanwhile, a double-album live reunion of Simon And Garfunkel recorded in Central Park was issued and sold extremely well. It was intended to preview a studio reunion, but the sessions were subsequently scrapped. Instead, Simon concentrated on his next album, which finally emerged in 1983 as Hearts And Bones. An intense and underrated effort, it sold poorly despite its evocative hit single 'The Late Great Johnny Ace' (dedicated to both the doomed 50s star and the assassinated John Lennon ). Simon was dismayed by the album's lack of commercial success and critics felt that he was in a creative rut.

That situation altered during 1984 when Simon was introduced to the enlivening music of the South African black townships. After an appearance at the celebrated USA For Africa recording of 'We Are The World', Simon immersed himself in the music of the Dark Continent. Graceland was one of the most intriguing and commercially successful albums of the decade with Simon utilizing musical contributions from Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt and Rockie Dopsie And The Twisters.

The project and subsequent tour was bathed in controversy due to accusations (misconceived according to the United Nations Anti-Apartheid Committee) that Simon had broken the cultural boycott against South Africa. The success of the album in combining contrasting cross-cultural musical heritages was typical of a performer who had already incorporated folk, R&B, calypso and blues into his earlier repertoire. The album spawned several notable hits, 'The Boy In The Bubble' (with its technological imagery), 'You Can Call Me Al' (inspired by an amusing case of mistaken identity) and 'Graceland' (an oblique homage to Elvis Presley 's Memphis home).

Although Graceland seemed a near impossible work to follow up, Simon continued his pan -cultural investigations with The Rhythm Of The Saints, which incorporated African and Brazilian musical elements.

His most recent releases are Songs From the Capeman ( 1997 ), You're the One ( 2000) and "Father and Daughter", the Academy Award-nominated song from The Wild Thornberrys Movie (soundtrack) 2002.