Latest news with #PaulSimon
Forbes
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Paul Simon Delivers As ‘A Quiet Celebration' Tour Winds Down
Paul Simon performs on stage during his 'A Quiet Celebration' tour. Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at ... More Symphony Center in Chicago, IL 'Here's a… an old song,' said Paul Simon with a smile on stage in Chicago. 'I suddenly realized they're all old songs,' he said softly with a wink on opening night of a sold out three evening stand at Symphony Center, part of his 'A Quiet Celebration' return run. Few songwriters can match the canon of music Simon, 83, has meticulously crafted over the course of more than six decades. Partnering with Art Garfunkel, Simon moved over 100 million records globally, tacking on another 35 million albums sold as a solo artist, rendering him one of the best selling artists of all time. The duo's final studio album Bridge Over Troubled Water stood for a spell as the best selling album ever following its release in 1970, with Simon continually experimenting with an array of sounds in his wonderfully diverse body of solo work, going on to move in excess of 16 million copies of his 1986 opus Graceland. Paul Simon performs on stage during his 'A Quiet Celebration' tour. Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at ... More Symphony Center in Chicago, IL Following a farewell tour in 2018, Simon has appeared on stage a handful of times but 'A Quiet Celebration' marks his first full tour since, with the legendary singer and songwriter appearing for multi night runs in each city, performing in smaller theaters better equipped to support and showcase the nuance in his new music better than the arenas he could otherwise easily fill (a North American run which continues this weekend in San Francisco, California ahead of closing shows in Vancouver, British Columbia July 26 through 28 and Seattle, Washington on July 31 and August 2 and 3). At the heart of the incredible return run lies Simon's latest album Seven Psalms, a spiritual affair inspired by the old testament's Book of Psalms which appears on record as an acoustic suite: seven unbroken songs ruminating upon life and mortality which were designed to be absorbed by the listener in full, with the carefully chosen rooms on this tour supporting Simon's mission. Paul Simon performs on stage during his 'A Quiet Celebration' tour. Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at ... More Symphony Center in Chicago, IL On stage at Symphony Center, home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Simon and company opened the show with the new album uninterrupted over the course of about 35 minutes, closing the performance with both deep cuts and hits over about two hours and 15 minutes. 'The Lord' read the screen flanking the band as Simon got going with sparse acoustic guitar while voices built the conclusion of the new album's opening track. Flute cut through xylophone and percussion early as more guitar and timpani rang out later. That dueling percussion lent 'My Professional Opinion' a bit of a shuffle while Simon plucked in an almost flamenco fashion during 'Your Forgiveness.' Paul Simon performs on stage during his 'A Quiet Celebration' tour. Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at ... More Symphony Center in Chicago, IL Vocalist Edie Brickell, Simon's wife of 33 years, joined for both 'The Sacred Harp' and 'Wait,' with the backing band swelling to 12 as Simon and Brickell harmonized on the chorus of the former while church bells brought the stunning full album performance of the new Seven Psalms to a close moments later. 'This is the first time since COVID that I'm able to play with my fellow musicians,' noted Simon at the top of the show, setting up the album suite. 'The second half is a bunch of hits. Some deep tracks - sort of,' explained the songwriter. 'Songs I always liked - but haven't played live much before. I hope you enjoy yourselves.' Slide guitar, flute and fiddle fueled a hootenanny as Simon donned his trademark baseball cap during 'Graceland." Simon started 'Slip Slidin' Away' solo acoustic before dusting off 'Train in the Distance' from 1983's Hearts and Bones record. 'Here's a song from the Simon & Garfunkel days,' he said, characteristically underselling 'Homeward Bound' as the second set began to find its footing. Paul Simon performs on stage during his 'A Quiet Celebration' tour. Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at ... More Symphony Center in Chicago, IL One of the great storytellers, Simon was in fine form on stage, returning to Hearts and Bones as he told the story behind 'The Late Great Johnny Ace,' a highlight on opening night in Chicago. 'Here's a song direct from a childhood memory…' he began. 'When I was an adolescent, there was a blues singer named Johnny Ace. His #1 record was 'Pledging My Love.' I loved that song,' Simon continued, explaining how Ace accidentally shot himself on Christmas day in 1954. 'I heard it the next day on the radio. The DJ said, 'We're gonna play his new song and from now on we're gonna call him the late great Johnny Ace.'' Simon conducted a bit as drums stomped in, gesturing left toward flute, violin and cello as images of John Lennon and John F. Kennedy appeared on screen as Simon namechecked them lyrically (also both victims of gun violence). Paul Simon performs on stage during his 'A Quiet Celebration' tour. Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at ... More Symphony Center in Chicago, IL 'This next song comes from the Graceland album and it's written about a specific person,' said Simon, reintroducing fans to Joseph Shabalala of South African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. 'Here to help me sing - and improve the performance vastly - is Edie Brickell,' said Simon dryly with a smile. While he experimented with South African sounds on Graceland (bassist Bakithi Kumalo, 69, who performed on the album, is back for this live run) it was authentic reggae he was after in 1972, working with Jimmy Cliff's backing band on 'Mother and Child Reunion.' Heading for home, Simon and company worked up 'Me and Julio Down Down by the Schoolyard' shortly thereafter as opening night neared encore. Paul Simon performs on stage during his 'A Quiet Celebration' tour. Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at ... More Symphony Center in Chicago, IL Returning to the stage, the Chicago faithful went berserk as Simon put his spin upon '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,' clapping along slightly offbeat as he made his way back to the Simon & Garfunkel canon one more time. 'This song is called 'The Boxer,'' he said simply. Starting the legendary track on his own, the band came swooping in out of the first verse as the crowd roared, with Simon's arms spread wide as the band took a bow. Gazing to his left, Simon was clearly swept up in the moment as he wrapped up the evening with the iconic 'The Sound of Silence,' delivering both a stirring and stunning solo take on the unparalleled number to the rapt audience. 'In restless dreams I walked alone…' sang Paul Simon as 'A Quiet Celebration' drew to a close on opening night in the Windy City.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Paul Simon delivers a commanding incantation at Disney Hall
In 2018, Paul Simon walked onto the Hollywood Bowl stage for what most in the crowd believed to be his last tour stop in Los Angeles, ever. Simon expected that too — he'd billed the event as his 'Homeward Bound — Farewell Tour.' After 50 years of performing, a then-record three Grammy wins for album, a catalog of some of the most sophisticated and inquisitive American songwriting ever put to paper — he'd go out in full garlands. So what a shock and delight when Simon, now 83, announced a few years later that he was not quite done yet. In 2023, he released a new album, 'Seven Psalms,' an elliptical, gracious invocation for the arc of his life, drawing on biblical imagery and intertwined guitar fugues. But even better, Simon would also return to the stage for a new tour, including a five-night run at Disney Concert Hall. For L.A. fans, these shows were one last chance to reconnect with Simon, who now had a profound late-career album to bookend his catalog. Those songs spanned from his years in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the '60s and '70s to a Sabrina Carpenter duet on 'Saturday Night Live's' 50th anniversary special. Wednesday's show — the last of the Disney hall stand — got to all of it, with Simon still in exquisite form in the last light of his performing career. If Simon, seven years ago, had any doubts about his interest or ability to perform live at this exacting level, they must have disappeared the second he got a guitar in his hand at Disney Hall. The set opened with a full run of 'Seven Psalms,' a short yet profound song cycle in which a dense, ornamental acoustic guitar figure recurs over several songs in an intimate valediction. 'Seven Pslams' belongs alongside David Bowie's 'Blackstar' or Johnny Cash's 'American Recordings' albums in the canon of wide-lens looks at the mystery of late life. Simon's music was wise before its time even when he was a young man. But the perspective he has at this vantage, on the backside of 80 with a rejuvenated muse, was especially moving. 'I lived a life of pleasant sorrows, until the real deal came,' he sang on 'Love Is Like a Braid.' 'And in that time of prayer and waiting, where doubt and reason dwell / A jury sat, deliberating. All is lost or all is well.' Simon's band members for this stint — a dozen or so strong, spanning percussion, woodwinds and guitars — were mostly impressionists during this portion, adding distant bells and chamber flourishes to the patina of these songs. While he kicked up his heels a bit on the bluesy 'My Professional Opinion,' there was a trembling power in 'Trail of Volcanoes' and, especially, 'Your Forgiveness,' in which Simon took stock of his time on Earth and whatever lies next. 'Two billion heart beats and out / Waving the flag in the last parade / I have my reasons to doubt,' he sang, followed by a gracious incantation: 'Dip your hand in heaven's waters, god's imagination … All of life's abundance in a drop of condensation.' The hit-heavy back half of the show was a little rowdier. One fan even made a bit of history when he tossed a $20 bill onstage, which was enough for Simon to gamely oblige his request to play a verse of 'Kodachrome.' Simon and his band had looser reins here. 'Graceland' and 'Under African Skies' still radiated curiosity for the world's musical bounty, with the fraught complexity of that album nonetheless paving a stone on the road for African music's current global ascent. (He introduced his bassist, Bakithi Kumalo, as the last surviving member of the original 'Graceland' band.) An elegant 'Slip Slidin' Away' led up to a poignant 'The Late Great Johnny Ace,' which took a tale of rock 'n' roll self-destruction and pinned it to a generational sense of cultural collapse. Simon didn't reference any current events beyond the John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and John Lennon assassinations, but you could feel a contemporary gravity in the song. Veteran drummer Steve Gadd reprised his jazzy breaks for '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,' and the fatherhood ballad 'St. Judy's Comet' was a sweet, deep-cut flourish. (That mood continued when Edie Brickell, Simon's wife and vocalist, slipped in from the side stage to whistle the hook on 'Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.) But the band hit full velocity on a pair of songs from 'The Rhythm of the Saints.' 'Spirit Voices' conjured an ayahuasca reverie with its thicket of guitars and hand percussion, while the sprawling and time-signature-bending 'The Cool, Cool River' showed Simon the musician — not just the poet — still in absolute command. Simon's set never got to 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' or 'You Can Call Me Al,' but the final encore wrapped with just him and a guitar and the eternal hymn of 'The Sound of Silence.' His guitar work retained all its original power in the opening instrumental runs, and Simon looked genuinely grateful that, perhaps even to his own surprise, the stage hadn't lost its promise or potency for him just yet. Who knows whether Wednesday was the last time Angelenos will get to see Simon perform live (this tour wraps next month in Seattle). If it was, then it was a beautiful benediction for one of America's defining songwriters. But if it wasn't, take any chance you get to see him again.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Paul Simon Sparks New Health Fears After Canceling Two Concerts Amid Ongoing Back Issues
Music icon Paul Simon is sparking new fears for his health after axing two upcoming shows due to excruciating back pain – leaving insiders fearing the 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters' singer is headed towards his sad last days. Now sources fear the 83-year-old voice of multiple generations is coming to grips that he's headed to the final curtain of his career — and life — as he is overwhelmed by a growing raft of physical ills. The shocking show cancellations last month came as the aging 83-year-old Graceland maestro must undergo a 'surgical procedure' to relieve 'unmanageable' back agony. As Globe has reported, the condition's the latest in a string of health woes including one that's robbed the 'Sound of Silence' singer of 96 percent of the hearing in his left ear back in 2023. The baffling and still undiagnosed hearing condition struck while Paul was working on his latest album, Seven Psalms, and kept him from touring and playing some of his more famous hits like, 'You Can Call Me Al.' 'Quite suddenly I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, and nobody has an explanation for it,' Paul says. 'My reaction to that was frustration and annoyance — not quite anger yet — because I thought it would pass, it would repair itself.' But sources say that only some of his hearing returned. Sources say the singer, who rocketed to super-stardom on a massive string of mid-1960s hits with his then-partner Art Garfunkel, has become resigned to his approaching final curtain. 'It's just the age we're at,' the musician notes. 'Gordon Lightfoot just passed away, Jeff Beck too. My generation's time is up.' Medical experts tell Globe that Paul's crippling issues are likely to grow worse — and his adoring public should prepare for his retirement. 'At his age, hearing, nerve and joint damage are only likely to increase,' says Dr. Gabe Mirkin, a Florida longevity specialist. 'The older we are, the harder it is to bounce back from such serious ailments.' A music industry source says Paul seems to be having trouble accepting the inevitable, adding: 'It must be total agony for him to come to terms with what is clearly a fast-approaching end.' Solve the daily Crossword
News.com.au
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Richard Gere slammed over broken promise to preserve home
Music legend Paul Simon's daughter has lashed out at Richard Gere for selling her childhood home to real estate developers — who are now demolishing the historic property. Singer Lulu Simon, 30, took to Instagram to share some strong words for the 'Pretty Woman' star. 'Just in case anyone was wondering if I still hate Richard Gere – I do! 'He bought my childhood home, promised he would take care of the land as condition of his purchase proceeded to never actually move in & just sold it to a developer as 9 separate plots,' she claimed, according to People as reported by Fox News. 'Hate! Him!' Lulu concluded while attaching a screenshot of an article showing Gere's latest real estate venture. In a second Instagram story, Lulu wrote, 'I hope my dead pets buried in that backyard haunt you until you descend into a slow and unrelenting madness'. The text was written above a photo of Gere with photos of cats and dogs surrounding the 'Chicago' actor. According to records, Simon purchased the home in 2002 for $US16.5 million ($A25 million) — three years before he and his wife, Edie Brickell, welcomed daughter Lulu. The singer-songwriter first listed the property for a whopping $US13.9 million ($A21.1 million). Gere purchased the home in 2022 for $US10.8 million ($A16.4 million) and originally planned to turn a large portion of its expansive grounds into a farm. The Golden Globe winner and his wife, Alejandra Silva, sold the Simon property in October 2024 for $US10.75 million ($A16.4 million). In May, news surfaced that the home was scheduled for demolition to create room for the nine-plot real estate venture. The news of the reported demolition came after the Geres moved to Spain. Alejandra is from there and wished to be closer to family. 'For me, going to Madrid is going to be a great adventure because I have never lived full time outside the United States,' the 75-year-old told Vanity Fair Spain. 'And I think it will also be very interesting for my children. For Alejandra, it will be wonderful to be closer to her family, her lifelong friends and her culture. 'She was very generous in giving me six years living in my world, so I think it's fair that I give her at least six others living in hers. In any case, I love Spain and I think your lifestyle is fabulous. Also, your ability to live, transmitting joy and happiness. 'It is a beautiful place, the food is extraordinary and people exude sensitivity and generosity, as well as a strong will to laugh and enjoy. So I'm looking forward to going there.' After relocating at the end of 2024, Silva expressed an interest in returning to the US at the 2025 Gala: Carnaval in New York City. 'For a few years [we'll live in Spain], and then come back. But we're always coming back,' she said, referring to her sons Alexander, 5, and James, 4. 'We'll come back here in the summer because we have the kids at camp. We just have to balance our lives there and here,' she continued. After years of living in New York City, the couple decided to move to Spain. 'I'm with my family … I missed them a lot. But I miss the US So we come back and forth,' she told the outlet.
Washington Post
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
How a shadowy conspiracy turned MAGA against Trump and Bondi
'Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland,' songwriter Paul Simon observed, and President Donald Trump's nutters at the Justice Department are feeling the brunt of it. As civilians, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel (along with Patel's deputy, Dan Bongino) cheerfully stoked conspiracy theories surrounding the death of the wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. According to the lurid narrative, Epstein threatened to expose famous guests at his supposed sex parties, who arranged to have him killed in prison to protect their secrets. Now that they're in office, Trump's appointees have found zero evidence to support these stories. Their announcement to that effect — 'no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals' — has infuriated their former fans: provocateur Laura Loomer of the tinfoil-hat brigade called for Bondi's resignation. Conspiracist thinking is hardly exclusive to Americans, but we're highly prone to it, and the tools of modern communication spread dark fantasies like pandemic viruses. The floodwaters of Texas had scarcely receded before stories of shadowy forces manipulating rain clouds began to circulate. No factual fabric is too threadbare to support a robust conspiracy theory. People believed a D.C. pizza parlor had a basement filled with kidnapped children — though it didn't have a basement, period. People believed the government was staging fake school massacres as a pretext to confiscate guns — though guns are freely sold at the nearest Walmart. People believed a pillow salesman possessed data showing that the 2020 election was stolen. But it doesn't help the credibility of weary debunkers when the government is shown to have lied about inconvenient facts. Turns out there really was a conspiracy of silence inside the Biden White House to cover up the president's age-related decline. And elements of the George W. Bush administration really did ignore doubts about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, their stated reason for the 2003 invasion. As for Area 51 and the government's supposed cache of space alien technology, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that this conspiracy theory is largely of the military's own making. An internal Air Force investigation found that authorities spread rumors and concocted tales of alien activity — sometimes to cover up top-secret experiments, sometimes just to freak out new recruits. Journal reporters Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha learned what was left out of the investigation's published report concerning 'the foundational myths about UFOs': The Pentagon itself sometimes deliberately fanned the flames, in what amounted to the U.S. government targeting its own citizens with disinformation. 'At the same time,' the pair continued, 'the very nature of Pentagon operations — an opaque bureaucracy that kept secret programs embedded within secret programs, cloaked in cover stories — created fertile ground for the myths to spread.' Meanwhile, the CIA has tacitly confessed to lying for more than 60 years about its involvement in a group of anti-Castro students that had multiple contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald in the period leading up to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As part of a document release ordered by Trump, the agency turned loose the confirmation that 'Howard' — the shadowy figure behind the student group — was in fact George Joannides, a Miami-based agent. The document vindicated work by the tireless Kennedy murder investigator Jefferson Morley, whom I count as a friend though we disagree fundamentally on this mother of all conspiracy theories. Purely by coincidence, the nugget came to light as I was rereading Don DeLillo's powerful 1988 novel 'Libra,' which oozes paranoia through a fictional portrait of Oswald. Joannides would have fit nicely into DeLillo's book, which blends real and imagined characters into an atmosphere as stifling as the summer of 1963 in Miami, New Orleans and Dallas, where the story is largely set. The novelist's art — and DeLillo is an artist of the first order — is the creation of non-realities that seem entirely real. In this case, the art doubles on itself, because 'Libra' is fiction about a fiction. In one brilliant passage, the author paints an imaginary picture of a real person, former FBI agent Guy Banister, engaged in an imaginary reverie over a conspiracy theory inside the larger conspiracy theory. Dizzy yet? Chinese troops were supposedly massing in secret in Mexico's Baja peninsula for an invasion of California. 'He wanted to believe it was true,' DeLillo writes. 'He did believe it was true. But he also knew it wasn't. … The thing that mattered was the rapture of the fear of believing. It confirmed everything. It justified everything.' Trump's conspiracy mongers at Justice are in trouble with their former supporters because they have dared to disrupt the rapture of the fear of believing. The Epstein conspiracists — like all who prefer a tangled and menacing web to the bland truth — want to believe and do believe, even when they know, deep down, it's just a story. They like stories, the scarier the better.
