Paul Simon One Trick Pony

Though it was released to coincide with the opening of the film One-Trick Pony, which Paul Simon wrote and starred in, the One-Trick Pony album is not a soundtrack, as it is sometimes categorized, at least, not exactly. If it were, it might contain the Paul Simon song "Soft Parachutes" and other non-Simon music featured in the movie. Instead, this is a studio album containing many of the movie songs, some of them in the same performances (two were cut live at the Agora Club in Cleveland). The record is not billed as a soundtrack, but a sleeve note reads, "The music on this Compact Disc was created for the Paul Simon Movie 'One-Trick Pony'"…

Though it was released to coincide with the opening of the film One-Trick Pony, which Paul Simon wrote and starred in, the One-Trick Pony album is not a soundtrack, as it is sometimes categorized, at least, not exactly. If it were, it might contain the Paul Simon song "Soft Parachutes" and other non-Simon music featured in the movie. Instead, this is a studio album containing many of the movie songs, some of them in the same performances (two were cut live at the Agora Club in Cleveland). The record is not billed as a soundtrack, but a sleeve note reads, "The music on this Compact Disc was created for the Paul Simon Movie 'One-Trick Pony'"…

Though it was released to coincide with the opening of the film One-Trick Pony, which Paul Simon wrote and starred in, the One-Trick Pony album is not a soundtrack, as it is sometimes categorized, at least, not exactly. If it were, it might contain the Paul Simon song "Soft Parachutes" and other non-Simon music featured in the movie…

One thing Simon & Garfunkel never did much of was tour, so a Paul Simon solo tour, following two commercially successful solo albums, was one more way for Simon to distance himself from the duo and, simultaneously, by performing songs like "The Boxer" and "Homeward Bound," to reclaim his songwriting catalog. Reflecting the musical explorations he had pursued since S & G, Simon brought along Brazilian group Urubamba and gospel group the Jessy Dixon Singers. The result wasn't perfect: nobody needed to hear "Jesus Is the Answer" (a Dixons spotlight number) on a Paul Simon album, and if it was inevitable that he would try his own version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," it was also predestined that he wouldn't come near to matching Garfunkel's original…

Paul Simon's One Trick Pony was released concurrently with the film of the same name, in which Simon also starred. Each features different versions of the same songs, as well as certain songs that appear exclusively on either the film or the album. The album is best known for the Grammy-nominated track "Late in the Evening" which was a hit for Simon in 1980, peaking at #6 in the U.S. Two of the tracks (the title song and "Ace in the Hole") were recorded live at the Agora Theatre and Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio in September 1979. The rest are studio cuts.