Paul+simon

The third new studio album of Paul Simon's post-Simon & Garfunkel career was a musical and lyrical change of pace from his first two, Paul Simon and There Goes Rhymin' Simon…

Ten years after playing a free concert in New York's Central Park with Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon returned, backed by the New York session musicians and the native musicians from South Africa and Brazil who had enlivened his solo work…

Rhino remastered and expanded Paul Simon's Warner catalog in 2004, boxing up the nine albums released between 1972 and 2000 as The Complete Studio Recordings. This archival work provides the foundation for Legacy's 2013 set The Complete Album Collection, which supplements these expanded reissues – a total of 30 bonus tracks were added to the nine albums, including demos, alternate takes, outtakes, non-LP material, and live cuts (but no original hit version of "Slip Sliding Away," an oversight that remains on this 2013 box) – with the two live albums released on Warner (1974's Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin', 1991's Concert in the Park), the 1965 curiosity The Paul Simon Songbook that he recorded in the wake of the disappointing reception to Simon & Garfunkel's 1964 debut Wednesday Morning 3 AM and, most importantly, the two excellent albums Simon released after 2004: 2006's Surprise and 2011's So Beautiful or So What…

If any musical justification were needed for the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel, it could be found on this striking collection, Paul Simon's post-split debut. From the opening cut, "Mother and Child Reunion" (a Top Ten hit), Simon, who had snuck several subtle musical explorations into the generally conservative S&G sound, broke free, heralding the rise of reggae with an exuberant track recorded in Jamaica for a song about death…

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…

Retaining the buoyant musical feel of Paul Simon, but employing a more produced sound, There Goes Rhymin' Simon found Paul Simon writing and performing with assurance and venturing into soulful and R&B-oriented music. Simon returned to the kind of vocal pyrotechnics heard on the Simon & Garfunkel records by using gospel singers…

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…