Ravinia 2026 Issue 1

S T I L L CR E AT I NG A F T E R A L L T H E S E Y E AR S . at’s the essence of Paul Simon— seven decades on, he’s still the ultimate artist and busker. At years old and battling a se- rious hearing loss condition, Simon, rather than resting on his immense laurels, continues to share his talents and his pristinely poetic insights that have seeped into society’s collective bloodstream. Pop music’s Robert Frost continues to take the artistic road less traveled. For two undoubtedly historic perfor- mances, that road leads Simon and his “A Quiet Celebration” tour to Ravinia’s new Hunter Pavilion on July and . e program includes music from his latest meditative masterwork, Seven Psalms . If Bob Dylan’s music was the voice of a generation, and e Beatles’ music was its imagination, Paul Simon’s music was its soul—the heart and bones, if you will. All due respect to e Monkees, Simon & Garfunkel were America’s ver- sion of e Beatles. Like the Fab Four, this Dynamic Duo also dominated the s’ music charts and o ered songs that re ected new attitudes, changed perspectives, and inspired possibilities. Simon’s early songs with Art Garfun- kel—including “ e Sounds of Silence,” “I Am a Rock,” and “Mrs. Robinson”— crystalized the disa ection, detachment, alienation, and appetite for liberation of the emerging Baby Boomer generation, who felt pressured by societal expecta- tions and suspicious of governmental ambitions. New Jersey-born and Queens-raised, Simon has been writing and perform- ing music since he was an ambitious pre-teen. Teaming with childhood friend Garfunkel and in uenced by the toe-tapping tempos and harmonies of e Everly Brothers, the talented two- some recorded a minor hit in , “Hey Schoolgirl,” under the short-lived stage name Tom & Jerry. While classmates were studying history, they were making it, appearing on the ultimate music TV show of the day, American Bandstand . Success, though, wasn’t so snappy. Simon and Garfunkel were signed to Columbia Records in and released their debut, Wednesday Morning AM , the following year. e album featured sparce folk arrangements and several Simon originals, including an acoustic version of “ e Sounds of Silence.” But the album failed amid the rock-based, Beatles-led “British Invasion.” Frustrated with the lack of progress in New York, Simon audaciously moved to London, enthusiastically immersed himself in its emerging bohemian com- munity, honed his songwriting skills, and renewed his con dence. “I originally started out playing elec- tric guitar, then I switched to acoustic and I learned how to nger-pick … and learned a lot about guitar [playing] really just folk clubs … rooms above a pub,” Simon said on e Late Show with Stephen Colbert . He released his rst solo album, e Paul Simon Songbook , in the UK and co-wrote a number of songs with Bruce Woodley of e Seekers, including “Red Rubber Ball,” which later became a ma- jor hit for e Cyrkle in . en, fate played a pivotal role. Despite the debut album’s initial failure, in , “ e Sounds of Si- lence” began to receive increased radio airplay. Unbeknownst to both Simon (in London) and Garfunkel (returning to school), producer Tom Wilson had expanded the song’s original acoustic sound with electric guitar, bass, and drums. is updated rendition quickly rose up the charts, eventually reaching the number-one slot. “I said, I never forget this … ‘My life is irrevocably changed.’ It was,” Simon told Colbert. From that moment, Simon & Garfunkel’s music became forever entrenched in the popular music canon and in the public’s hearts. is was most apparent in when , wildly adoring, appreciative fans attended a triumphant bene t concert of these “old friends” reuniting a er more than a decade on the Great Lawn in New York’s Central Park. Simon was named to a recent list of the “ Greatest Living Songwriters,” in which the New York Times described his music as “in the best sense … proof that a gi ed songwriter can tackle the headiest, heaviest topics, compressing a novel’s worth of ideas, intelligence, irony, urbanity, humor, and ambivalence into four minutes.” More so, Simon empathetically ac- tualized the boiling Boomer angst with ve simple words, “Hello, darkness, my old friend,” and their isolation with “I am a rock, I am an island.” So many of his songs are immediately recognizable by an opening line or poignant lyric that lingers and impresses, including the likes of “I am just a poor boy / ough my story’s seldom told”; “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school / It’s a wonder I can think at all”; “You know the nearer your destina- tion / e more you’re slip slidin’ away”; and “ e words of the prophets were written on the subway walls.” And of course, Simon succinctly summed up s America’s bruised psyche with his mournful verses, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? / A nation turns its lonely eyes to you / What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson? / Joltin’ Joe has le and gone away.” A er Simon & Garfunkel dissolved in , Simon re-invented himself as an astute wordsmith and diverse beat beast, infusing his songs with swaths of rock, folk, jazz, gospel, reggae, Latin pulses, and world music for the next ve de- cades. Despite many prestigious honors and heaps of hits, slumping sales and failed projects during the rst half of the s found Simon at an uncertain career crossroads. In , however, he pulled o an utterly unexpected revival. Created by steeping his keen pop music sensibilities with authentic Soweto, South African street rhythms he originally heard on a friend’s cassette tape, Graceland was born. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 13 JAKEEDWARDS