Ravinia 2026 Issue 1

The bass-thumping album made Simon an improbable MTV star, won multiple Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year), and sold a phenomenal 16 million copies. But the global success brought political and cultural controver- sy—Simon was accused of breaking the boycott of apartheid South Africa by working in the country, as well as appropriating another culture’s music. However, he responded to those slings by paying the musicians well above their regular session rate and countering that the project helped bring worldwide at- tention to the disgraceful, racist apartheid policy and created positive exposure for South African music. Having attending Si- mon’s 1987 Graceland tour show at Chicago’s Civic Opera House, this writer can attest it was a celebra- tion, highlighting noted South African performers including Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, and La- dysmith Black Mambazo throughout the concert. Similar to the bestselling and critical- ly acclaimed 1968 Simon & Garfunkel life-spanning album Bookends , Simon is now bookending his career. Though officially retired in 2018, he appears cre- atively reinvigorated, bringing about his latest incarnation as “Psalmin’ Simon.” In the promotional trailer for his Gram- my-nominated collection Seven Psalms , he explained its ethereal inspiration: “On January 15, 2019, I had a dream that said, ‘You’re working on a piece called Seven Psalms .’ The dream was so strong I got up and wrote it down. But I had no idea what that meant. Gradually, infor- mation would come.” He revealed that he regularly woke up at 3 a.m. with random words coming to him and wrote them on a legal pad. Eventually, he conceived an overriding theme with connected passages until a cohesive musical piece took shape. “I like to work and then discover,” he said. Simon simply describes this flowing, wondering, wandering musical journey as “an argument I’m having with myself about belief or not.” While he refrains from preaching on Seven Psalms , Simon slyly refers to one of his famous lyrical metaphors and makes bold declarations at the outset: “The Lord is my engineer / The Lord is the earth I ride on / The Lord is the face in the atmosphere / The path I slip and I slide on.” He has released two films document- ing the Sevens Psalms project. The first, 2024’s In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon , chronicles the making of the album, and, freshly dropped in late June, is Paul Simon: The Quiet Celebration Concert . Filmed last year on tour, it features many of the musicians and singers who appear on Seven Psalms , including Simon’s wife, singer-songwriter Edie Brickell. A companion live album is due in October. Ironically, Seven Psalms centers on aging and mor- tality, and Simon began to experience the effects of those realities, suffering severe hearing loss in his left ear. With only six per- cent of hearing remaining in this ear, it put into ques- tion his ability to perform. After anger, denial, and frustration, Simon consult- ed with researchers at the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss. Although he still suffers from the hearing loss, today, using hearing aids and a special configuration of speakers onstage, Simon has adjust- ed his performance to his hearing capabilities. “I’ve gone through my repertoire, reducing the choices to acoustic versions. It’s all much quieter. It’s not ‘You Can Call Me Al’—that’s gone,” Simon laughed to CBS News, “I don’t think creativity stops with disability.” Paul Simon has been on a ca- reer-long, musically inquisitive quest for almost 85 years, but at this stage of his life, he now seems spiritually and emo- tionally homeward bound—with a ticket for his next unknown destination. James Turano is a freelance writer and a former entertainment editor, feature writer, and columnist for national and local magazines and newspapers. He has written official programs for eight Elton John tours since 2003 and is also a Chicago radio personality and host on WGN 720AM. “ I originally started out playing electric guitar, then I switched to acoustic and learned a lot about guitar playing rooms above a pub. ” RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 11 – JULY 19 , 2026 14 RICKDIAMOND/GETTY