The Paul Simon Songbook

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Paul Simon Songbook
Studio album by Paul Simon

Publication
(s)

1965

Label (s) CBS Records

Genre (s)

Folk rock

Title (number)

12

running time

37:48

occupation Vocals , guitar : Paul Simon

production

Reginald Warburton, Stanley West

Studio (s)

Levy's Recording Studio

chronology
- The Paul Simon Songbook Paul Simon
(1972)

The Paul Simon Songbook is the first solo album by the American musician Paul Simon . It appeared in 1965, initially only on the British market. It contains compositions by Simon, most of which later became known through Simon & Garfunkel .

History of origin

After the first album by the duo Simon & Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM , was initially not a great commercial success, Paul Simon traveled to England , where he performed mostly alone. When the single The Sound of Silence surprisingly reached first place in the charts, the demand for another album was great. At that time, Simon & Garfunkel were already under contract with Columbia Records , which is why Simon received the offer to release a solo album on CBS Records, the British branch of the label, for which he eventually recorded 12 tracks. The song I Am a Rock was released as a single , accompanied by the B-side Leaves That Are Green . Neither the single nor the album were very successful commercially; I Am a Rock only became an international hit later in the version by Simon & Garfunkel.

In 2004 a CD version of the original recordings including two bonus tracks was released.

Track list

  1. I am a rock - 2:52
  2. Leaves That Are Green - 2:41
  3. A Church Is Burning - 3:38
  4. April Come She Will - 1:55
  5. The Sound of Silence - 3:19
  6. A Most Peculiar Man - 2:26
  7. He Was My Brother - 2:58
  8. Kathy's Song - 3:42
  9. The Side of a Hill - 2:28
  10. A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission) - 2:25
  11. Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall - 2:27
  12. Patterns - 3:13

Paul Simon composed all of the songs - He Was My Brother and The Side of a Hill, but under the pseudonym "Paul Kane".

The CD re-release, released in 2004, contained the two bonus tracks:

  1. I Am a Rock (alternate version) - 2:44
  2. A Church Is Burning (alternate version) - 3:10

Further use

In addition to The Sound of Silence , He Was My Brother appeared on the album Wednesday Morning, 3 AM . Simon & Garfunkel later recorded most of the other songs together again: I Am a Rock , Leaves That Are Green , April Come She Will , A Most Peculiar Man and Kathy's Song for Sounds of Silence and A Simple Desultory Philippic , Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall and Patterns for Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme published two years later .

The song The Side of a Hill was later rearranged by Simon & Garfunkel and used as a counterpoint to the English folk song Scarborough Fair , which formed the theme song for Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme .

All songs were recorded with Art Garfunkels accompaniment, except for Kathy's Song and A Simple Desultory Philippic , which remained Simon's solo songs, as well as April Come She Will , of which Garfunkel recorded a solo version.

A Church Is Burning was the only song to appear on none of the Simon & Garfunkel studio albums, but was sung by them at concerts and can thus be found on the live album Live from New York City in 1967 .

Web links