Folk Era
I wonder why nobody mentioned the likes of the super groups like Simon and Garfunkel, Peter Paul and Mary, Kingston Trio, Brothers four in this thread.
Those are my favourite folk singing groups in that order. I used to snatch any tape and later, CD that i find. I cut my "ears" to the national anthem of folk singers, "The Boxer". Lay la lay, Lay la lay... chssss. Remember that tune?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v4qGHOd4Bg&mode=related&search=Woody Gurthrie, Arlo Gurthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Belafonte, Burl Ives of the 50's and 60's -- i listened to them but they were a generation above me. I did not have much access to their songs then. I was a small kid when in the 70's Paul and Art began winning the Grammy awards. Their songs were often played in the airwaves locally.
During his distinguished career Paul Simon has received many awards and prizes, including 12 Grammy Awards, three for album of the year: "Bridge Over Troubled Water" in 1970 (with musical partner Art Garfunkel), "Still Crazy After All These Years" in 1976 and "Graceland " in 1986, which was recently selected as part of the Library’s National Recording Registry.
Simon is a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as half of the Simon and Garfunkel duo and again in 2001 as a soloist. He is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and a 2002 Kennedy Center Honoree. In 2006 Time Magazine named Paul Simon one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World." Simon was the first American artist invited by President Nelson Mandela to perform in post-apartheid South Africa.
Grammy Awards 1968 - Record Of The Year (for Mrs. Robinson)
Grammy Awards 1968 - Best Contemporary Pop Performance - Vocal Duo Or Group (for Mrs. Robinson)
Grammy Awards 1970 - Record Of The Year (for Bridge Over Troubled Water)
Grammy Awards 1970 - Album Of The Year (for Bridge Over Troubled Water)
BRIT Awards 1977 - Best International Album (of the past 25 years) (for Bridge Over Troubled Water)
1990 rock and roll hall of fame
1993 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
Graceland (1986), collaborating with the Zulu choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Album of the year 1987
After their 1970 breakup, the duo reunited at the 1981 "Concert at the Park" which attraced 500,000 people. At the end of Track 2, Homeward Bound, Paul Simon has a little speech, which is most notable because he thanks the people selling loose joints, however, his joke about donating 50% of their profits is nothing more than a silly joke.
Rember the song "Sound of Silence" that starts with, "hello darkness my old friend..."?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kd8xp86reYor Bridge Over Troubled Waters? ... probably one of the best songs ever written on Friendship which starts with... "When you're weary, feeling Small when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them..."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFruKvAq8PQand Graceland... you have to wonder how Paul Simon bagged that coveted Grammy award in 1986 when his career seemed already over.
Finally, I believe that Simon is a Poet... in the likes of Robert Zimmerman...check out this song...
Dangling Conversation
It's a still life watercolor
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives
And you read your Emily thingyinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time.
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives
Yes we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theatre really dead?
And how the room has softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgnWMwt-ewc