Over The Bridge Of Time: A Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011) Celebrates One Of America's Most Influential Composers And Recording Artists

NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The decades-long musical career of 12-time Grammy Award®-winning (including 3 Album of the Year Grammys) musician Paul Simon is celebrated with the release of Over The Bridge Of Time: A Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011) (http://smarturl.it/ps_otbt_amzn).  The specially curated collection of 20 songs will be available everywhere October 15^th through Legacy Recordings, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. 

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The release of Over The Bridge Of Time: A Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011) coincides with the October 15^th arrival of Paul Simon - The Complete Albums Collection, on Legacy Recordings.  The monumental career-spanning 15-disc deluxe library box set houses the 12 studio albums and two full-length live concert recordings which comprise his official canon, from 1965's The Paul Simon Songbook through 2011's So Beautiful or So What, all originally released on the Columbia, Warner Bros. and Hear Music record labels.

Over The Bridge Of Time: A Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011) marks the first single-CD collection ever to contain songs from both the Simon & Garfunkel era and Simon's post-S&G solo recording career.  In Legacy tradition, the songs are sequenced chronologically, beginning with "The Sound Of Silence," the first single from Simon & Garfunkel (composed by Simon) to work its way into the collective American psyche in late-1965.  "America," first included on S&G's 1968 LP Bookends, is forever linked with the closing scene of 1968's The Graduate, as the two star-crossed lovers run away together at the end of the film.

The Simon & Garfunkel era concludes with four songs from Bridge Over Troubled Water, one of the most celebrated album masterpieces of all time: "The Boxer," "Cecilia," "The Only Living Boy In New York," and of course the momentous title tune, "Bridge Over Troubled Water." "Bridge Over Troubled Water" won an unprecedented five Grammy Awards®: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Contemporary Song, Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), and Best Engineered Recording; with Bridge Over Troubled Water voted Album Of the Year.  (In 1998, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was voted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame, one of many awards that the song and album have won around the world over the past four decades).

The Paul Simon solo era was launched in 1972 with a pair of singles that are airplay staples today as much as they were four decades ago, "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard" and the Hot 100 Top 5 hit, "Mother And Child Reunion" (both from his eponymous debut LP, Paul Simon).  Two of Simon's most beloved and enduring LPs arrived in the '70s: There Goes Rhymin' Simon, the first of several albums that Simon co-produced with the legendary Phil Ramone (1973, with "American Tune"); and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975, winner of Grammy Award® for Album Of The Year and Best Male Pop Vocal, containing Simon's Hot 100 #1 hit, "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" and the gospel-tinged title tune). 

The '70s closed with his first compilation LP, Greatest Hits, Etc., which included previously unreleased [new] song, "Slip Slidin' Away," a Top 5 hit featuring the country-gospel Oak Ridge Boys vocal quartet. The decade of the '80s began with One-Trick Pony (1980, associated with the movie in which Simon starred, including the Grammy®-nominated Top 10 hit, "Late in the Evening").  The title tune of 1983's Hearts and Bones album, with its theme of two lovers ("One and one-half wandering Jews") traveling on the road, harkened back to "America."

"You could look at my work as divided into three distinct periods," Simon has said, "Simon & Garfunkel, pre-Graceland solo albums, and Graceland to the present."  Indeed, the pivotal Graceland album of 1986, Simon's first collaboration with the South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, was a breakthrough event whose impact on the worldbeat scene reverberates today.  Graceland generated 5-times RIAA platinum sales and went on to win the Grammy Award® for Album Of the Year.  It is well-represented on Over the Bridge of Time with "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" and "You Can Call Me Al." 

Graceland had a profound effect on its composer as well, whose '90s explorations into reggae, worldbeat, Latin music, Cajun/zydeco, and beyond were part of the chemistry of his next album, The Rhythm of the Saints (1990), whose "Spirit Voices" featured vocals by its co-writer, the great Milton Nascimento.  The Rhythm of the Saints received Grammy® nominations for Album Of the Year and Producer Of the Year (for Paul Simon).

With much of the next decade devoted to the production of The Capeman, Simon's 1997 Broadway musical, his next studio album as a solo artist did not arrive until a full ten years after its predecessor.  But You're the One (2000, represented by its opening track, "That's Where I Belong"), was such a critical and commercial (Top 20) success that it received a Grammy® nomination for Album Of the Year.  With that, Simon became the first artist ever nominated in the category over five consecutive decades ('60s-'70s-'80s-'90s-'00s). 

Simon, who celebrated his 70^th birthday in 2011, has continued to fascinate and inspire old and new fans alike with his most recent albums. 2006's Surprise ("Everything About It Is A Love Song"), was recorded in New York, London and Nashville with Brian Eno.

In 2011, Simon released So Beautiful or So What ("Love And Hard Times") to overwhelming critical acclaim. It is considered one of the best records of Paul Simon's legendary career, receiving 4 Stars from Rolling Stone Magazine, with the Los Angeles Times proclaiming "So Beautiful or So What, steeped in Afropop and American folk forms, climbs some of the most resplendent summits of Simon's career."

Over The Bridge Of Time: A Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011)
(Legacy Recordings 88883 75767 2)

Selections: 1. The Sound Of Silence * 2. America * 3. The Boxer * 4. Cecilia * 5. The Only Living Boy In New York * 6. Bridge Over Troubled Water * 7. Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard * 8. Mother And Child Reunion * 9. American Tune * 10. 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover * 11. Still Crazy After All These Years * 12. Slip Slidin' Away * 13. Late In The Evening * 14. Hearts And Bones * 15. Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes * 16. You Can Call Me Al  * 17. Spirit Voices * 18. That's Where I Belong * 19. Everything About It Is A Love Song * 20. Love And Hard Times.

About Paul Simon:
Paul Simon's 12 Grammy Awards® include eight as a member of Simon & Garfunkel, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2003).  Simon has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1990 as a member of Simon & Garfunkel, and in 2001 as a solo artist.  In 2002, Simon was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient, and in 2007, he received the first inaugural Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress, an all-star event that was televised and made available on home video.  Many other honors have come Simon's way, from the 53^rd Annual BMI Pop Awards in 2005 (where he was named a BMI Icon in recognition of his 39 BMI Awards and 75 million broadcast airplays), to being named one of Time magazine's "100 People Who Shaped the World" (2006).  Simon holds Honorary Degrees from the Berklee College of Music in Boston (and serves on its Board of Trustees); and from Brandeis University (where Simon & Garfunkel appeared in 1966).  In 2010, Simon was inducted into the prestigious Songwriters Hall Of Fame, based in New York, and the following year he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Most recently in 2012, Simon was awarded Sweden's Polar Music Prize, one of the world's most coveted honors.

SOURCE Legacy Recordings