Paul Simon, one half of the great folk/rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, enjoyed a fruitful solo career beginning with the release of his eponymous album back in 1972. That album continued Simon's string of hits with "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard" and "Mother and Child Reunion." The next year, Paul Simon followed up his debut with There Goes Rhymin' Simon, his 1973 solo album that provided "Kodachrome" and "Love Me Like A Rock." Along the rest of his lengthy, irregularly spaced solo career, he gave us the immensely popular Graceland (1986), a few more hits ("Fifty Way to Leave Your Lover," "Still Crazy After All These Years" and "My Little Town"), and album after album of near perfection.
On October 15, Legacy Recordings will release the next artist in their Complete Albums Collection series with complete attention paid to Paul Simon. The new box set will gather together his 12 studio works (The Paul Simon Songbook, 1965; Paul Simon, 1972; There Goes Rhymin' Simon, 1973; Still Crazy After All These Years, 1975; One-Trick Pony, 1980; Hearts and Bones, 1983; Graceland, 1986; The Rhythms of the Saints, 1990; Songs From The Capeman, 1997; You're the One, 2000; Surprise, 2006; So Beautiful Or So What, 2011), and his two live albums (1974's Paul Simon In Concert: Live Rhymin' and the two-CD Paul Simon's Concert In The Park from 1991).
Each album will be expanded with bonus tracks (37 in all), live outtakes, live performance tracks, demos, and alternate versions of familiar songs. The albums are housed in a tastefully designed box.
To make this 15-CD box set more serious, there will be a 56-page book with scores of photos, more Paul Simon info than you could shake a stick at, and an expected liner notes inclusion penned by music historian Ashley Khan.
As with all Complete Albums Collection Legacy sets, these titles are targeted to fans that enjoyed not only the hits, but the whole album experience. If you're a Paul Simon fan, then this set could satisfy the incurable but satisfying completist in you.
PAUL SIMON: THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION
The Paul Simon Song Book (1965)
1. I Am a Rock
2. Leaves That Are Green
3. A Church Is Burning
4. April Come She Will
5. The Sound of Silence
6. A Most Peculiar Man
7. He Was My Brother
8. Kathy’s Song
9. The Side of a Hill
10. A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission)
11. Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall
12. Patterns
13. I Am a Rock (alternate version) *
14. A Church Is Burning (alternate version) *
Paul Simon (1972)
1. Mother and Child Reunion
2. Duncan
3. Everything Put Together Falls Apart
4. Run That Body Down
5. Armistice Day
6. Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard
7. Peace Like a River
8. Papa Hobo
9. Hobo’s Blues
10. Paranoia Blues
11. Congratulations
12. Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard (Demo - San Francisco 2/71) *
13. Duncan (Demo - San Francisco 2/71) *
14. Paranoia Blues (Unreleased Version) *
There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973)
1. Kodachrome
2. Tenderness
3. Take Me to the Mardi Gras
4. Something So Right
5. One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor
6. American Tune
7. Was a Sunny Day
8. Learn How to Fall
9. St. Judy’s Comet
10. Loves Me Like a Rock
11. Let Me Live In Your City (Work In Progress) *
12. Take Me to the Mardi Gras (Acoustic Demo) *
13. American Tune (Unfinished Demo) *
14. Loves Me Like a Rock (Acoustic Demo) *
Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin’ (1974)
1. Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard
2. Homeward Bound
3. American Tune
4. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
5. Duncan
6. The Boxer
7. Mother and Child Reunion
8. The Sound of Silence
9. Jesus Is the Answer
10. Bridge Over Troubled Water
11. Loves Me Like a Rock
12. America
13. Kodachrome (Alternate Version) *
14. Something So Right (Alternate Version) *
Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)
1. Still Crazy After All These Years
2. My Little Town
3. I’d Do It for Your Love
4. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
5. Night Game
6. Gone At Last
7. Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy
8. Have a Good Time
9. You’re Kind
10. Silent Eyes
11. Slip Slidin’ Away (Demo) *
12. Gone At Last (Original Demo w/The Jessy Dixon Singers) *
One-Trick Pony (1980)
1. Late In the Evening
2. That’s Why God Made the Movies
3. One-Trick Pony
4. How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns
5. Oh, Marion
6. Ace In the Hole
7. Nobody
8. Jonah
9. God Bless the Absentee
10. Long, Long Day
11. Soft Parachutes (Unreleased Soundtrack Recording) *
12. All Because of You (Outtake) *
13. Spiral Highway (Unreleased Soundtrack Recording) *
14. Stranded In a Limousine *
Hearts and Bones (1983)
1. Allergies
2. Hearts and Bones
3. When Numbers Get Serious
4. Think Too Much (b)
5. Song About the Moon
6. Think Too Much (a)
7. Train In the Distance
8. Rene and George Magritte with Their Dog After the War
9. Cars Are Cars
10. The Late Great Johnny Ace
11. Shelter Of Your Arms (Unreleased Work-In-Progress) (Bonus Track) *
12. Train In the Distance (Original Acoustic Demo) (Bonus Track) *
13. Rene and George Magritte with Their Dog After the War (Original Acoustic Demo) (Bonus Track) *
14. The Late Great Johnny Ace (Original Acoustic Demo) (Bonus Track) *
Graceland (1986)
1. The Boy In the Bubble
2. Graceland
3. I Know What I Know
4. Gumboots
5. Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes
6. You Can Call Me Al
7. Under African Skies
8. Homeless
9. Crazy Love, Vol. II
10. That Was Your Mother
11. All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints
12. Homeless (Demo) (Bonus Track) *
13. Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes (Unreleased Version) (Bonus Track) *
14. All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints (Early Version) (Bonus Track) *
15. You Can Call Me Al (Demo) *
16. Crazy Love (Demo) *
17. The Story of “Graceland” (As told by Paul Simon, Recorded January 2012) *
The Rhythm of the Saints (1990)
1. The Obvious Child
2. Can’t Run But
3. The Coast
4. Proof
5. Further to Fly
6. She Moves On
7. Born at the Right Time
8. The Cool, Cool River
9. Spirit Voices
10. The Rhythm of the Saints
11. Born at the Right Time (Original Acoustic Demo) (Bonus Track) *
12. Thelma (Bonus Track) *
13. The Coast (Work-In-Progress) (Bonus Track) *
14. Spirit Voices (Work-In-Progress) (Bonus Track) *
Paul Simon’s Concert in the Park (1991)
Disc 1
1. The Obvious Child
2. The Boy in the Bubble
3. She Moves On
4. Kodachrome
5. Born at the Right Time
6. Train in the Distance
7. Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard
8. I Know What I Know
9. The Cool, Cool River
10. Bridge Over Troubled Water
11. Proof
Disc 2
1. The Coast
2. Graceland
3. You Can Call Me Al
4. Still Crazy After All These Years
5. Loves Me Like a Rock
6. Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
7. Hearts and Bones
8. Late in the Evening
9. America
10. The Boxer
11. Cecilia
12. The Sound of Silence
Songs From the Capeman (1997)
1. Adios Hermanos
2. Born in Puerto Rico
3. Satin Summer Nights
4. Bernadette
5. The Vampires
6. Quality
7. Can I Forgive Him
8. Sunday Afternoon
9. Killer Wants to Go to College
10. Time Is an Ocean
11. Virgil
12. Killer Wants to Go to College II
13. Trailways Bus
14. Shoplifting Clothes *
15. Born in Puerto Rico (Demo with José Feliciano) *
16. Can I Forgive Him (Original Demo Recorded March 1993) *
You’re The One (2000)
1. That’s Where I Belong
2. Darling Lorraine
3. Old
4. You’re the One
5. The Teacher
6. Look at That
7. Señorita with a Necklace of Tears
8. Love
9. Pigs, Sheep and Wolves
10. Hurricane Eye
11. Quiet
12. That’s Where I Belong (Live) *
13. Old (Live) *
14. Hurricane Eye (Live) *
Surprise (2006)
1. How Can You Live in the Northeast?
2. Everything About It Is a Love Song
3. Outrageous
4. Sure Don’t Feel like Love
5. Wartime Prayers
6. Beautiful
7. I Don’t Believe
8. Another Galaxy
9. Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean
10. That’s Me
11. Father and Daughter
So Beautiful or So What (2011)
1. Getting Ready for Christmas Day
2. The Afterlife
3. Dazzling Blue
4. Rewrite
5. Love and Hard Times
6. Love Is Eternal Sacred Light
7. Amulet
8. Questions for the Angels
9. Love and Blessings
10. So Beautiful or So What
* Expanded CD reissues contain 37 bonus tracks (previously released)
