Paul Simon: The Life

By Robert Hilburn

Simon and Schuster. 439 pp. $30

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Claude Gassian's cover photograph of Paul Simon does more than identify the subject of Robert Hilburn's new biography. It suggests how we should read it. By photographing Simon full-faced but shadowed, serious and pulsing with importance, Gassian rejects the rougher, often louche images he's created of other rock icons. Instead, the photograph of Simon reminds us of the portraits by John Singer Sargent, who painted the societal titans of late 19th-century society.

Hilburn could hardly discourage such a comparison, given that his thorough, balanced and insistently chronological biography reminds us how titanic this musician is.

Simon didn't start out a titan. He began his career singing in a duo named for two cartoon characters, Tom & Jerry. Art Garfunkel, whom Simon befriended in sixth grade, was Tom. By 1964, they had renamed themselves Simon and Garfunkel, and within a few years they had become a musical sensation, selling millions of records and touring widely. They went on to win multiple Grammys over their long but fragmented career. As a solo performer, Simon's awards are even more eye-popping: more Grammys, the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor and the first Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

These awards and associations substantiate Simon's most visible personality traits: ego and the propulsive pursuit of his art. He learned early from his competitive father, a successful bandleader, who told him that "music was something to be treated with respect."

The he said/he said history of Simon and Garfunkel's half-century collaboration is well known, and Hilburn supplies enough examples of their kvetching to wear down any reader. It's the songs that matter, beginning with their megahit, "The Sound of Silence." By his mid-20s, Simon was a millionaire with many productive years ahead of him.

Hilburn is not an exciting writer, though Simon chose him as his biographer. Instead of feeling suspenseful, this version of Simon's life story seems inevitable, and reading the long history of his career never quite zings as it should, despite his many accomplishments. Simon is widely quoted in the book. He hates being short, sometimes gets depressed and loves his family, but when he does take us into the shadows, he reveals nothing unexpected or particularly dark. Not much drug use, though beginning in 1994 he started using ayahuasca, a South American hallucinogenic. He views his time with Garfunkel as "merely the first stage of his career," yet it's a stage he habitually repeats. Readers are apt to wonder why.

Simon's comments about his own lyrics, many of which are printed in full throughout the book, are informative, but explaining the intricacies of poetic creation seems to elude him. Perhaps "Four in the morning/ crapped out/ yawning" is explanation enough. It's a great line.

Simon does discuss his exploration — some would say exploitation — of cultural rhythms from Africa and South America and how these new sounds made him rethink his songwriting. He was vilified for not crediting other musicians, and in 1985 he refused to honor a U.N. boycott against performing in South Africa while working on his album "Graceland." He believes that no one should tell an artist what he can or cannot do, or whom he can work with.

History has been on Simon's side, and today his contribution to modern culture is indisputable. The London Times has called Simon "the godfather of world music."

We'll have to wait and see if he ever writes other songs now that he's announced his Farewell Tour. But titans seldom stop, so why would Simon? Silence does not become him. He's always liked the sound of his own voice, as do millions of others.