Author: brendanmstewart

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Grant-Lee Phillips: In the Hour of Dust

Grant-Lee Phillips In the Hour of DustAmericana came out of the dusty crossroads of folk, country, blues, rock, and soul. In its earliest iterations as “roots rock” it came in the shape of The Band, Gram Parsons, The Blasters, and others. It was always a responsive type of music. The Band were responding to the excesses of Sgt. Pepper and Cream. Parsons was responding to what he believed was the soulless aspect of modern country music. The Blasters were a breath of fresh air amidst the rhinestones and huge hair of the late seventies and early eighties, as well as a riposte to the punk ethos of burning down the past and starting anew. The Blasters wallowed in older styles of music and called their first album American Music. Throughout the eighties, nobody quite knew what to call this style of music that was neither fish nor fowl. Eventually the term “alt-country” was used to describe bands like The Jayhawks and Uncle Tupelo, and then that label gave way to “No Depression,” named after the Carter Family song covered by Uncle Tupelo. Desperate for a label that would stick, the Grammy Awards instituted “Americana” as a category in 1990. It was, and still is, something of a catch-all.

In 1991, Grant Lee Buffalo was formed, led by singer and songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips. The Buffalo were an important voice in shaping the sound. Their music was sometimes described as “folk punk” but that’s not really correct. Their sound was black and white in widescreen format: gritty, hushed, lyrical, atmospheric. Phillips was a truly gifted songwriter and lyricist, as well as being an uncommonly good singer (he was voted Male Vocalist of the Year in 1994 by Rolling Stone). The canvas on which he painted was America. Songs about the siege at Waco, Texas (“Lone Star Song”), the voodoo happenings of New Orleans (“Dixie Drug Store”), the undiscovered grave of Tecumseh (“The Last Days of Tecumseh”), and Johnny Cash (“Demon Called Deception”). Historical and popular culture figures trip off Phillips’s tongue like rain from the skies: John Wilkes Booth, Marie Laveau, Evel Knievel, John Wayne…Gacy. Famous American places are named, from Leavenworth, Kansas to South Rampart Street in NOLA, to the haunted hotel of The Monterey in California. Their sound was a combination of acoustic ballads and alternative rock’s hard edges.

Sadly, Grant Lee Buffalo never found a space in the marketplace. Too quiet for alternative rock, too rocky for folk, they split up after four excellent albums full of vivid imagery and emotional depth.

Grant-Lee Phillips’ solo journey, beginning with 2000’s Ladies’ Love Oracle, marked a shift from the lush, electric sprawl of Grant Lee Buffalo to a more stripped-down, folk-leaning sound that aligned closely with Americana’s core. Albums like Mobilize and Virginia Creeper showcased his knack for weaving personal and historical threads into songs that felt both timeless and urgent, drawing on influences from his Muscogee (Creek) heritage and the American South’s sonic palette. His voice—warm, clear, weathered, evocative, and soaked in sweetness—became the focus, carrying tales of love, loss, and resilience.

With his latest album, In The Hour of Dust, Phillips has once again proven himself to be one of the finest songwriters in the field. Self-produced and recorded with a small group, the record is a continuation of the sound he has carved out for himself since Virginia Creeper, over 20 years ago. The sturm und drang of the days when the Buffalo roamed are now a distant memory, replaced by some of the finest balladry of the times. Once again, the main weapon here is Phillips’s voice and softly strummed acoustic guitars, yet there’s an urgent undercurrent throughout the album the saves it from turning into Nick Drake territory, especially on tracks such as “Little Men,” “Bullies,” and “Stories We Tell.” While it might be nice to hear him break out the distortion pedal once again, those days are solidly buried in the past. “Lone Star Song” and “Homespun” are still there, available to listen, but it isn’t where his head is at these days.

Phillips calls on his Native American roots with “Did You Make It Through The Night Okay?” a particularly good song that blends light humor about strange days with a chorus that opts for cheer instead of doom. “Bullies”—with Jamie Edwards, Phillips’s first ever co-written song— takes the schoolyard bully and brings him into the adult world of boardrooms and government bureaucracies and then refuses to give any concessions to them. It’s typical of his defiant attitude toward the “little men who want to rule like Caesar” (“Little Men”), and his penchant for bringing politics into his art in subtle ways.

The album’s centerpiece is “Stories We Tell,” a beautiful lyric of self-doubt and affirmation married to a sprightly rhythm track that belies the subject matter of the song. There’s a sense of hope in the music even as Phillips sings of the “crooked lies” and “fables” that we tell ourselves, and that’s a common thread through the album. “Regret is a martyr that bleeds ‘what ifs,’ he sings, “and laments what might have been.” He dismisses the idea by calling them “all those fairy tales” even while acknowledging the very real feelings that are generated by the stories. “None of this is writ in stone,” is the message of a pep talk we all need to hear on occasion. Musically the song fits right in between the jauntier tracks like “Little Men” and “Did You Make It Through The Night Okay?” and the bedroom quiet of love songs like “She Knows Me” and tunes that bespeak of a desperate loneliness like “Someone.”

Grant-Lee Phillips’s career since the dissolution of his old band has been one of a remarkable consistency. While the quiet, whispered tones of much of his solo work can be a little much when listening in depth, there’s simply no denying that the man seems incapable of writing a bad song. With In the Hour of Dust, like his earlier triumph The Narrows, there’s enough going on musically to keep the interest and while his voice has certainly lost some of its bellow and upper range it remains a gorgeous instrument. He is simply one of the best Americana artists walking the stage today. Smart lyrics, a small band, and honey-soaked vocals. What’s not to love?

Grade: A

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The Grip Weeds: Soul Bender

Grip Weeds Soul Bender Garage rock came out of the 1960s, a form of raw, back-to-basics rock and roll. The gateway drug for garage rock is the legendary collection Nuggets, originally compiled by future Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye and released in 1972 as a two-record compilation of great lost tracks from the sixties. It has since been expanded into no fewer than five four-disc box sets, focusing on America, international, modern, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They represent an alternative view of the history of rock and roll, one where the big bands of the era are only heard through their influence. And it’s possible to hear all those influences in the three minutes it takes to spin out one of these songs. Part of the fun of garage rock is how it teases the ear, reminding you of something else but remaining fresh.

New Jersey’s Grip Weeds, named after John Lennon’s character in the movie How I Won The War, is a modern garage rock band that has just released their ninth album, Soul Bender. They are also in many ways the definitive band in this genre. The influences are there: the jangly guitars of The Byrds, the cascading drums of The Who, the harmonies of the Beatles, etc. But the beauty of the Grip Weeds is that they have assimilated their influences so well that they transcend them. On Nuggets it’s easy to say, “This band sounds like The Yardbirds” or “This could be a Kinks song.” The Grip Weeds sound like The Grip Weeds and simultaneously nobody else and everybody else. Many bands wear their influences on their sleeves. The Grip Weeds have them etched into their DNA.

Soul Bender captures the band at their best. It features the differing patterns of the 1960s in a distinctly modern weave. Released in June of this year on JEM Records and recorded at the band’s own House of Vibes studio, the album is a tour-de-force of melody, guitar crunch, a pounding rhythm section, and exquisite vocals. The result is reminiscent of a time long ago yet also timeless.

From the “Hard Day’s Night”-ish opening chord of the title track to the Odessey and Oracle feel of “Love Comes in Different Ways” the influences are there for trainspotters but make no mistake, this is an original band playing original music. Kurt Reil (vocals, drums), Rick Reil (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Kristin Pinell Reil (lead guitar, vocals), and Dave DeSantis (bass, vocals) have created a heady confection that is one of the best albums of the year (maybe the best).

The music on Soul Bender is varied without ever losing sight of the goal. From the loping duet between Kurt Reil and Kristin Pinell Reil on “Promise (Of The Real)” to the breathy psychedelia of “Column Of Air” to the Byrds-y “Gene Clark (Broken Wing)”, Soul Bender presents what is essentially a hidden greatest hits of a bygone era gussied up with a 21st century sheen and modern production values. The effect is never less than a joyful blast of what the radio should sound like today.

The secret weapon of the band is undoubtedly Kristen Reil. Aside from sterling harmonies and the occasional lead vocal (her voice on “If You Were Here” could have come straight out of Susanna Hoff’s mouth), she’s also an ace guitarist. Her lead guitar adds a level of excitement to the songs, particularly on “Conquer and Divide”, where she steps to the fore and plays two volcanic solos that lean heavy on the whammy bar. There’s a good reason Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel on Sirius named it the “Coolest Song of the Week.”

It’s heartening to hear new music like this. From their first album (House of Vibes) way back in 1994 the Grip Weeds have maintained an astonishing level of consistency in their work. Over nine studio albums (one of them, Strange Change Machine, a double CD set), plus a live album, a Christmas album (!), and a covers album (Dig) the band is still going strong, sounding as fresh now as they did when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were all over the radio. It’s no mean trick to sound so nostalgic and so new at the same time, but they pull it off with memorable tunes, great production, and incendiary playing. The Grip Weeds are the real deal.

Grade: A

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Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, by David N. Meyer

Trying to track down the Big Bang of any type of music is a fool’s game. Every genre has multiple antecedents. This is particularly true of rock music, which has many rivers feeding into its ocean. Several years ago, a new genre was coined: “Americana.” Truth is, there was absolutely nothing new in this genre. It goes back to Sun Studios and the initial blending of country music and rhythm and blues. Elvis Presley singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky” is as Americana as it gets. It was dubbed rock and roll.

Over the ensuing years, other threads were added to the tapestry. The Byrds brought folk music into the mix, and it was dubbed “folk rock.” They also incorporated country music into their repertoire. In 1967 Bob Dylan traded in his wild mercury sound for sparse instrumentation and acoustic music with John Wesley Harding. He was followed in 1968 by his old backing group The Band and their Music From Big Pink, an album of almost incalculable influence. The Beau Brummels, famed for their British Invasion-style hits “Just A Little” and “Laugh, Laugh” made a hard turn left with their country- and folk-inspired Bradley’s Barn LP. And it was called roots music.

The biggest musical shock of 1968 was likely the Byrds and their terrific album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Here was an album that was made by a well-established rock group, but the sound was stone-cold country music. Although the Byrds had always dabbled in country, Sweetheart was a complete stylistic change. This was due to the influence of a country singer who loved rock and roll, Gram Parsons.

Parsons had been kicking around for a few years and had released an album with the International Submarine Band (so many bonus points for naming themselves after a Little Rascals joke). He befriended the Byrds’ Chris Hillman and was brought into that group. Such was his presence that even the founder of the band, Roger McGuinn, bought fully into the country sound.

It is here, from his time in the Submarine Band through his short stint with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers to his time as Keith Richards’s drug buddy and through his all-too-brief solo career, that David N. Meyer’s 2007 biography Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music stands as a definitive work.

Gram Parsons

Meyer’s greatest achievement is his incisive exploration of Parsons’ musical legacy. He dissects what Parsons called “Cosmic American Music,” a blending of country, rock, soul, and folk with precise attention to detail. He frames the style as a radical synthesis of country’s emotional authenticity, rock’s rebellious energy, and soul’s spiritual depth. The book meticulously traces Parsons’ evolution from the International Submarine Band’s tentative experiments to Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which Meyer argues was a cultural pivot point for country-rock. His analysis of Parsons’ tenure with the Flying Burrito Brothers, particularly albums like 1969’s The Gilded Palace of Sin, highlights their blend of Nudie-suited theatricality and raw vulnerability. Meyer’s close readings of songs like “Hickory Wind” and “Sin City” reveal their lyrical and sonic complexity, positioning them as archetypes of Americana’s introspective ethos. His discussion of Parsons’ collaboration with his protégé Emmylou Harris on 1973’s GP and 1974’s posthumous Grievous Angel is especially good, portraying the duets as high art. Meyer convincingly argues that Parsons’ influence—evident in the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Wilco’s experimentalism, and the alt-country movement—stems from his ability to transcend genre. This was a man who felt comfortable adding distortion to pedal steel (an unforgivable sin in country music at the time) and who did a fine rendition of “Cry One More Time” by Boston’s answer to the Rolling Stones, the J. Geils Band. With the Burrito Brothers he was also the first to record and release “Wild Horses,” predating the Stones’ classic recording on Sticky Fingers by a year.

The biography’s portrayal of Parsons’ life is equally rigorous. It’s clear that Meyer is a fan, but he’s able to look at the singer objectively. Parsons’s youth is portrayed as something out of a William Faulkner novel, born and raised fabulously wealthy in a highly dysfunctional family torn and frayed by alcoholism and tragedy. This context informs Parsons’ paradoxical character: a charismatic innovator whose idealism and prodigious talent was undercut by self-destructive tendencies. Meyer’s research—drawing on interviews with obscure associates and bandmates—illuminates Parsons’ relationships, notably his influence on Keith Richards and his creative partnership with Chris Hillman. The book avoids hagiography, candidly addressing Parsons’ heroin addiction, erratic behavior, and professional unreliability, which Meyer frames as both a personal failing and a byproduct of the 1960s counterculture’s excesses. This approach yields a complex portrait of the artist as a young man: Parsons as a catalyst for musical change, yet someone whose potential was curtailed by his inability to harness his own genius. Meyer’s vivid prose captures the era’s cultural ferment—Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon scene, country music’s resistance to rock, and the transatlantic exchange with the Rolling Stones—making the biography a valuable cultural history as well as a personal one.

It must be said that the book gets off to a rough start. A reader would be forgiven for abandoning the story fairly deep into it. Approximately 30% of the book, almost the entire first third, is a forensic detailing of Parson’s family history going back to his grandparents. Page after page is filled with the minutiae of their business dealings, their successes, their failures, their trouble with alcohol, distant relatives, childhood friends. The subject of the book is barely a character and deep into the book there’s still plenty of discussion about his eighth-grade band and his high school years. This excruciating level of detail proves that Meyer did his research, interviewing virtually everybody whose life intersected with Parsons, but a good editor could have told him to summarize it all in one chapter. It’s an interesting detail that the Parsons family at one point owned a full third of the orange and citrus business in Florida, but you don’t have to read about every business dealing on the way to their fortune. The writing here is self-indulgent and unnecessary.

Once the reader gets past this, the story takes off, culminating in a motel room in Joshua Tree National Park. The story of Gram Parsons’ death from an overdose of morphine and tequila is tragic; the immediate aftermath is a sick farce. Meyer does not romanticize this story, as many have in the past. It is not the ultimate farewell to a shining star as Parsons’ road manager Phil Kaufman tries desperately to portray it. Kaufman’s theft of Parsons’ body, and the gasoline-fueled cremation of his naked, recently autopsied corpse in Joshua Tree is now the stuff of gruesome legend. It matters not that Parsons and Kaufman had pledged to do this in case one of them died. It was a reckless, drug-fueled promise that should have been broken, and Parsons should have been buried with dignity.

Twenty Thousand Roads is a much-needed biography of a figure that, as much as any single person, can rightfully be called the father of Americana. He was building on influences from Buck Owens to the Rolling Stones, but the sound coalesced on his wonderful solo albums and his work with the Flying Burrito Brothers. One listen to the heartbreak of “$1000 Wedding” or “Love Hurts” and the spinning road tale of “Return of the Grievous Angel” and you can hear the entire history of country music as well as the key to the future of the genre. Gram Parsons was the real deal, the performer that the Eagles desperately wanted to be, though they could not hope to measure up. You can hear Parsons’ influence through the subsequent years. It’s in the cow punk of Jason and the Scorchers, the Southern Gothic sound of early R.E.M., the alt-country stylings of Lone Justice, the Long Ryders, Uncle Tupelo, the Jayhawks, and so many more. None of those bands were labeled as Americana because the term didn’t exist until marketing departments became desperate to hang a label on the sound, but they all tie back to Parsons. Much of the modern sound of country (I’m talking real country, not that godawful “sittin’ in my pickup with my dog, drinking a beer, wearing my blue jeans and Stetson, looking to raise trouble” bro-country) owes allegiance to a singer who was scorned by Nashville for decades until the music scene caught up to him. He was, in the prescient song by fellow Burrito Brother and future Eagle Bernie Leadon, “God’s own singer.”

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The Death of Summer: Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, RIP

It’s been a rough week for popular music with the death of two of the most important figures in the culture of the last 70 years. On the surface, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone could not be further apart. Wilson was the sun-kissed, clean cut all-American kid singing pop songs with his family about surfing, girls, and cars. Stone was the perpetually high black hippie singing funk and soul songs with a racially and sexually integrated band about togetherness, self-empowerment, and enjoying life to the fullest. Wilson marked the first half of the 1960s, Stone was a product of the second half of that decade.

On further reflection, several striking similarities are also evident. Both were geniuses. Both bands were built around family members. Both made it into the 1970s with increasingly scattered results. Both were casualties of drugs and mental illness. Both were unbelievably influential on their peers and their descendants.

Sly Stone, born Sylvester Stewart in 1943, was a disc jockey, producer, and musician in San Francisco who led the Family Stone, a funk outfit that had a great love for all types of music and incorporated rock, soul, psychedelia, gospel, and pop into their sound and blew the doors off of the boundaries of the music scene. Beginning with his Top Ten hit, “Dance to the Music” he began a string of classic songs and albums that redefined the music of black America. This was not the hardcore funk of James Brown, nor was it the Memphis soul of Otis Redding, or the gorgeous pop symphonies of Motown. This was, well, all of that thrown in a blender. The result was unique to Sly and the Family Stone, but others were paying attention.

It’s simply impossible to imagine the sound of black music in the 1970s and beyond without hearing and understanding Sly and the Family Stone. Beginning with his first breakout albums, Music of My Mind and Talking Book, and culminating with the magisterial Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder had clearly been paying close attention to Sly. Without Sly, there is no Philly soul, no Jacksons, no Parliament-Funkadelic, no Earth, Wind, and Fire, no Spinners, no War, no latter-day Temptations. Follow the trail into the 80s and beyond and there’s no Terence Trent D’Arby, no Prince, no Red Hot Chili Peppers, no Fishbone, no OutKast, no Vintage Trouble. James Brown can rightfully claim the credit for inventing rap, but one wonders if the more music-oriented rappers would have picked up their instruments without Sly leading the way. All these bands and performers were paying homage to Sly Stone in their different ways. Even Talking Heads’ more funk-oriented songs from the early 80s were directly inspired by Sly.

Stone peaked with 1968’s album Stand! and the three singles that he released to close out the decade. “Hot Fun in the Summertime” remains one of the all-time great summer songs, as good as anything Brian Wilson’s brothers had released. The double A-side that he released at year’s end, “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Everybody Is A Star” pointed the way to the seventies on the first side and summarized Sly’s sixties on the second half.

Brian Wilson, the heart and soul of The Beach Boys, was a fragile genius who turned the California dream into a universal language. Born in 1942, Wilson’s early life was steeped in music but scarred by the abuse of his father, Murry, a domineering figure whose cruelty left lasting marks. It was a smack from the desperate wannabe songwriter Murry that rendered Brian deaf in one ear. Wilson’s genius took a while to become evident. The early Beach Boys, as enjoyable and as fun as they are, were mainly variations on a theme: surfing is cool, and life is best lived at the beach. But the genius was lurking all the time, poking his head up in introspective songs like “In My Room” that hinted at a more melancholy side to the songwriter. The musical and vocal arrangements were also getting more sophisticated. As a kid, sitting in front of the stereo with headphones on listening to the then-new Endless Summer compilation, I was drawn more to the intriguing arrangements of the music on “California Girls” and the vocals on “Help Me, Rhonda” than I was to “Surfin’ Safari”.

Brian Wilson Beach Boys

Still, nothing prepared the music-loving America of 1966 for the explosion of brilliance that was Pet Sounds. Surely the winner of any competition for “Worst Cover/Best Album” in history, Pet Sounds was Brian Wilson’s attempt to pick up the gauntlet the Beatles had thrown down with Rubber Soul. Brian has stated that his album was an effort to create something that had “more musical merit than the Beatles.” For their part, the Beatles flipped over the Beach Boys album. Paul McCartney still calls it his favorite album. It wasn’t the lyrics on Pet Sounds that were revolutionary, though they broke from surfing and cars. Singer Mike Love even complained about that to Brian, telling him to “stick to the formula.” No, it was the musical arrangements that completely upended rock music. This was music that demanded to be taken seriously. Even the brilliant musicians who provided the instrumentation, Los Angeles mainstays The Wrecking Crew, familiar and fluent in every type of music around at the time, were confused by what Wilson was asking for in the studio. Confused, but also in awe of the results. Harpsichords, tympanies, barking dogs, bicycle bells…nothing was off-limits in Wilson’s imagination. Anchored by “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows,” Pet Sounds remains one of the greatest albums ever recorded. And it was such a flop Capitol records rush-released a greatest hits album just two months later. The fact is that nobody (except other musicians) was ready to hear Brian Wilson’s genius yet.

Wilson’s brilliance reached its apogee with the following single, “Good Vibrations,” a song whose intricate arrangement stuns the listener to this day. But Wilson’s attempt at a follow up album, Smile, was mired in a sea of LSD, pot, and mental illness. He’d had a nervous breakdown in 1964 which led to him giving up touring to concentrate on the records, and now he had another, far more serious one. Smile was abandoned. Parts of it were released on the albums Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, providing a tantalizing glimpse into what might have been. While he “finished” Smile in 2004 as a solo artist, the fact remains that the full Beach Boys-treatment remains the great lost album of the sixties.

Wilson’s career was a rollercoaster of brilliance and breakdown. His mental health struggles, compounded by drug abuse and the manipulative control of psychologist Eugene Landy, derailed him for decades. Landy, initially a savior in the 1970s, became a Svengali-like figure, isolating Wilson until a 1992 lawsuit freed him. His wife and guardian Melinda Wilson died in 2024. Brian Wilson lived out his life suffering from dementia, a tragic ending to a tragic story.

Sly Stone’s life mirrored Wilson’s in its descent. Drug addiction, particularly cocaine, and erratic behavior unraveled his career by the mid-1970s. The Family Stone fractured, and Stone became a reclusive figure, his output dwindling as he battled personal demons. His later years were marked by legal troubles, financial ruin, and health issues, culminating in a prolonged battle with COPD that eventually killed him.

While their stories are tragic, the music they left behind stands testament to their genius. As the drugs got worse Sly Stone’s music turned dark, but his work from the sixties remains fresh, sunny, bold, and optimistic. It’s the perfect companion to the hot nights partying after spending the day on the beach, where Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys provide the soundtrack of the endless summer. The musical world is greatly diminished by their loss.

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Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon, by Peter Ames Carlin

Homeward Bound The Life of Paul SimonThe poet half to Art Garfunkel’s one-man band has always been an interesting guy. Like Bob Dylan, he was a rock ‘n’ roll fan who went deep into the folk music scene only to reemerge with a sublime combination of the two genres. He achieved massive levels of fame and fortune, gathering critical hosannas the entire time, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice and now, in his 80s, is still releasing music. All of this, but Peter Ames Carlin’s 2016 biography was the first serious attempt at capturing this life on the page. The story covers Simon’s entire life from his days as a baseball fanatic kid growing up in Queens, New York through his years with Garfunkel and on through his solo career. Simon was not a particularly prolific artist, his solo albums being years apart, but the high quality of the work from “The Sound of Silence” to Graceland and beyond is unassailable.

The musical journey begins in 1957 when an unknown duo calling themselves Tom and Jerry released a standard ’50s vocal group tune called “Hey! Schoolgirl.” Credited to Jerry Landis and Tom Graph, these were pseudonyms designed to obscure the obviously Jewish roots of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. The song became something of a regional hit, allowing Simon to namedrop it when attempting to make his way into the music industry. Simon struggled for years attempting to cash in on the success of “Hey! Schoolgirl” to no avail. He and Garfunkel parted ways as musical partners, though they remained friends.

Much like Bob Dylan had, Simon threw the dice on a career in folk music when that scene exploded in the early sixties, reuniting with Garfunkel. Unlike Dylan, success came slowly, resulting in an album called Wednesday Morning, 3 AM that went nowhere. Disheartened, he made his way to England where he had had success on a solo jaunt the year before. In England he attracted a large following, and even recorded an album called The Paul Simon Songbook, which was not released in the United States at the time but is a fascinating glimpse at many Simon and Garfunkel classics in their early stages.

When Simon achieved success he was unaware. Unbeknownst to him, the producer of Wednesday Morning, Tom Wilson, had decided to add some electric guitars, bass, and drums to the all-acoustic song “The Sound of Silence.” It was released as a single and Simon’s original reaction was anger, which abated once the royalty checks started flowing. From there Simon and Garfunkel were off to the races, scoring hit after classic hit.

The duo split, acrimoniously, in 1970 when Garfunkel decided to try his hand at acting, leaving Simon alone with his thoughts and a guitar. The result of that abandonment was Paul Simon, an excellent collection of tunes that proved Simon didn’t need the crystal-clear tenor of Garfunkel to succeed. As the seventies rolled on, Simon released only two more albums, both of which were extraordinary. One of them, 1975’s Still Crazy After All These Years even featured a reunion with Garfunkel on the brilliant “My Little Town.”

After two more albums, Simon released Graceland in 1986. The album generated an enormous amount of controversy because it was recorded in South Africa using musicians from that country at a time when artists were actively boycotting the apartheid regime there. The kerfuffle was overblown. Simon had fallen in love with the music coming out of Africa and wanted to share it with the world. He used black South African musicians, paying them twice what they normally would make, and brought more attention to the racist government of the country. Graceland was wildly successful and assured Simon’s place in the pantheon of rock and roll greats. His subsequent solo albums, despite critical acclaim, never matched that success.

Peter Ames Carlin’s book does an excellent job of assessing the career and events of Paul Simon’s life. It is comprehensive in its inclusion of detailed discussion of the music and is not afraid to discuss both the positive aspects of Simon’s life and the negative side of his personality (he wasn’t above claiming credit for the work of others). It also spends a lot of time, perhaps too much, on Simon’s relationship with Garfunkel, a lifelong series of reconciliations, reunions, and breakups that seems to have settled on a respectful distance. As Simon said in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, maybe he’d even record with Garfunkel again, before slyly adding, “No rush.”

There are a few obvious errors in the book, but those errors are minor in the whole. For example, in his discussion of the Simon and Garfunkel album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Carlin writes about the brilliance of some of the album tracks and then proceeds to list four songs from the Bookends album. At another point, he has Simon and Garfunkel performing on the same night as Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The errors may be insignificant, but they’re also sloppy and should have been caught in the editing stages. They also call into question the veracity of the author’s other claims.

Paul Simon is something of an anomaly in popular music. A short, balding, Jewish, well-read man who would seem to be most at home in the English department of New York University in Greenwich Village, he nonetheless emerged as one of the biggest, most successful stars of the last half of the 20th century. His work with Garfunkel, his initial splash in the industry, probably reverberates the most because their amazing singles created his legend, but it’s Simon’s solo work that truly transcends. He may never have written songs as good as “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Mrs. Robinson,” or “The Sound of Silence” in his solo career, but he and Garfunkel never came close to putting out albums as consistently remarkable as There Goes Rhymin’ Simon or Graceland. From a lyrical perspective, only Bob Dylan was as literate, and Simon’s words are far, far more accessible.

Carlin’s expansive tome is a well-researched and engaging summary of Paul Simon’s life up until 2015 or so. It misses a few albums, including the beautiful Seven Psalms which Simon wrote, recorded, and released at the tender age of 81, but provides deep looks into everything up until that point. The book aims to be the definitive look at Simon’s life, but can any biography be classified as such if the subject in question is still alive, active, and capable of great work? Regardless, though it may be incomplete, Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon succeeds in giving the reader an in-depth understanding into the life and work of a legendary songwriter.