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(More customer reviews)To anyone who knows the music and is interested in reading about the life and work of one of the most important and accomplished songwriter/performers of the last fifty years, Marc Eliot's "Paul Simon: A Life" is a major disappointment. The instinct of reviewer "ps fan" to avoid reading this volume based on the author's songtitling mistakes in the promo video turns out to be right on the "Marc", as it were; gaffes of this sort abound in the book with almost comical consistency.
The details of Simon's music are handled with astonishing carelessness -- the author lists "I Am A Rock" as the leadoff track of the album "Paul Simon Songbook", then tells us ten pages later that this song was left off the album; he mistakes Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" (from Art Garfunkel's "Watermark" album, featuring Simon and James Taylor) for Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World"; he confuses Congolese guitarist Rigo Star (a brilliant contributor to the "Rhythm Of The Saints" sessions) with Beatle drummer Ringo Starr (nowhere to be found on this or any other Paul Simon album).
And this is just the tip of an immense iceberg. By the time one gets to "TWO and one-half wandering Jews" (my caps), one wonders if the author will give us a chapter on Simon's proud tenure as the bow-tied U.S. Senator from Illinois, or perhaps North Dakota...
Other aspects of Simon's life and career are given a treatment that leans more toward second- and third-hand industry/social circle gossip than serious research. A perusal of the Acknowlegements section reveals three-and-a-half melodramatic pages of the author's own life story and only a few paragraphs of actual acknowledgements, which list no recognizable first-hand sources. Inexplicably (but unsurprisingly) missing from the bibliography are such invaluable resources as Paul Zollo's extensive and highly informative interviews with Simon (published in Zollo's excellent "Songwriters On Songwriting") and the American Masters Series video documentary "Paul Simon: Born At The Right Time".
Paul Simon is a seminal figure in American popular music (and, arguably, modern geopolitical culture -- consider the timing and impact of "Graceland" on the ending of apartheid in South Africa, which Eliot altogether ignores), and his life and work certainly merit an updated, comprehensive, and thoroughly researched biographical treatment; one that places the music front and center with the respect and attention it deserves, by an author who respects his/her subject AND readership enough to get it right. The current volume is a botch from start to finish.
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