Latest news with #SevenPsalms
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'A beacon in the darkness': Paul Simon returns to Canada after seven years, defying hearing loss with grace and music
In a return to live performance in Canada after 7 years, Paul Simon graced Toronto's Massey Hall on May 27. The 83-year-old singer-songwriter, renowned for his evocative storytelling and musical innovation, is embarking on his "A Quiet Celebration" tour, a series of intimate performances across North America. Dressed casually in jeans, a ball cap, and a purple jacket, Simon opened his second set with the 1968 classic "America." Before starting his song, he reflected on its themes of division and the search for identity, drawing parallels to contemporary times. "I wrote that song many years ago," he shared, noting its relevance today. He then offered a poignant observation: "I'm happy to report that I've found it. It's here in Canada. You really are a beacon in the darkness at this point." The evening commenced with a full performance of his 2023 album, "Seven Psalms," a contemplative piece exploring spirituality and human connection. Accompanied by a chamber ensemble featuring harmonium, flute, strings, and intricate percussion, Simon delivered the seven-movement composition with a blend of spoken word and song. His wife, singer-songwriter Edie Brickell, joined him for "The Sacred Harp," adding depth to the introspective set. The second half of the concert celebrated Simon's extensive catalog, offering reimagined versions of beloved tracks. Highlights included "Graceland," "Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War," and "The Late Great Johnny Ace," the latter accompanied by visuals of John Lennon, John F. Kennedy, and Johnny Ace. Brickell returned for a whistling solo on "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," adding a playful touch to the evening. Live Events The encore featured fan favorites "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and "The Boxer ," culminating in a solo performance of " The Sound of Silence ." The audience was visibly moved as Simon softly sang, "Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again," bringing the night to a poignant close. Simon, who had previously retired from touring in 2018 due to hearing loss, collaborated with the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss to adapt his performances for optimal acoustics. The "A Quiet Celebration" tour continues with additional dates in Toronto on May 29 and 30, followed by performances in Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities. Who is Paul Simon? Paul Simon is an iconic American singer-songwriter known for his poetic lyrics, innovative music, and enduring hits both as a solo artist and as half of the legendary duo Simon & Garfunkel. With classics like 'The Sound of Silence,' 'Graceland,' and 'Bridge Over Troubled Water,' he has shaped popular music for over six decades.
Economic Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Economic Times
'A beacon in the darkness': Paul Simon returns to Canada after seven years, defying hearing loss with grace and music
Paul Simon, at 83, returned to the Canadian stage after seven years, performing at Toronto's Massey Hall as part of his "A Quiet Celebration" tour. He delivered his 2023 album "Seven Psalms" and reimagined classics, with Edie Brickell joining him. Simon, who addressed hearing loss challenges, concluded the night with a moving rendition of "The Sound of Silence." Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Who is Paul Simon? In a return to live performance in Canada after 7 years, Paul Simon graced Toronto's Massey Hall on May 27. The 83-year-old singer-songwriter, renowned for his evocative storytelling and musical innovation, is embarking on his "A Quiet Celebration" tour, a series of intimate performances across North casually in jeans, a ball cap, and a purple jacket, Simon opened his second set with the 1968 classic "America." Before starting his song, he reflected on its themes of division and the search for identity, drawing parallels to contemporary times. "I wrote that song many years ago," he shared, noting its relevance today. He then offered a poignant observation: "I'm happy to report that I've found it. It's here in Canada. You really are a beacon in the darkness at this point."The evening commenced with a full performance of his 2023 album, "Seven Psalms," a contemplative piece exploring spirituality and human by a chamber ensemble featuring harmonium, flute, strings, and intricate percussion, Simon delivered the seven-movement composition with a blend of spoken word and song. His wife, singer-songwriter Edie Brickell, joined him for "The Sacred Harp," adding depth to the introspective second half of the concert celebrated Simon's extensive catalog, offering reimagined versions of beloved tracks. Highlights included "Graceland," "Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War," and "The Late Great Johnny Ace," the latter accompanied by visuals of John Lennon, John F. Kennedy, and Johnny Ace. Brickell returned for a whistling solo on "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," adding a playful touch to the encore featured fan favorites "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and "The Boxer ," culminating in a solo performance of " The Sound of Silence ." The audience was visibly moved as Simon softly sang, "Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again," bringing the night to a poignant who had previously retired from touring in 2018 due to hearing loss, collaborated with the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss to adapt his performances for optimal "A Quiet Celebration" tour continues with additional dates in Toronto on May 29 and 30, followed by performances in Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, and other Simon is an iconic American singer-songwriter known for his poetic lyrics, innovative music, and enduring hits both as a solo artist and as half of the legendary duo Simon & Garfunkel. With classics like 'The Sound of Silence,' 'Graceland,' and 'Bridge Over Troubled Water,' he has shaped popular music for over six decades.
Chicago Tribune
22-05-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Piping plovers return to Waukegan beach to start family
Good afternoon, Chicago. A suspect in the fatal shootings of two members of the Israeli Embassy near the Jewish museum in Washington, D.C., has been identified as a Chicago man who apparently has railed on social media against the ongoing bombing of Gaza by Israel. Elias Rodriguez, 31, of the 4700 block of North Troy Street, was being held for questioning, authorities said today. He was being interviewed by D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department as well as the FBI, according to officials. Police today blocked the street outside his apartment building in the Albany Park neighborhood on the city's Northwest Side. By 8:15 a.m., a stream of heavily armed men, the letters FBI inscribed on their backs, were seen leaving the brick, U-shaped apartment building, where one apartment window had a sign in the window reading 'Justice for Wadea,' a reference to the killing of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume by his family's landlord in the suburbs in 2023. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Pepper and Blaze — the captive-reared, federally endangered piping plover chicks released on a Lake County beach in 2023 — are back in Waukegan for the second year as breeding adults and the pair is already incubating a full clutch of four eggs. Read more here. More top news stories: The choppy trading this week and sharp decline for stocks yesterday follows several weeks of mostly gains that have brought the S&P 500 back within 5% of its all-time high. Read more here. More top business stories: Former Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant on Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper's staff, has been named the 42nd head coach in Hawks history. Read more here. More top sports stories: Opening the two-set concert with a full performance of 'Seven Psalms,' his 2023 album comprised of a continuous suite of seven songs, Paul Simon presented a fearless meditation on mystery, mortality and the great beyond. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Trump administration from carrying out plans announced in March that sought to work toward Trump's goal to shut down the department. Read more here. More top stories from around the world:
Chicago Tribune
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Paul Simon's ‘Quiet Celebration' is a night to lean into his music
'We are in a conversation,' a gracious Paul Simon announced Wednesday at the first of a three-night stand at Symphony Center, a proper location for his 'Quiet Celebration' tour. And what a memorable conversation it was. Opening the two-set concert with a full performance of 'Seven Psalms,' his 2023 album comprised of a continuous suite of seven songs, Simon presented a fearless meditation on mystery, mortality and the great beyond. Those weighty topics extended beyond the potent 'Seven Psalms.' They arose in almost all of the older selections he chose — work that took on new significance and intent given Simon's current reflections, his 83-year-old age and diminished voice. Though the iconic singer-songwriter never issued any overt statements linking the cerebral concepts of 'Seven Psalms' to material he wrote decades ago, common threads about loss, wonder, home and the constant search for meaning informed the 115-minute show. Simon explored tensions between disbelief and faith, envisioned the Lord as both guardian and saboteur, and seldom arrived at definitive answers to his probing thoughts. Seated on a stool with an acoustic guitar and surrounded by a semi-circle of 11 ace musicians, Simon delivered ruminations, deliberations and hymns via soft, deceivingly casual phrasings. Subtle hand gestures, spiritual tones and light rhythms emerged as undercurrents. Tranquil albeit unsettled, the nuanced approach represented the latest mutation of an artist for whom seeking adventure and rejecting stasis constitute career-long constants. The understatement suited his voice, which now demands that Simon play in intimate halls. Robbed of its former range and projection, Simon's once-flexible instrument displayed wear, thinness and frailty. Occasionally, it frayed and quivered, its raggedness somewhat concealed by the low volumes. Humble and sincere, Simon's singing invited the crowd to lean in as if it took the form of a whisper sharing secrets — and to meet it on its own terms before the words dissolved, offering wisdom as the reward. Under no circumstances would Simon's present vocal abilities succeed in an arena environment. It's also difficult to picture him pulling off the sort of greatest-hits routine typically dispatched by vintage artists catering to the whims of nostalgia. A number of his classic songs no longer fit the parameters of his voice and would probably suffer. He seems to understand that. Better still, he possesses the desire to find fresh ideas in the old and new. Particularly amid songs concerning death, mercy, eternity, and clarifying realizations that, if you're lucky, strike you when you can still act upon them. And so, on this evening, Simon skipped 'Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes' and 'Cecilia.' He bypassed the sure-fire favorites 'Kodachrome' and 'You Can Call Me Al.' Simon didn't entirely ignore his carefree side. A bubbly 'Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard' preceded the encore, which began with the singer rhyming on '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.' The tunes stood as exceptions amid a set that dared to go deep on multiple levels, with Simon saying several compositions were seldom performed live. To hear him a few years ago, you would think his days on the stage were finished. The New Jersey native announced he would cease touring in early 2018, the same year he commemorated his legacy with a 'Homeward Bound: A Farewell Tour' that included an acclaimed stop at United Center. Save the sporadic one-off appearance, he stayed true to his word. Then the creative bug bit. Around the time he released 'Seven Psalms,' Simon revealed in an interview that he suffered near-total hearing loss in his left ear. But, having again started to write songs, Simon felt an urge to play the album in front of audiences. Reversing a prior decision, he announced his current 56-date outing after appearing on the 'Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary' special in February. Initially dressed in a sports coat and later donning a ballcap, Simon made himself small in the service of the music. His exceptional group — which included the final surviving original member of the 'Graceland' band, bassist Bakithi Kumalo, plus multifaceted guitarists Gyan Riley and Mark Stewart — exhibited similar restraint and modesty. A rotating stable of woodwinds, strings, glass cloud-chamber bowls, shaken devices and xylophones complemented acoustic foundations built by guitars, pianos and percussion. Mindful of potential overkill, or of drowning out Simon's fragile voice, the collective let the arrangements breathe and valued the spaces between notes. With no one overstepping their boundaries and everyone serving the whole, the discipline and technique mirrored that of an orchestra. Ditto the classical-leaning fades and swells of the 'Seven Psalms' pieces. They eschewed pop conventions and traveled in directions whose fluid, sidewinding motions evoked the surrealism and unpredictability of dreamscapes. 'Your Forgiveness' haunted with Spanish-style accents and pointed chords as Simon posited that humans are merely droplets in God's massive universe. Aided by the smooth, soothing vocal harmonies of intermittent guest and Simon's wife, Edie Brickell, 'The Sacred Heart' drew from Biblical parables about refugees and place as it delved into empathy and the notion of music as a balm. The mantra 'Love is Like a Braid' addressed doubt, transition, innocence and home. They established thematic road maps for Simon's earlier songs, with the welcoming messages of the plucky 'Graceland' no longer confined to Memphis, Tennessee, but hinting at a peaceful destination not of this Earth — and affiliated with the beautiful heaven of 'Wait.' Home, and lasting comfort, further figured in the nimble 'Homeward Bound,' its connotations radically different from those of 60 years ago when Simon penned it as a road-weary folk singer traveling overseas. And they flickered in the detailed descriptions of the melodic 'Spirit Voices.' Enchantment, and the examination of factors outside our control, also instructed practical matters, whether the bedtime-lullaby episodes of 'St. Judy's Comet' or delightful scenes of the patient 'Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War.' That deep cut circled back to Simon's treatment of the passage of time and how it colors perspective, particularly when one looks back on what they cannot change and wish they knew long ago. He imagined such luck in the foot-tapping 'Rewrite,' the narrator's yearning for a redo so desperate that Simon framed it as a pleading prayer. Other protagonists overlooking fortune in their pursuit of 'the thought that life could be better' weren't granted wishful fantasy, while the trio — R&B singer Johnny Ace, John F. Kennedy and John Lennon — chronicled in 'The Late Great Johnny Ace' suffered a graver fate. Emotions as heavy and definite as mortality hung over a finale that found Simon solo and alone, singing his most timeless song in a weather-beaten voice. Coming across as a farewell, 'The Sound of Silence' chilled with its ostensible serenity, its observations about the lack of real communication and connections having evolved from urgent warnings to terrifying realities. And like to the tired fighter in 'The Boxer,' Simon still remained, his prescient lyrics echoing with deafening from Symphony Center in Chicago on May 21: First set ('Seven Psalms') 'The Lord' 'Love is Like a Braid' 'My Professional Opinion' 'Your Forgiveness' 'Trail of Volcanoes' 'The Sacred Harp' 'Wait' Second set 'Graceland' 'Slip Slidin' Away' 'Train in the Distance' 'Homeward Bound' (Simon and Garfunkel cover) 'The Late Great Johnny Ace' 'St. Judy's Comet' 'Under African Skies' 'Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War' 'Rewrite' 'Spirit Voices' 'Mother and Child Reunion' 'Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard' Encore '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover' 'The Boxer' (Simon and Garfunkel cover) 'The Sound of Silence' (Simon and Garfunkel cover)
Forbes
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Simon & Garfunkel Mounts A Massive Comeback On The Charts
Paul Simon's return to the stage prompts a wave of Simon & Garfunkel albums and singles to return to ... More the charts in the U.K. 1967-Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, of the Simon & Garfunkel singing team, pose in a standing, waist-up, studio portrait. For years, it seemed like fans had seen the last of Paul Simon playing live. The singer-songwriter, who announced his retirement from the road back in 2018, appeared content to step away from the spotlight. But following the 2023 release of Seven Psalms, the superstar has decided to take one final bow — or at least what feels like it — with a quiet but meaningful run of shows across the U.S. and Canada. The tour, dubbed A Quiet Celebration, started in early April, and it may be having a profound effect on the music charts in the United Kingdom. Simon's catalog, both solo and with his former partner Garfunkel, constantly rack up sales and streams in the United Kingdom, but this frame is especially impressive, as several of his most beloved albums and singles are enjoying a resurgence. Five classic Simon & Garfunkel albums return to the same U.K. chart. It's not necessarily odd for a legacy act to break back onto a ranking with a classic, or, in special weeks, more than one. But a quintet of projects on the same roster shows a huge surge in interest in a short span of time, and with a large number of people. Bridge Over Troubled Water leads the way, reentering the Official Album Downloads chart inside the top 10, settling in at No. 7. It's followed by Greatest Hits (No. 11), The Best of Simon & Garfunkel (No. 29), Live 1969 (No. 62), and The Concert in Central Park (No. 88). The renewed attention around the duo's work isn't limited to full-lengths. A trio of Simon & Garfunkel's most recognizable tracks also rebound. 'Bridge Over Troubled Water,' 'The Sound of Silence,' and 'The Boxer' all return to the Official Singles Downloads chart this frame. This time around, the three cuts land at Nos. 75, 86, and 98, respectively. While these returning releases are certainly well-known, most of them haven't spent much time on the downloads-only rankings. Of all the albums, only Greatest Hits has enjoyed any real staying power, as it's now spent 54 frames on the Official Album Downloads chart. The three singles, meanwhile, have each managed just two appearances on the Official Singles Downloads tally, including their comebacks this week. It's not just the duo's discography benefiting from Simon's tour. His own solo material is also climbing, with The Ultimate Collection gaining on two different U.K. charts. On the Official Albums Streaming tally, the set jumps from No. 88 to No. 79, as people keep pressing play on his most familiar singles. It also claws its way back onto the primary Official Albums chart, just making the cut at No. 95.
