About the Author

Robert Hilburn was the chief pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times for more than three decades. Author of the bestselling biography Johnny Cash: The Life, which Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times selected as one of her top ten books of 2013, Hilburn has reported extensively on most of pop music’s giants, including Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and U2. He lives in Los Angeles. 

Reviews

'There are two great storytellers colliding here. There’s no tougher a mind, no more tender a voice than Paul Simon, and there’s no better man than Robert Hilburn to decipher the hardwiring of this hyperintellect. From the prologue I was sucked in, suckered into a sense that I too might discover the genetic code of some of the greatest songs of any century. By the epilogue, you realize the great songs can never be fully explained, but the great man on his way to find those songs surely can.'
*Bono*

'When it comes to writing songs, no one does it better than Paul Simon. Robert Hilburn’s is a wise and winning account of our most nimble, nuanced, and numinous poet-musician.'
*Paul Muldoon*

'A tantalizing look into the mind and writing process of the man who is arguably the finest craftsman of the American popular song since the Gershwin brothers, this book will delight any Paul Simon fan or student of popular culture.'
*Linda Ronstadt*

‘this stately biography does capture the tension between the focused, ambitious songwriter and his dreamy, unreliable former partner’
*The Times*

'This definitive biography tells the stories behind the hits - and of his fiery relationship with Art Garfunkel.'
*Mail on Sunday*

'The first officially-sanctioned biography of the great singer-songwriter. It is everything fans could have hoped for, including valuable insights into Simon's life and art, and the cause of what appears to be his final personal rupture with Art Garfunkel.'
*Choice magazine*

'Hilburn...ably demonstrates the respect in which Simon his held by fellow songwriters'
*Spectator*