A publishing event from music legend Paul Simon: a romantic, candid, and definitive biography written with Simon’s complete participation—but without his editorial control—by acclaimed biographer and music article writer Robert Hilburn.

For more than fifty years, Paul Simon has spoken to us in songs about alienation, doubt, resilience, and empathy with techniques which have established him among the most beloved artists in American pop music background. Tunes like “The Sound of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled about Paul Simon: The Life Drinking water,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” and “Graceland” have moved beyond the sales charts and into our cultural awareness. But Simon can be a deeply private person who provides resisted talking with us beyond his music. He has said he’ll not create an autobiography or memoir, and he offers refused to speak to previous biographers.

Finally, Simon provides opened up—for more than one hundred hours of interviews—to Robert Hilburn, whose biography of Johnny Money was named simply by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times as one of her ten favorite books of 2013. The result is usually a landmark publication that will consider its place as the determining biography of one of America’s greatest artists.

It starts in Kew Backyards Hillsides, Queens, where, raised by a bandleader father and schoolteacher mother, Simon grew up using the twin passions of football and music. The last mentioned took at age twelve when he and schoolboy chum Artwork Garfunkel became infatuated with the appealing harmonies of doo-wop. Jointly, they became worldwide icons, and then Simon continued to sustained artistic heights on his own. But under the surface of his storied five-decade career can be a roller coaster of tumultuous personal and professional ups and downs. From his amazing early achievement with Garfunkel to their painfully acrimonious break up; from his massive early hits as a single artist towards the wrenching commercial failures of One-Trick Pony and Hearts and Bones; from the historic comeback success of Graceland as well as the Rhythm from the Saints to the star-crossed foray into theater with The Capeman and a late-career creative resurgence—his is usually a musical existence unlike every other.

Over the past three years, Hilburn has conducted in-depth interviews with scores of Paul Simon’s friends, family, colleagues, and others—including ex-wives Carrie Fisher and Peggy Harper, who spoke for the first time—as well as penetrated the inner circle of Simon’s long-reclusive muse, Kathy Chitty. The result is usually a deeply individual account from the issues and sacrifices of a existence in music at the highest level. Along the way, Hilburn documents Simon’s seek out artistry and his continuous struggle to protect that artistry against distractions—fame, relationship, divorce, medicines, record company disturbance, rejection, and insecurity—which have derailed so many great pop numbers.

Paul Simon can be an personal and inspiring narrative that helps us finally understand Paul Simon the person and the artist. “With train-wreck moments and sensitive interludes alike, it delivers a sharply complete Kodachrome of a brilliant musician” (Kirkus Testimonials).