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Paul Frederic Simon, who has owned a home in New Cannan, turns 73 on Monday. The musician and singer-songwriter was born Oct. 13, 1941, in Newark, N.J.
He began his musical career with Art Garfunkel at the age of 11 and his commercial success began as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, formed in 1964. He wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached No. 1 on the U.S. singles charts: "The Sound of Silence," "Mrs. Robinson," and "Bridge Over Troubled Water."
He began a successful solo career as a guitarist and singer-songwriter and released "Graceland," an album inspired by South African township music.
He received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for the Simon & Garfunkel album "Bridge over Troubled Water." He also won 12 Grammy Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was selected as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time magazine in 2006. He was the first recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007.
He received an Oscar nomination for the song "Father and Daughter" in 1998. He was awarded the Polar Music Prize, shared with Yo-Yo Ma in 2012.
He is the honorary member of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S. and also the co-founder of the Children's Health Project and The Children's Health Fund.
In May 2012, Simon performed at a benefit dinner for the Turkana Basin Institute in New York City, raising more than $2 million for Richard Leakey's research institute in Africa.
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