Father and child reunion
Now 37, Harper Simon has overcome his demons and embraced who he is and where he comes from. His just released first solo album does sound like a Paul Simon album.
Being Paul Simon’s son has its advantages and disadvantages, said Sophie Heawood in the London Times. From an early age, Harper Simon was given opportunities other musicians could only dream of. He began playing guitar at age 10, and by 14 was jamming nightly onstage with his father and an ensemble of African musicians. “He took me out of high school and I went on the [Graceland] tour and played,” Harper says. “It was a special time.” After high school, he enrolled in Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music. But he quit before graduating, and then kicked around in various marginal punk bands in New York and London. That genre didn’t suit his soft, Paul Simon–type voice, and he was both hypercritical of his own musicianship and reluctant to trade on his famous name. He soon found himself battling drugs and depression.
Now 37, he has just released his first solo album, which does sound like a Paul Simon album. Harper says he has overcome his demons and embraced who he is and where he comes from. Still, his father’s shadow looms large. “It’s a very high bar that he’s set,” he says. “His work is of such a high level. It’s kind of like, if you can’t be up at that level, why bother, you know?”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Book reviews: ‘Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America’ and ‘How to End a Story: Collected Diaries, 1978–1998’
Feature A political ‘witch hunt’ and Helen Garner’s journal entries
By The Week US Published
-
The backlash against ChatGPT's Studio Ghibli filter
The Explainer The studio's charming style has become part of a nebulous social media trend
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Why are student loan borrowers falling behind on payments?
Today's Big Question Delinquencies surge as the Trump administration upends the program
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published