John Simon

John Simon (born August 11, 1941) is an American music producer, composer, writer and performer. Recognized as one of the top record producers in the United States during the late 1960s and the 1970s, some of Simon's most well known work includes the Band’s Music from Big Pink, The Band, and The Last Waltz, Cheap Thrills by Big Brother & the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin, Songs of Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen, and Child Is Father to the Man by Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Background Simon was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, United States; Simon enrolled at Princeton University where he wrote three more musicals and continued his role as a bandleader, taking a band to the finals of the 1st Georgetown Intercollegiate Jazz Festival. The film was released in 1968 as You Are What You Eat and contained the song "My Name Is Jack", written by Simon for that movie, which later became a hit for Manfred Mann.

Simon composed the score for the controversial Frank Perry film, Last Summer (1969), starring Barbara Hershey and Richard Thomas. He played keyboards on the album Alone Together (1970) by Dave Mason, including the haunting piano on the song "Sad and Deep As You". In the Eighties, he wrote two ballet scores for the choreographer Twyla Tharp and composed circus music for aerialist Philip Petit (after his solo walk between the World Trade Towers). He was the music supervisor for a Broadway venture called Rock & Roll! The First 5,000 Years, modeled after Beatlemania, and produced the original cast album of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

At one point, Paul Simon urged John Simon to follow his muse to be a singer-songwriter in his own right. Consequently, in the early 1970s, he recorded two albums for Warner Brothers, John Simon's Album and Journey. Then, fifteen years later, saw the first of four albums for labels in Japan, the first of which, Out On The Street, was released in the U.S. by Vanguard. Simon and his wife, C.C. Loveheart, wrote and performed a cabaret act called Alone Together For The First Time Again and, more recently, co-authored a popular play, Jackass Flats, which had its professional premiere in June 2011. A self-described "compulsive musician", Simon continues to be active. These days he performs his own material in concerts on rare occasions, but plays piano weekly with his jazz trio in his hometown near Woodstock, New York and in Melbourne, Florida in a group led by bassist, Ron Pirtle. In 2018, Simon wrote a book, Truth, Lies & Hearsay: A Memoir Of A Musical Life In And Out Of Rock And Roll which received extensive favorable reviews as an accurate, yet personal rock history, combining first-person details of iconic recording sessions with lively, chatty wit.

Solo discography Year Album Label Notes 1966 The Baroque Inevitable Columbia Arranged & produced by John Simon. 2006 Japan re-issue credited to the Baroque Inevitable/John Simon. 1968 You Are What You Eat (Original Soundtrack Recording) Columbia Masterworks Various-artists soundtrack including 6 songs by John Simon 1969 Last Summer (The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Warner Bros. - Seven Arts Records Music composed by John Simon 1971 John Simon's Album Warner Bros. Records 1973 Journey Warner Bros. Records 1992 Out on the Street Pioneer, Japan 1995 Harmony Farm Pioneer, Japan 1988 Home Pioneer, Japan 2000 The Best and Beyond Pioneer, Japan Compilation culled from Pioneer Japan recordings, includes a new recording "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and two previously unreleased live recordings 2000 Hoagyland: Songs of Hoagy Carmichael Dreamsville, Japan Credited to "John Simon & Friends", incl. Steve Forbert, Jackie Cain, Terry Blaine, Geoff Muldaur and others. 2006 No Band Solo, piano/vocal performances of new and old songs, several previously unreleased