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John Simon who has owned a home in Norwalk, turns 73 on Monday. The music producer, composer, writer and performer was born August 11, 1941, in Norwalk, Conn.
Simon began writing songs before he was ten and by the time he graduated from high-school, he was already leading and writing for several bands and had composed two original musicals.
He 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.
He was later hired as a trainee at Columbia Records. His work during that period involved original cast albums of Broadway shows and audio documentary albums, including “Point of Order”, a recording of the Senate hearings conducted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and “The Medium Is the Massage” inspired by the writings of media guru, Marshall McLuhan.
Recognized as one of the top record producers in the United States during the late 1960s and the 1970s, Simon produced numerous classic albums that continue to sell more than 30 years later, including The Band’s “Music from Big Pink," “The Band,” and “The Last Waltz,”; “Cheap Thrills” by Big Brother & the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin; “Bookends” by Simon & Garfunkel; “Songs of Leonard Cohen” by Leonard Cohen; and “Child Is Father to the Man” by Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Currently he performs his own material in concerts on rare occasions but plays piano weekly with his jazz trio in his hometown near Woodstock, N.Y.
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