Paul Simon
Over The Bridge of Time: Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011)
(Legacy Recordings)

As part of Simon & Garfunkel, Simon truly made his name as a composer and one half of a musical duo that defined the ’60s. On the newly-released Over The Bridge of Time: Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011), we get six S & G tunes, from the early “The Sound of Silence,”  through “America,” to my personal fave, “Cecilia,” and more. The mélange of instruments on “Celilia” in this remix alone reveals what a spectacular new digital production we have in this bunch of 20 tunes.

The rest of the songs are from Paul Simon’s solo albums and include the stomp and whistle fun of “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard,” the angelic (and classic) “American Tune” and “Still Crazy After All These Years.” The very popular period in Simon’s profile, his Graceland album, is featured here with songs like “Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes” and “You Can Call Me Al.” (I urge you to look for the silly video for this last tune – it’s a classic.) There is also the jangle slight train running of “Everything About It Is a Love Song,” one of Simon’s best (and seeing all this man has written, that’s saying a lot about this tune from his 2006 album, Surprise). Lastly on this collection and of his most recent releases is “Love And Hard Times” from 2011’s So Beautiful or So What

Seeing as there are a bunch of Simon & Garfunkel and Paul Simon collections already on the market (even one that appeared last year of songs handpicked from Simon himself), I’m not sure what purpose this package serves. The album art is very cool though and the songs sound great.