Paul Simon is not giving up hope that the show will go on as he continues to learn how to deal with his recent hearing loss.
The Newark-born, Queens-raised singer, who last year revealed he suddenly lost most of the hearing in his left ear about two-and-a-half years earlier, has embraced a positive outlook about getting back onstage and performing live again.
In an interview published Friday, Simon told The Guardian that he’s “hoping to eventually be able to do a full-length concert.”
“I’m optimistic,” Simon, 82, said, adding: “Six months ago I was pessimistic.”
After rising to fame in the 1960s as half of the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, the singer-songwriter found solo success in the 1970s and ’80s with the Grammy-winning albums “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “Graceland.”
Last year, he released his most recent studio opus, “Seven Psalms,” also publicly disclosing that the hearing loss hinders his ability to perform with a full band.
“It’s upsetting,” he shared with “CBS Sunday Mornings” last year. “I can still hear well enough to play guitar and write. But I can’t hear well enough to play with five or six musicians. Maybe that’s fine. Maybe there’s something to be learned from that?”
The 16-time Grammy winner toured for the last time in 2018, calling a wrap on his current touring life.
But he clarified in the new interview that it didn’t mean it was the end of performing live.
“I never said I was going to retire. I said I was going to stop [touring], which I did,” he said. “I thought that with that band and the repertoire we were doing, we’d developed it as far as we could. It was enjoyable, but I wanted to find out what happens when you stop.”
