Paul Simon was featured in a new CBS Mornings segment that focused on his recent hearing issues and also looked at an initiative at Stanford University in California that seeks to help the many people who are experiencing hearing loss.
Videos by American Songwriter
CBS journalist Anthony Mason interviewed Simon as he prepared to play a show in New York City recently as part of The SoHo Sessions performance series. The show was a fundraiser for the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss. Mason also joined Simon at Stanford University to look at the work the doctors and scientists there are doing to try to find solutions to the condition.
[RELATED: Listen to Paul Simon’s New Duet with Wife Edie Brickell, “Bad Dream”]
“I guess what I’m most apprehensive about would be if I can’t hear well enough to really enjoy the act of making music,” the 83-year-old singer/songwriter told Mason. He also noted that he only has about 6-percent hearing in his left ear.
As previously reported, Simon began experiencing severe hearing loss while he was working on his latest album, Seven Psalms.
The CBS segment explained that because of his hearing issues, he’s had to make adjustments to his speaker setup in order for him to perform live.
Simon also revealed that he’s had to either drop or reworked certain songs that he no longer can comfortably play in concert.
“I’m going through my repertoire and reducing a lot of the choices that I make to acoustic versions,” he explained. “It’s all much quieter. It’s not ‘You Can Call Me Al.’ … I can’t do that one.”
About how he felt when first having to deal with the issue, Paul said, “It was incredibly frustrating. I was very angry at first that … this had happened.”
About the Standford Hearing Loss Initiative
The segment then shifted to Stanford University, where more than 100 scientists and doctors are taking part in the initiative to cure hearing loss, a problem that affects more than 1.5 billion people worldwide.
Simon and Mason are told by geneticist Teresa Nicolson that the initiative has identified an FDA-approved drug that rescues hearing in zebra fish with hearing-loss mutations. She’s says they’re hoping the drug can similarly help humans.
Two other scientists, biophysicist Tony Ricci and surgeon Alan Chang, are shown studying hair cells in mice and working on how they can be regenerated with drugs. The experiments could possibly lead to figuring out how to regenerate damaged human hair cells in the inner ear that are essential to hearing.
For more information about the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss, visit Stanford.edu.
What Simon Said About the Hearing Loss Initiative
After his visit to Stanford, Simon shared how he felt about the work that being done by the scientists there.
“[It] gives me hope that there is some significant improvement on the horizon,” he told Mason.
Near the segment’s end, Simon was shown playing his classic “The Sound of Silence” at the SoHo Sessions show.
He also reflected on still being inspired to be creative, despite the challenges he’s faced because of his hearing loss.
“You know, [French visual artist Henri] Matisse, when he was suffering at the end of his life, when he was just in bed, he envisioned all these cutouts and had a great creative period,” Paul pointed out. “So, I don’t think creativity stops with disability. So far, I haven’t experienced that, and I hope not to.”
About Simon’s Most Recent Music Releases
Simon’s latest album, Seven Psalms, was released in May 2023. On November 1 of this year, Simon released a new collaborative song called “Bad Dream” with his wife, Edie Brickell.
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