Matthew Straubmuller (imatty35) · CC BY 2.0

Paul Simon met Art Garfunkel in elementary school in 1953, and their folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel — "The Sound of Silence," "Mrs. Robinson," "The Boxer" — became a soundtrack of the 1960s counterculture before Bridge Over Troubled Water, one of the best-selling albums ever made, ended their run together in 1970. As a solo artist he kept reinventing himself, most successfully on 1986's Graceland, which wove South African mbaqanga and choral styles into American pop and produced the hit "You Can Call Me Al."