John Simon

Although he is often referred to as "the sixth member of the Band", John Simon never was an actual member of the group. He met the Band in 1967, when he was working on Peter Yarrow's movie You Are What You Eat in Woodstock with film editor Howard Alk (in the soundtrack to Yarrow's film, the Hawks/Band back up falsetto singer/weirdo Tiny Tim). Because of his engineering skills and experience with studio work, Simon ended up working with the Band in the basement of Big Pink and eventually was hired as the producer for their debut album. He was the one that brought horns into the Band's music. On their 1969 masterpiece The Band he played a variety of keyboards and horns, in addition to co-producing the record together with the Band.

John Simon is credited on most of the Band albums from the '70s and he has continued the collaboration with the group in the '90s, once again producing and playing horns and keyboards on the 1993 comeback album Jericho. Band members are also credited on two of his solo albums, John Simon's Album (1971) and Out on the Street (1992). .

For more on John Simon, see the Official John Simon web site, Lee Gabites' 1999 interview and his article about John Simons's solo career, and Hideki Watanabe's John Simon pages.

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