Sylvie Simmons is a London-born, California-based music journalist, named as a "principal player" in Paul Gorman's book on the history of the rock music press In Their Own Write.
24 Facts About Sylvie Simmons
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In 1977 Sylvie Simmons decamped to Los Angeles and became US correspondent for Sounds, one of the four major UK rock music weeklies of the period.
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Sylvie Simmons wrote interviews, reviews and a weekly column, 'Hollywood Highs'.
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Sylvie Simmons did so, under the pseudonym of Laura Canyon, while continuing to write under her own name for Sounds.
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Sylvie Simmons was a regular contributor to the US rock magazine Creem and co-hosted the syndicated US rock radio show "London Wavelength".
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Sylvie Simmons wrote for US, European, and Japanese magazines, this time as a UK correspondent, including Creem, Creem Metal, Rockin F; Metal Hammer.
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Sylvie Simmons wrote for the first issue and has written for MOJO, as Contributing Editor, ever since.
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In 1997 Sylvie Simmons inaugurated MOJO's influential "Americana" column to give more exposure to the new wave of independent roots music by artists.
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Sylvie Simmons contributed essays and writings to a number of books during this period, including The Virgin Story of Rock 'N Roll, Girls Will Be Boys: Women Report on Rock, Kiss: Modern Icons, The MOJO Collection: Ultimate Music Companion, and Let Fury Have the Hour: the Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer.
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Sylvie Simmons continued to write and publish interviews, articles, reviews, for MOJO, The Guardian, various European publications, and during her early years in Frisco, her local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle.
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Sylvie Simmons appeared on a number of radio shows and music-related TV shows including The Seven Ages of Rock.
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In 2010 Sylvie Simmons was featured in the movie The Mighty Uke: The Amazing Comeback of a Musical Underdog, talking about the upsurge of interest in the ukulele.
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Sylvie Simmons had played piano, recorder, clarinet, and guitar at various times in her life, but when she moved to San Francisco she left her instruments in storage in England.
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From 2009 to 2012, Sylvie Simmons was writing a major biography of Leonard Cohen.
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Sylvie Simmons's performances were not only in bookstores, libraries and literary festivals, but in rock music nightclubs, record stores, churches, synagogues, and at museums and music festivals.
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Sylvie Simmons has made numerous appearances as a keynote speaker at universities, museums and other institutions, talking about Cohen and writing his biography.
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In 2018 the Leonard Cohen exhibition went on tour, making its first stop at the Jewish Museum of New York, and Sylvie Simmons did an event there.
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Later the same year, when the exhibition moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, Sylvie Simmons was the keynote speaker and hosted a Masterclass in writing biography.
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When she was in her fifties, Sylvie Simmons came out as a singer-songwriter.
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Sylvie Simmons started featuring her own songs in concerts, continuing to accompany herself on a ukulele.
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Sylvie Simmons recorded her debut album, Sylvie, at Wavelab Studio in Tucson, AZ, produced by Howe Gelb of Giant Sand.
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The album Sylvie Simmons was released in November 2014 and earned universally good reviews.
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In 2015, Sylvie Simmons began a collaboration with Debbie Harry, co-writing Harry's memoir Face It.
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Sylvie Simmons was a featured essayist in the anthology Faith: Essays from Believers, Agnostics, and Essayists.