Don't Give up, You Can Make It If You Try, You Can Win

Joe Simon has achieved superstar status as a recording artist – singer, record producer,
songwriter and now author – who produced a long string of R&B and crossover hit recordings.
He composed and performed the score for the movie Cleopatra Jones, one of the top grossing
films in Warner Bros. history. The “Theme from Cleopatra Jones” skyrocketed to prominence
again with its inclusion as a focal song on the soundtrack in the 1991 blockbuster Movie “Boyz
N The Hood.”
Simon is a Grammy Award winning artist for the soul R&B hit, “The Chokin’ Kind,” and
has received numerous gold record and Grammy nominations. He owned two major record
companies, performed on many international tours, and at one point during his musical career
had three #1 hits, as well as numerous Top 10, Top 20, and Top 40 hits.
Simon professes, “My favorite artists that I enjoyed touring with were my friends Ray
Charles and B.B. King. “I had everything a man could want in life in a material way, but it didn't
fill a void I kept experiencing. In the mid-1980s, I became more and more disenfranchised with
the music industry and many aspects it encompassed. In 1988, I left the R&B music industry
for good and became an evangelist preaching the word of God.” On January 21, 1991, Bishop
Simon was the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute in Florida.
This book is a compilation of life experiences that will have you laughing, crying and
praising God. Joe Simon had you and me in mind when he wrote this book.
I first met Bishop Simon when freelancing for a Chicago newspaper in the 1990s. It
was an honor to interview him at length and hear his stories of the glory days during the ‘60s
and ‘70s, when he was one of the top stars in the R&B field, enjoying smash after smash with
classics like “The Chokin’ Kind,” “Power Of Love,” and “Drowning In The Sea Of Love.” As great
a star as he was then, Bishop Simon has a nobler calling now, spreading the word of the Lord
in his role as an evangelist and singing His praises with that same set of heavenly pipes. His
autobiography is a fascinating saga that chronicles the rise to fame of a young man from rural
Louisiana with a wonderful voice, and his eventual realization that there was more to life than
being a soul luminary!
Bill Dahl