Paul Simon might be responsible for writing some of music’s most revered songs, but as he’s revealed previously, he’s progressively becoming unable to hear them.

Last year, Simon explained to British paper The Times that he began to experience hearing loss in his left ear while recording his 2023 song cycle, Seven Psalms. “Quite suddenly, I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, and nobody has an explanation for it,” he explained. “So everything became more difficult.”

Now in a new interview with CBS Mornings, Simon spoke to reporter Anthony Mason about his journey with hearing loss and his search for ways to manage it.

“It was incredibly frustrating. I was very angry at first that this had happened,” Simon admitted, noting his greatest fear is the possibility or no longer writing or composing. “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,” he added.

Though Simon wrapped up his final tour in 2018, he’s still making sporadic appearances here and there. Most recently, he performed a surprise set at New York City’s Irish Arts Centre, and weeks prior, he performed for The SoHo Sessions as part of a fundraiser for the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss

“I’m going through my repertoire and reducing a lot of the choices that I make to acoustic versions. It’s all much quieter,” he explained. “It’s not ‘You Can Call Me Al.’ That’s gone. I can’t do that one.”

As part of his CBS Mornings interview, Simon visited with the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss at their Palo Alto, California facilities, discussing how the likes of zebrafish, mice, and other animals are a point of focus for research. While zebrafish have had hearing benefits thanks to a drug which been approved by the FDA, mice are being used as part of gene therapy in an effort to regenerate damaged hair cells.

Per Simon’s own admission though, he tells CBS that his desire to create hasn’t been affected despite his ability to perfectly hear the fruits of his labor.

“You know Matisse, when he was suffering at the end of his life, when he was in bed, he envisioned all these cut-outs and had a great creative period,” he noted. “So I don’t think creativity stops with disability. So far, I haven’t experienced that. And I hope not to.”

With a whopping 44 chart-toppers on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs list, George Strait is a bona fide legend in the genre and beyond. And at the 2024 CMA Awards at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday (Nov. 20), Strait made a rare public appearance to accept the Willie Nelson lifetime achievement award from the Country Music Association.

The tribute opened with a fiery-eyed, ferocious Jamey Johnson performing Strait’s 2006 single “Give It Away,” a Hot Country Songs No. 1 hit that Johnson co-wrote. (Johnson made headlines just days ago after being arrested in Tennessee on Sunday and charged with speeding and drug possession; Johnson has spoken about his sobriety journey before but acknowledges that he sometimes smokes “a joint”).

Miranda Lambert and Parker McCollum followed with Strait’s 2008 single “Troubadour,” a fitting enough song for the 72-year-old legend given that it’s a meditation on music, aging and legacy (“I was a young troubadour / When I rode in on a song / And I’ll be an old troubadour when I’m gone”).

After that, Strait himself proved he’s far from done, taking the stage with Chris Stapleton for a full-throated duet on “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame” from his recent album Cowboys and Dreamers while his wife, Norma Strait, bopped along from the crowd.

“First of all I want to thank my lord and savior Jesus Christ,” Strait said after wrapping his performance and receiving a standing ovation from the crowd (including Luke Combs, who mimed bowing down to Strait). “I want to thank the CMAs for adding my name to the incredible artists on this small list of recipients, hearing the name of the icon Willie Nelson.”

He also thanked “these great artists” who performed his songs on the CMA Awards stage. “It’s amazing to hear y’all do them – I’m so glad I got to ‘em before you,” he said, laughing, and adding, “Not you, Jamey.”

After paying homage to some of his departed associates over the years, Strait paid tribute to his closest companion for more than half a century. “I want to thank my family who are all here tonight. My wife Norma, my son Bubba, his wife Tamara, my grandkids Harvey and Jillian,” Strait said. “Especially Norma who has supported me for just shy of 53 years – it’s been an amazing 53 years.”

Post Malone didn’t have much time to chill in his Bridgestone Arena seat at the 2024 Country Music Association Awards in Nashville Wednesday night (Nov. 20). After opening the show 90 minutes earlier with a run through “California Sober” with multiple CMA-winner Chris Stapleton, Posty was back all by his lonesome later in the broadcast for a moving performance of his daddy-daughter dedication song “Yours.”

The sweet closing track from the singer’s debut country album, F-1 Trillion, brought a hush over the star-studded crowd of luminaries in the house as Malone crooned the lyrics about a father’s stern, but gentle warning to the man in his daughter’s life about who will always come first.

“I don’t know who you are/ But one day, I’m goin’ to/ And it’s gonna break my heart/ When she gives hers to you,” he sang with an ache in his voice as he closed his eyes tight and emoted over gentle accompaniment from an acoustic guitar and fiddle. Wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a blue Nudie-style jacket and cowboy hat, Posty leaned into the heartbreak chorus, “And she might be wearin’ white/ But her first dress, it was pink/ She might be your better half/ Yeah, but she’s my everything/ We’ll both love her forever/ But I loved her long before.”

His voice rising to a cracked crescendo by the end, Malone followed the final “buddy that don’t mean she’s yours” with a seeming shout-out to his 2-year-old daughter, “We love you, DD”; People reported in 2022 that the “DDP” tattoo across the singer’s forehead are his baby girl’s initials. The musician also told the magazine when he released the “Yours” music video in July that the song was inspired by his thoughts about daughter’s future wedding, calling the track “very special to me.”

Malone went into Wednesday night’s event with four nominations — his first ever at the CMAs — including song of the year, single of the year, music video of the year and musical event of the year for his Morgan Wallen collaboration “I Had Some Help.”