Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2023 5:30:41 GMT
“Graceland”—Paul Simon (1986)
Added to the National Registry: 2006
PDF www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/PaulSimonAndGraceland.pdf
companion threads
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/568/paul-simon
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/6329/african-skies-simon-ronstadt-1987
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/5648/african-skies?page=1&scrollTo=11459
www.npr.org/2000/07/10/1076475/graceland
Graceland
“Graceland”—Paul Simon (1986) Added to the National Registry: 2006 Essay by Marc Eliot (guest post)* Original album Original label Paul Simon “Paul Simon and ‘Graceland’” Paul Simon’s masterwork, 1986’s “Graceland,” was released in the summer of 1986 by Warner Bros, the label Simon had moved to in 1980 after an incredibly successful 16year run at Columbia, where he had been since 1964. His great...
Contributor: Marc Eliot
.......Until, out of the seeming nowhere, while nobody was looking and even less were caring,
Paul Simon pulled off the most spectacular of comebacks, with what would be widely
considered the best work of career, the ebullient, inspirational, redemptive innovative,
intense, diamond-brilliant, shimmering, simply gorgeous “Graceland.”
It began modestly enough with a homemade cassette tape a friend gave him to listen to
while driving; it was “Gumboots: Accordion Jive Hits, Volume II.” He played it once,
then again, then over and over. After a few days he began to wonder what the name of
the group was. His most favorite music had always been New York City streets “doowop” and he was certain this had to be some obscure doo-wop album that had somehow
slipped through the cracks. In those pre-Google times, Simon called a friend at Warners
and asked him to find out the name of band. His friend called back a day later and told
him it was a South African vocal group called Ladysmith Black Mambazo. They
specialized in “Mbaqamba,” or “township jive” (“Ladysmith” is the name of Shabalala’s
rural hometown; “Black” is a reference to oxen, the strongest of all farm animals; and
“Mambazo” is the Zulu word for axe, representing the group’s ability to “chop don” any
singing rival who might challenge them).
Lady Black Mambazo was founded in the Sixties by Joseph Shabalala, who was still
performing with them in South Africa when Simon made plans to travel to Soweto to
meet the members of the group and possibly record with them. He got in touch with
South African producer Hilton Rosenthal, who sent him about twenty additional albums
by local musicians and, in February of 1985, Simon asked his longtime producer, Roy
Halee, who did most of Simon and Garfunkel’s albums and several of Paul’s solo ones, to
accompany him on the journey.
Simon called upon good friends Harry Belafonte and Quincy Jones to help smooth the
way there, aware that he had to carefully tiptoe around the longstanding United Nations
Anti-Apartheid Committee, whose boycott of segregated South Africa had effectively
3
prevented other performers from playing there. Traveling only with Halee, Paul hoped to
slip in and out of the country under the radar and to avoid a Jane-Fonda-in-Hanoi media
debacle.
It didn’t work. From the moment they landed in South Africa, a groundswell of
worldwide criticism engulfed Paul and Halee. Despite the uproar, they began working
with several of the best of that country’s musicians, including, besides Ladysmith Black
Mambazo, Tao Ea Matsekha (responsible for the groove that envelopes “Boy in the
Bubble”), General M. D. Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters (“I Know What I Know”), and the
Boyoyo Boys Band (“Gumboots”). They all worked every day in the studio, for triple the
going rate, and it quickly filled up with dozens of local musicians, and their friends and
associates, wives, girlfriends, some carrying babies in their arms, all wanting to watch
Paul Simon and hear him play. Between sessions, South African musician Sipho Mabuse
gave Paul and Halee a tour of the poorest sections of Soweto.
Halee later remembered that each jam would last 10 or 15 minutes to a half-hour, and
perhaps part of one usable song would come out of each. The idea, according to Halee,
was to get the raw music on tape and then return to New York to try to enhance, edit and
polish what they had. (Even before he returned to the States, Paul’s name was added to a
UN blacklist that had begun in 1980 for disregarding the boycott, despite the fact that he
hadn’t played a single concert there, even for the huge amounts of money Sun City, the
highly segregated, white South African resort, offered him. Simon had never been a
socially aware singer-songwriter like early Dylan or middle Springsteen and none of the
songs that would result from his visit would be inherently political. Simon’s name was
removed from the UN blacklist in 1987).
These two weeks in Soweto reenergized Paul, and not only revved up his music, but, as
he later put it, finished off his disappointments and sorrows. What he’d heard in the
music of South Africa was the sound of his own musical roots that had somehow gotten
away from him.
He took the six tracks of rough studio jams he’d made in Soweto and played them over
and over again in his house on Long Island, using paper and pencil to write down the
lyrics he came up with. When he felt ready to go back into the studio, he brought in other
musicians he knew to help record what he had. He laid down a track with the East L.A.
Mexican group Los Lobos. He also did one with Good Rockin’ Dopsie and the Twisters.
He recorded bits and pieces with the Everly Brothers, one of the original inspirations for
Tom and Jerry and Simon and Garfunkel, and Linda Ronstadt, who’s strong, rough,
street-wise yet somehow sweet voice he had always loved.
What made all of this time and travel at all possible was that Warner Bros. had, by now,
written Paul Simon off as a bad investment after his first two albums for them had
bombed. The label was now focused on Prince, who was very hot at the time, and
perennial platinum performing and recording artist Madonna. To the label, Paul was
yesterday’s news. Many of the Warner’s younger executives had only a vague memory
of Simon and Garfunkel and no organic connection to the Sixties.
4
The album took the rest of 1985 to complete, done in pieces in New York, Los Angeles,
London, and Louisiana, while Paul continued to refine his lyrics, trying to make all the
pieces click as a cohesive whole. As it neared completion, there was still the matter of a
title, a single phrase that would tell the world what the album was all about. He had one
he liked, that kept floating in his head, borrowed from T.S. Eliot, “Driving through
Wasteland.” Close, but not it. Then, one day that became “Going to Graceland,” and
then, simply, “Graceland.”
And he knew he was home.
Added to the National Registry: 2006
PDF www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/PaulSimonAndGraceland.pdf
companion threads
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/568/paul-simon
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/6329/african-skies-simon-ronstadt-1987
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/5648/african-skies?page=1&scrollTo=11459
www.npr.org/2000/07/10/1076475/graceland
Graceland
“Graceland”—Paul Simon (1986) Added to the National Registry: 2006 Essay by Marc Eliot (guest post)* Original album Original label Paul Simon “Paul Simon and ‘Graceland’” Paul Simon’s masterwork, 1986’s “Graceland,” was released in the summer of 1986 by Warner Bros, the label Simon had moved to in 1980 after an incredibly successful 16year run at Columbia, where he had been since 1964. His great...
Contributor: Marc Eliot
.......Until, out of the seeming nowhere, while nobody was looking and even less were caring,
Paul Simon pulled off the most spectacular of comebacks, with what would be widely
considered the best work of career, the ebullient, inspirational, redemptive innovative,
intense, diamond-brilliant, shimmering, simply gorgeous “Graceland.”
It began modestly enough with a homemade cassette tape a friend gave him to listen to
while driving; it was “Gumboots: Accordion Jive Hits, Volume II.” He played it once,
then again, then over and over. After a few days he began to wonder what the name of
the group was. His most favorite music had always been New York City streets “doowop” and he was certain this had to be some obscure doo-wop album that had somehow
slipped through the cracks. In those pre-Google times, Simon called a friend at Warners
and asked him to find out the name of band. His friend called back a day later and told
him it was a South African vocal group called Ladysmith Black Mambazo. They
specialized in “Mbaqamba,” or “township jive” (“Ladysmith” is the name of Shabalala’s
rural hometown; “Black” is a reference to oxen, the strongest of all farm animals; and
“Mambazo” is the Zulu word for axe, representing the group’s ability to “chop don” any
singing rival who might challenge them).
Lady Black Mambazo was founded in the Sixties by Joseph Shabalala, who was still
performing with them in South Africa when Simon made plans to travel to Soweto to
meet the members of the group and possibly record with them. He got in touch with
South African producer Hilton Rosenthal, who sent him about twenty additional albums
by local musicians and, in February of 1985, Simon asked his longtime producer, Roy
Halee, who did most of Simon and Garfunkel’s albums and several of Paul’s solo ones, to
accompany him on the journey.
Simon called upon good friends Harry Belafonte and Quincy Jones to help smooth the
way there, aware that he had to carefully tiptoe around the longstanding United Nations
Anti-Apartheid Committee, whose boycott of segregated South Africa had effectively
3
prevented other performers from playing there. Traveling only with Halee, Paul hoped to
slip in and out of the country under the radar and to avoid a Jane-Fonda-in-Hanoi media
debacle.
It didn’t work. From the moment they landed in South Africa, a groundswell of
worldwide criticism engulfed Paul and Halee. Despite the uproar, they began working
with several of the best of that country’s musicians, including, besides Ladysmith Black
Mambazo, Tao Ea Matsekha (responsible for the groove that envelopes “Boy in the
Bubble”), General M. D. Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters (“I Know What I Know”), and the
Boyoyo Boys Band (“Gumboots”). They all worked every day in the studio, for triple the
going rate, and it quickly filled up with dozens of local musicians, and their friends and
associates, wives, girlfriends, some carrying babies in their arms, all wanting to watch
Paul Simon and hear him play. Between sessions, South African musician Sipho Mabuse
gave Paul and Halee a tour of the poorest sections of Soweto.
Halee later remembered that each jam would last 10 or 15 minutes to a half-hour, and
perhaps part of one usable song would come out of each. The idea, according to Halee,
was to get the raw music on tape and then return to New York to try to enhance, edit and
polish what they had. (Even before he returned to the States, Paul’s name was added to a
UN blacklist that had begun in 1980 for disregarding the boycott, despite the fact that he
hadn’t played a single concert there, even for the huge amounts of money Sun City, the
highly segregated, white South African resort, offered him. Simon had never been a
socially aware singer-songwriter like early Dylan or middle Springsteen and none of the
songs that would result from his visit would be inherently political. Simon’s name was
removed from the UN blacklist in 1987).
These two weeks in Soweto reenergized Paul, and not only revved up his music, but, as
he later put it, finished off his disappointments and sorrows. What he’d heard in the
music of South Africa was the sound of his own musical roots that had somehow gotten
away from him.
He took the six tracks of rough studio jams he’d made in Soweto and played them over
and over again in his house on Long Island, using paper and pencil to write down the
lyrics he came up with. When he felt ready to go back into the studio, he brought in other
musicians he knew to help record what he had. He laid down a track with the East L.A.
Mexican group Los Lobos. He also did one with Good Rockin’ Dopsie and the Twisters.
He recorded bits and pieces with the Everly Brothers, one of the original inspirations for
Tom and Jerry and Simon and Garfunkel, and Linda Ronstadt, who’s strong, rough,
street-wise yet somehow sweet voice he had always loved.
What made all of this time and travel at all possible was that Warner Bros. had, by now,
written Paul Simon off as a bad investment after his first two albums for them had
bombed. The label was now focused on Prince, who was very hot at the time, and
perennial platinum performing and recording artist Madonna. To the label, Paul was
yesterday’s news. Many of the Warner’s younger executives had only a vague memory
of Simon and Garfunkel and no organic connection to the Sixties.
4
The album took the rest of 1985 to complete, done in pieces in New York, Los Angeles,
London, and Louisiana, while Paul continued to refine his lyrics, trying to make all the
pieces click as a cohesive whole. As it neared completion, there was still the matter of a
title, a single phrase that would tell the world what the album was all about. He had one
he liked, that kept floating in his head, borrowed from T.S. Eliot, “Driving through
Wasteland.” Close, but not it. Then, one day that became “Going to Graceland,” and
then, simply, “Graceland.”
And he knew he was home.