Paul Simon's 'Graceland'

obviously ladysmith black mambazo would have had a very different, way less succesful career without him. it did much to put 'world music' on the cd players and coffee tables of homes across middle engerland.

i dont like that record as a whole much, the one before (hearts and bones) and the one after (rhythm of the saints) especially are like waaaaaaay under-rated and fantastic. it has it's moments.

i was made to study graceland for GCSE music 4 years after it had been released which can't have helped.

The real beef was that he was breaking the UN cultural embargo of South Africa at a time when apartheid was at it's height, and when political protest at it in the west was coming to a head. Doing so, he maybe didn't give explicit credence to Botha's regime but gave the impression of normalcy at a time when it was anything but.

I remember at the time, Rhythm of the Saints got a very good response, but for some reason nobody talks about it now. I also think it's a much better record than Graceland.

Nearly 20 years later on, Ladysmith Black Mambazo's gotten a fair share of props. Clarify the problem with the album that got the spotlight shining in their direction beyond snarky one-liners, I'm interested.

hey geir, check allmusic. in the crucial cases, those 'backing musicians' got publishing. if you're so indignant, go learn their names.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=CASS70305221425&sql=Al68e4j470way

and here: http://onyx.he.net/~hotmoves/LIC/dylan/ds2.html
However, in 1986 he was temporarily blacklisted by the African National Congress and United Nations for breaking the apartheid boycott of South Africa with "Graceland," which was inspired by South Africa dance music and featured the South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. But the album was both a critical and popular success, and received the Grammy for 1988 record of the year. More controversy hovered over his short-lived 1998 Broadway musical "Capeman," based on a '50s New York Puerto Rican gang member.

Discuss....

The colonialist narrative is almost a potent as 'Buena Vista Social Club' - white entrepreneur 'discovers' long lost primitive music, conspicuously coded as 'exotic' and 'Other'? Fetishistic to say the least.

I only with he had continued making "traditional" Paul Simon albums. "Hearts And Bones" was his best ever, and he has yet to record a proper followup that is mainly the work of Paul Simon and not just Paul Simon trying to show some talented ethnic musicians to the world.

what if you don't care about the coding? I mean, is the music bad?

I lean towards the former, since I cannot get the songs out of my head (in a good way) without even listening to the freakin' album.

The whole album's good, and the best songs are way better than good.

You're the one saying 'primitive', 'exotic' and 'other', buddy! I don't think that's how the record is received. What has fetishism got to do with it anyway?

At this distance, the album is both a classic and overrated. There is an awful lot of filler on the second side. But the first six songs are among the best Simon has ever written, musically and lyrically. Boy and Graceland, especially, have fabulous lyrics, and Diamonds remains stunningly pretty. Nothing on Rhythm of the Saints or Hearts and Bones -- both of which I like a lot -- really comes close to those.

The colonialism charge is completely misplaced. This was totally different than, say, Joni Mitchell's Jungle Line, where she recorded over loops of field recordings of African drums, and used those sounds as a metaphor for mystery, darkness, man's primitive nature, primal truth, etc. Simon was inspired by a new kind of music he heard, but he was never using it in an objectified way. His use of township jive for hipster New York narratives emphasized the sophistication and (gulp) universality of the music, not its exoticism. He was using African music much the way Kurt Weill used blues in Mahagonny, or Mahler used Chinese music in Das Lied von der Erde, or Cheb Khaled used Irish music in Abdul Qadr, or David Byrne uses Brazilian music all the time, or, for that matter, all of alt-country: acts of cross-cultural engagement and respect, not appropriation.

And, just to make things clear to those who were not around then, Simon bent over backwards to credit his African collaborators at the time. Not just Ladysmith Black Mambazo, but also especially Ray Phiri (guitar) and Baghiti Khumalo (bass), both of whom also contributed to Rhythm of the Saints and toured with Simon for years. But there was never any question that these were Paul Simon songs (except for the one song that was recorded over a pre-existing track). That is part of what gave the project its strangeness and excitement.

lmao

there was no doubt about it
it was the myth of collaboration

iirc, this was retroactive. The initial pressing(s?) gave sole credit to Simon.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 10 April 2015 15:59 (5 hours ago) Permalink

p sure ur just making that up

― lag∞n, Friday, 10 April 2015 16:15 (4 hours ago) Permalink

I had to check this out on Discogs (which has scans of the sleeves and labels of different pressings) and I can see no change in writing credits from American pressings in 1986 until now.

The idea of my hating Graceland and So (they will always be associated to me) is like hating Santa

XP Wasn't the album release held up because of the credits issue?

tbf to Los Lobos getting screwed out of a writing credit is kind of a huge deal for such a big-selling album as Graceland turned out to be. that's a lot of publishing royalties they got fucked out of.

"I am surprised by this, as PS did not anything much to change what the musicians would normally do."

as the architect/director for his own album, i think he simply had bad taste in terms of musical selection (and in his own songwriting, which, despite his collaborators' complaints, i'm sure happened plenty). and obviously, paul simon singing paul simon over the top is quite different from what those musicians would normally do.

and yeah, Outic, not really sure why there are apparently many people whom their story deserves contempt and disbelief. if you want to raise the argument that we will never know who really did what, that's fine. but to mock a band for caring about not getting credited on one of the major album events of its decade, and "always bringing it up" when asked about it, seems like something i don't normally see outside of k-pop fandoms.

so if i have this right, you're saying it would be better if paul simon had recruited a bunch of k-pop musicians

nope. korean pop was horrible in the '80s.

if you have this right, maybe paul simon should not have made an album at all. :D

Watching the Willie Nelson tribute concert on PBS w/my Dad and Paul Simon comes on with Buckwheat Zydeco and I'm wondering if Simon ever learned to say 'Zydeco' correctly and did he make the band suck his dick before going onstage.

Ray Phiri RIP

Christ, the first three posts of this thread!

sad news about ray :(

Phiri was only 70. Lung cancer...

Aw.

Seems like club Graceland would be a good one to drop at a multi-generational wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaq-tZZZbFQ

1. “Homeless (Joris Voorn Final Remix)”
2. “Gumboots (Joyce Muniz Remix)”
3. “I Know What I Know (Sharam’s Motherland Mix)”
4. “Crazy Love, Vol. II (Paul Oakenfold Extended Remix)”
5. “The Boy in the Bubble (Richy Ahmed Remix)”
6. “You Can Call Me Al (Groove Armada Dub Redemption)”
7. “Under African Skies (Rich Pinder/Djoko Vocal Mix)”
8. “Graceland (MK’s KC Lights Remix)”
9. “That Was Your Mother (Gui Boratto Remix)”
10. “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (Thievery Corporation Remix)”
11. “All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints (Photek Remix)”
12. “Homeless (Joris Voorn Kitchen Table Mix / The Duke of New York’s Edit)”

It may be hard for younger folks to appreciate what a big deal this album was when it was released (because albums don’t have that sort of impact anymore). Everyone listened to it — adults, kids — I remember the songs being everywhere, like it just permeated the culture for a solid year.

'You Can Call Me Al' was particularly huge. I have more memories of the Rhythm of the Saints period.

The Rhythm of the Saints was big in the States but was huge in England, no?

#1

Everyone listened to it — adults, kids — I remember the songs being everywhere, like it just permeated the culture for a solid year.

I probably mentioned this upthread, but in elementary school music class, the concert film was part of the "World Music" unit we were taught.

Yeah, it went to #1 here - it didn't yield a single as big as 'You Can Call Me Al', though. 'The Obvious Child' got quite heavy airplay and I saw the video on TV with the drummers quite a lot - more than it's highest position of #15 would suggest - and I remember a shitload of publicity surrounding the album and tour. I seem to remember the video to 'Proof' a fair bit, too.

(x-post to Soto)

In fact, even now I'll choose to listen to Saints over Graceland nine times out of ten. 'The Coast' is one of my favourite things he's done ever.

I prefer it too but the differences are irrelevant.

I don’t listen to Graceland for the same reason I don’t put on The Beatles — it’s burned into my mind already. Whereas The Rhythm of the Saints feels more like mine, and also has such a constant tone and groove to it, where Graceland is more a collage of genres.

rhythm is low key a contender but in the end graceland is just undeniable IMHO

I am double posting because this blew my mind:

GC: Your working with Paul Simon, I’m completely ignorant of that, so could you talk about that for a minute?

AB: Through my friend Laurie Anderson, who I made three records with and one movie, she told Paul Simon that he should have me play on something with him, because she said, “He doesn’t play guitar, he makes sounds, and you might really like what he does.” So unbeknownst to me, Paul was making something called Graceland, which, once again is a seminal record, so he asked me to come into the studio in New York. I flew there and had four days there, and the first morning I arrived the engineer-producer Roy Halee put up some of the tracks and said, “Here, I’ll let you listen to this.” It was all African musicians playing, there was no…it sounded like the wrong tape, and I thought he’d made a mistake, I thought, “Well this doesn’t sound at all like Paul Simon; what is this?” And he said, “Yeah, Paul’s been doing some stuff with African musicians and you’re the first non-African to play on this.” There were no words; there was no Paul Simon on the record yet. If you can imagine what Graceland sounds like without his voice…

GC: That’s mind-boggling.

AB: It was very confusing at first. Then Paul arrived in the studio and I explained to him my concern and he was like, “Oh, of course, here let me put up this track and I don’t have all of the words but I’ll sing what I have.” So he would put up a track like You Can Call Me Al or Boy in the Bubble and he would stand right next to me, kind of quietly whisper-singing these songs to me, and it was giving me chills, of course. At the same time I instantly understood: “Oh my gosh, Paul Simon has reinvented himself and this is what it’s going to sound like;” it still gives me chills to think about it. So, we jumped in and there you go; it turned out to be a massive record, re-kickstarted his career, and once again sounded like nothing else anyone had ever done. Not many people know this but I have to tell people this: there’s a video with Chevy Chase and Paul Simon doing You Can Call Me Al and because Chevy Chase is pretending to play a saxophone, I think it misled everyone. The song, it has that part that goes, “Dah duh duhdut, dah, duh duhdut” and everybody thinks that’s a saxophone section; actually that’s my guitar synthesizer.

GC: Oh my God…

AB: (laughs) I have to say that now, I’m kinda proud of that, I was in Amsterdam not too long ago, sitting having a beer, when all of a sudden that song came on and I said to the bartender That’s me! And I never do that, but I just had to.

GC: That’s amazing.

AB: Really I’m proud of that moment, everybody knows that line, and Paul wrote the line, of course; I just played it.

So Belew does the main "sax" riff!

Whoah waht

good story

that's funny. you can tell there's a synth but i always figured it was blended with a real sax.

Cool story, Belew

My Graceland cover band — The Roly-Poly Little Rat-Faced Girls — will be playing tmrrw night at Jack’s Bar & Grill on Rt. 8

Okay so real talk: tell me, is this sudden Simon-thread-bumping some kind of passive-aggressive revenge thing vs. the Leonard Cohen partisans in that other thread?

(Either way, I'm on board. "Under African Skies" still makes me happy just by existing.)

Nah, this is just a great album (you heard it hear first).

It was just hearing that Graceland remix album that made me bump it yesterday. But hearing that and seeing Angelique Kidjo live earlier this week got me thinking about 80s African-influenced pop.

It does feel like its moment has cycled around again, somehow...

A while back someone posted a copy of the bootleg cassette that may have inspired Simon. Whether that was true or not who knows, but I know I downloaded a copy and that it was a great listen. Anyone remember the title so that I can find it on my computer?

Oh, that was easy:

http://www.kleptones.com/blog/2012/06/28/hectic-city-15-paths-to-graceland/#.W3F3cy2ZPVo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYJv6nol0Fw&feature=youtu.be

Crazy comments in here.

that's a cool belew story but not sure I completely get the point - he's doing the main riff on YCCMA or he's doing some weird synth buried in the mix?

Pretty sure he's saying he did the main "horn" riff! As "played" by Chevy and Paul here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-gYOrU8bA

wow, that's kinda wild

Oh, that was easy:

http://www.kleptones.com/blog/2012/06/28/hectic-city-15-paths-to-graceland/#.W3F3cy2ZPVo

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, August 13, 2018 1:22 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

All these years and I've never heard that. It was worth logging on one more time.

Josh - thanks for the link, that tape is great.

Long 1987 profile:

Queens Bound: https://t.co/30spdF201Y pic.twitter.com/qrzNEnqJxO

— Esquire Classic (@EsquireClassic) March 27, 2019

lol paul simon qualified as angst in 1987 what fn babies

Over the mountain, down in the valley, live some bitter Los Lobos

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Friday, April 10, 2015 3:43 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Mentioned it in the main Simon thread, but the 5-hour audio doc on Paul Simon covers a lot of Graceland ground, including some of the jams that led to the songs, and the complications of the whole thing. Worth buying (or streaming on Audible), for sure.