Word: simonizers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Seeking a way to reach his generation, Paul Simon finds in South African songs the fire for his intrepid new album, Graceland...
...musician pal of Simon's passed him a bootleg cassette of instrumental music with that intriguing name, subtitled Accordion Jive Hits, Volume II. Simon played it all during the summer of 1984, hearing in its unsprung beat echoes of old rhythm and blues, '50s style. The music on the tape turned out to be mbaqanga, or "township jive," from the streets of Soweto. Simon became obsessed. In January 1985, he took off for South Africa and began to record with Soweto's Boyoyo Boys, Tao Ea Matsekha (a group from Lesotho), and General M.D. Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters...
...musicians spoke English, and when Simon called, "Let's go to a D chord," he discovered "they didn't know what a D chord was. Then I realized that they had a different language and musical description for what they were doing. I decided -- fine, let them play what they want -- I will solve this problem later." After two weeks, Simon returned to his apartment on Manhattan's Central Park West with six rhythm tracks. He listened to them, chasing through "lots of culs-de-sac. I would think the melodies were in one place, and I'd find them...
...album's title track, Simon sings, "Losing love/ Is like a window in your heart/ Everybody sees you're blown apart," and, he now recalls, "once that 'losing love' line came out, that was a catharsis. Everything began to flow. That's when the funny songs came out." The rhythms of the album had also expanded. Simon had gone down to Lafayette, La., for the goofy good times of That Was Your Mother and out to California, where he recorded All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints with Los Lobos, a terrific Mexican- American band of rockers...
...title song, Simon says, is not about Elvis Presley or his Memphis home but about a "state of peace." Simon's double edge is at his keenest here, using a country boy's dream mansion, which turned into a mausoleum, as an ironic counterpoint to Homeless, sung a cappella with South African Gospel Group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The rhythms washing over Graceland are infectious and inflective enough to shame rap silly, from the lovely, funky arc of Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes to the spooky snap of The Boy in the Bubble. African musicians appear on nine...