FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Eleven: Paul Simon
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IN this new edition…
of A Buyer’s Guide, I am featuring one of music’s greatest icons: the wonderful Paul Simon. I am including only his solo albums, but his music as part of Simon & Garfunkel is sensational, and definitely worth exploration. It is always hard to filter Paul Simon’s best albums and, whilst I have missed out a couple of classics – including The Rhythm of the Saints -, I feel I have included the best albums from one of music’s true geniuses – and a book that is a useful companion. Have a look at the list below and, if you are not over-familiar with Paul Simon, I hope this provides illuminating and a good guide. I have been listening back to his best albums whilst doing this, and it is amazing how many classics Simon penned! It just goes to show that he truly is one of…
THE greatest artists we will ever see.
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The Four Essential Albums
Paul Simon
Release Date: 24th January, 1972
Labels: Columbia/Warner Bros.
Producer: Roy Halee/Paul Simon
Standout Tracks: Duncan/Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard/Hobo’s Blue
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Simon-Paul-Simon/master/97959
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7npBPiCHjPj8PVIGPuHXep
Review:
“If any musical justification were needed for the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel, it could be found on this striking collection, Paul Simon's post-split debut. From the opening cut, "Mother and Child Reunion" (a Top Ten hit), Simon, who had snuck several subtle musical explorations into the generally conservative S&G sound, broke free, heralding the rise of reggae with an exuberant track recorded in Jamaica for a song about death. From there, it was off to Paris for a track in South American style and a rambling story of a fisherman's son, "Duncan" (which made the singles chart). But most of the album had a low-key feel, with Simon on acoustic guitar backed by only a few trusted associates (among them Joe Osborn, Larry Knechtel, David Spinozza, Mike Manieri, Ron Carter, and Hal Blaine, along with such guests as Stefan Grossman, Airto Moreira, and Stephane Grappelli), singing a group of informal, intimate, funny, and closely observed songs (among them the lively Top 40 hit "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"). It was miles removed from the big, stately ballad style of Bridge Over Troubled Water and signaled that Simon was a versatile songwriter as well as an expressive singer with a much broader range of musical interests than he had previously demonstrated. You didn't miss Art Garfunkel on Paul Simon, not only because Simon didn't write Garfunkel-like showcases for himself, but because the songs he did write showed off his own, more varied musical strengths” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Mother and Child Reunion
There Goes Rhymin' Simon
Release Date: 5th May, 1973
Labels: Columbia/Warner Bros.
Producers: Paul Simon/Phil Ramone/Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section/Paul Samwell-Smith/Roy Halee
Standout Tracks: Take Me to the Mardi Gras/Something So Right/Love Me Like a Rock
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Simon-There-Goes-Rhymin-Simon/master/55686
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/52K9aSfhUfCtd0OOZBpQrX?p=449
Review:
“The second side begins with “American Tune”, which is right out of the Simon & Garfunkel playbook. It is a folk-based motif on on the American experience with references to struggle, weariness, and hard work. The song was released as a single but failed to make any ripples on the charts. “Was a Sunny Day” is a hybrid of folk and reggae with a bouncy, McCartney-esque bass line by David Hood. “Learn How to Fall” is an upbeat acoustic jazz tune with some great instrumental sections packed into its brief two minutes and 44 seconds.
“St. Judy’s Comet” is the best song on the album, a lullaby of pure musical beauty. Beckett’s electric piano and vibraphone along with subtle electric guitar overtones by Pete Carr, accent the perfect, calm melody and hypnotizing acoustic riff by Simon. The album concludes with “Loves Me Like a Rock”, a pop song with heavy Gospel influence, especially with the background vocals of The Dixie Hummingbirds. This was the second song on the album to peak at #2 and remains one of Simon’s most famous songs.
There Goes Rhymin’ Simon proved to be a bigger hit than its predecessor (ironically peaking at #2 on the album charts and gave Paul Simon the latitude to continue his mix of pop and experimentation with future albums” – Classic Rock Review
Choice Cut: Kodachrome
Hearts and Bones
Release Date: 4th November, 1983
Label: Warner Bros.
Producers: Roy Halee/Paul Simon/Russ Titelman/Lenny Waronker
Standout Tracks: Hearts and Bones/Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War/Cars Are Cars
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Simon-Hearts-And-Bones/master/55670
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6NtecJFgFqkfB9UJqZpuM4
Review:
“Hearts and Bones was a commercial disaster, the lowest-charting new studio album of Paul Simon's career. It is also his most personal collection of songs, one of his most ambitious, and one of his best. It retains a personal vision, one largely devoted to the challenges of middle-aged life, among them a renewed commitment to love; the title song was a notable testament to new romance, while "Train in the Distance" reflected on romantic discord. Elsewhere, "The Late Great Johnny Ace" was his meditation on John Lennon's murder and how it related to the mythology of pop music. Musically, Simon moved forward and backward simultaneously, taking off from the jazz fusion style of his last two albums into his old loves of doo wop and rock & roll while also incorporating current sounds with such new collaborators as dance music producer Nile Rodgers and minimalist composer Philip Glass. The result was Simon's most impressive collection in a decade and the most underrated album in his catalog” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: The Late Great Johnny Ace
Graceland
Release Date: 25th August, 1986
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Paul Simon
Standout Tracks: The Boy in the Bubble/Under African Skies/Homeless
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Simon-Graceland/master/55658
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7dgTCL6gWSguwfCRepvkh2
Review:
“But more than Simon's single-minded devotion to his art and Tambo's ideological politics, the experience surrounding this album is best conveyed by the musicians who made it. They were violating the boycott, too, just by participating in a dialogue with non-South African musicians, and there's a moment where Ray Phiri describes a meeting he was called to in London with African National Congress officials while touring to support the album that speaks volumes. The ANC officials told Phiri that he was violating the boycott and had to go home, and his response was that he was already a victim of apartheid, and to force him to go home would make him a victim twice. In the end, Simon's assertion that Graceland helped put an emotional, human face on black South Africans for millions of people around the world doesn't seem off the mark. This set also comes with a DVD of the concert Simon and these musicians played with South African exiles Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1987, and the joy visible on stage and in the audience certainly speaks to that.
It's easy to overstate what Graceland was. It wasn't the first world-music album, as some critics claim. But it was unique in its total, and totally natural, synthesis of musical strains that turned out to be not nearly as different from each other as its listeners might have expected, and the result resonated strongly around the world and across generations” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: Graceland
The Underrated Gem
Still Crazy After All These Years
Release Date: 25th October, 1975
Label: Columbia
Producers: Paul Simon/Phil Ramone
Standout Tracks: My Little Town/50 Ways to Leave Your Lover/Gone at Last
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Simon-Still-Crazy-After-All-These-Years/master/43964
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4A366gjTrYQwmRtkTezF2W
Review:
“Still Crazy after All These Years, Simon’s grim and ambitious new album, begs these and other questions as it sure-handedly paints itself into the usual corner under the familiar shadow of Bob Dylan. For inside the lush and dolorous Still Crazy, there is a lean, hungry Blood on the Tracks trying to get out. Both LPs chronicle the dissolution of a marriage, but where Dylan, with ofttimes awkward agony, makes you feel it. Simon, with more slick professionalism than is good for his subject matter, makes you think you feel it — a crucial difference. Dylan’s pragmatic, toughminded “I hear her name here and there as I go from town to town/And I’ve never gotten used to it, I’ve just learned to turn it off” walks tall with its heartbreak, while Simon’s
Paul Simon’s myths were always too pretty to be believed — they lacked the necessary mystery and danger to have size, his Moby Dick would have been a disaster — but no one has ever questioned his craftsmanship, the quality of his melodies or his seemingly inherent decency. It is difficult to imagine him “still crazy” because his pervasive intelligence has never allowed us to think him crazy in the first place. Good middleweights never are. If they were, they wouldn’t need that hotel reservation” – Rolling Stone
Choice Cut: Still Crazy After All These Years
The Latest/Final Album
In the Blue Light
Release Date: 7th September, 2018
Label: Legacy
Producers: Paul Simon/Roy Halee
Standout Tracks: One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor/How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns/The Teacher
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Simon-In-The-Blue-Light/master/1418728
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6HgMGLjoOaj1Z1aoOnR5Ws
Review:
“The Orwellian satire Pigs, Sheep and Wolves is now jazzier. Marsalis’s woozy sax in How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns wonderfully recreates the atmosphere of the “downtown [formerly ‘local’] bar and grill”. There is often a reflective, wistful feel, but Simon’s best reworkings benefit from his age and increased experience. The 1975 song Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy is much more poignant, as he brings his septuagenarian voice to the words: “Here I am, Lord, I’m knocking on your place of business, but I have no business here.” Simon doesn’t sound at peace with the post-crash, Trump-era world at all, and the exquisite new arrangement of Love emphasises lines such as: “When evil walks the planet, love is crushed like clay.” But perhaps he can now be content with an extraordinary canon.
There are four selections from the 2000 album You’re the One, which Simon presumably feels is his most overlooked. There are no hits and nothing from Graceland. Generally, sparser arrangements allow more space for Simon’s dazzling imagery and oblique but relevant ruminations on subjects including immigration (René and Georgette …; The Teacher), domestic violence (a bluesier One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor) and the state of humanity and the planet (Questions for the Angels)” – The Guardian
Choice Cut: René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War
The Paul Simon Book
Paul Simon: The Life
Author: Robert Hilburn
Publication Date: 8th May, 2018
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
Synopsis:
“'There's no tougher a mind, no more tender a voice than Paul Simon, and there's no better man than Robert Hilburn to decipher the hardwiring of this hyperintellect...great songs can never be fully explained, but the great man on his way to find those songs surely can.' - Bono
Through such hits as "The Sound of Silence," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Still Crazy After All These Years," and "Graceland," Paul Simon has spoken to us in songs for a half-century about alienation, doubt, survival, and faith in ways that have established him as one of the most honoured and beloved songwriters in American pop music history. Yet Simon has refused to talk to potential biographers and urged those close to him to also remain silent. But Simon not only agreed to talk to biographer Robert Hilburn for what has amounted to more than sixty hours, he also encouraged his family and friends to sit down for in-depth interviews.
Paul Simon is a revealing account of the challenges and sacrifices of artistry at the highest level. He has also lived a roller-coaster life of extreme ups and downs. We not only learn Paul's unrelenting drive to achieve artistry, but also the subsequent struggles to protect that artistry against distractions - fame, wealth, marriage, divorce, drugs, complacency, public rejection, self-doubt - that have frequently derailed pop stars and each of which he encountered. From dominating the charts with Art Garfunkel and a successful reinvention as a solo artist, to his multiple marriages and highly publicized second divorce from Carrie Fisher, this book covers all aspects of this American icon” – Waterstones
Buy: https://www.waterstones.com/book/paul-simon/robert-hilburn/9781471174179