Paul Simon prefers to explain his suburban musical globetrotting this way: "We're sailing cultural seas that haven't been charted," he says in a record-company press release, "instead of merely pursuing popularity." Okay. Love it or hate it. Hail it as a godsend or damn it as heresy. Whatever you think of Paul Simon and his Graceland state of mind, you have to admit the guy's on a roll.
It's been four years since one of the two most cosmic folkies from the Sixties decided to embrace world music and (again from a Warner Bros. bio quote) "look for sounds that are real and emotional." Unprecedented yet also familiar, his politically correct pop surprised even the most jaded listeners. The resulting album, Graceland, went multiplatinum and walked away with 1986 Grammys for album and record. But not everyone was so thrilled or convinced by Simon's bicultural pop humanism. Simon and his assemblage did the album in South Africa despite a widespread anti-apartheid ban on recording and playing there, and took an immmense amount of heat from a world community that was confidently pressing its new distaste for that country's discriminatory system.
Having bridged troubled water before, Simon shot back that he was striking a blow against apartheid by exposing South African performers like Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the world. To prove his point, he went to South Africa's neighbor Zimbabwe soon after Graceland's release and, supported by many of the musicians on that record, held a huge outdoor concert that drew an integrated audience, many of whom had crossed the border from South Africa to see the show.
The success of Graceland has kept the debate over Simon's intentions raging. Is he honestly committed to bringing world-beat music and musicians to light, or is he just a cultural raider, ripping off indigenous music for his profit and product? Is he an aging pop star with nothing left to say who, in the great white tradition of expropriating black musical forms, has become the Pat Boone of world music? Before any of that could be settled, this more-than-one-trick-pony pitched another curve. His new record, Rhythm of the Saints, makes it clear that Paul Simon intends to continue as the maestro of world borrowing.
Like Graceland, the groove on Saints --not Paul Simon--is what reigns supreme. The record follows a rhythmic trail from West Africa to Brazil, its drumming and percussion the bones that Simon hangs his vaguely portentous lyrics and wimpy singing on. But even with odd time sequences, polyrhythmic drumming, exotic instruments and horn accents everywhere, the disc still sticks to a comfortable midtempo beat.
Admittedly, this record, like Graceland, is a fascinating mash of musical thought. In most places, all the hip cross-cultural strands blend into a seamless whole. On the tune "Born at the Right Time," for example, C.J. Chenier's Louisiana accordion mixes effortlessly with Ya Yo de la Nelson's chakeire, a beaded-gourd shaker from West Africa. Other Memphis sound-meets-Afropop collisions resound throughout the album.
And the international guest list for Saints is a good indication of the music world's widespread respect for Simon's adventures. Besides authentic musicians like Cameroonian guitarist Vincent Nguini and the Brazilian percussion ensemble OLODUM, Simon's attracted a crowd of normally too-busy American musicians from Fabulous T-Bird harpist Kim Wilson and slowhand guitarist J.J. Cale to the brass-playing Brecker brothers. (For an exclusive interview with Michael Brecker, see feature to the right.) Looking down the list, you get the feeling many of those who ended up on the record weren't asked. They wanted to be there.
But is it as earth-shattering an experience as Graceland? No, the blush is off that rose forever. But besides being an easily digestible record for virtually anyone who isn't a skeptical anthro-musicologist, Saints does manage to sail around well in previously uncharted waters. Still, for all the global conceit here, the disc's sweet, poppy Simonisms make it semisanitized world-beat for the new-age generation. Finally, National Geographic has an aural equivalent.
The sound of the album is one thing. Whether it's a political success remains to be seen. If--and only if--the record turns fans toward listening to and buying the music of the cultures he's exposed, then Paul Simon deserves to get his passport stamped again.
Paul Simon will perform at Desert Sky Pavilion on Saturday, January 19. Showtime is 5:30 p.m.
The groove on Saints--not Paul Simon--is what reigns supreme.
The disc's sweet, poppy Simonisms make it world-beat for the new-age generation. Finally, National Geographic has an aural equivalent.
