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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
 Posted - 29/06/2016 : 21:47:41
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Paul on Colbert...funny stuff...Troubled Waters Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qsPBLCf6EM
Full circle..."Wristband" is the most played song on college radio today...just as Simon & Garfunkel were tops on college radio in 1965!
"Wristband"...most played song on college radio today...live on Prairie Home Companion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp-blnuI3WM
Paul Simon (with Chris Thile, Sarah Jarosz, Andrew Bird, Richard Dworsky, members of Punch Brothers Ñ Chris Eldridge, Paul Kowert, and Gabe Witcher Ñ and Ted Poor) performs "Wristband" on our February 6, 2016 broadcast
Wonderful!
Could This Be the End of Paul SimonÕs RhymingÕ?
About New York
By JIM DWYER JUNE 28, 2016
VIENNA, Va. Ñ Paul Simon says he is ready to give up making and playing music, 61 years after he started as a 13-year-old. ÒYouÕre coming towards the end,Ó he said in an interview this week, discussing the mysterious epiphanies that delivered some of his greatest songs, the toxic qualities of fame, and his yearning to explore questions of spirituality and neuroscience.
ÒShowbiz doesnÕt hold any interest for me,Ó Mr. Simon said. ÒNone.Ó
Here is why you might consider believing him.
At 74, he often needs 15 hours of sleep at a stretch. The other day, performing in Philadelphia, he looked out from the stage and was surprised to see four mountains on the horizon. When he put on his glasses, he realized the mountains were actually big white tents. His voice has held up far longer than he had any right to expect but needs frequent days of rest.
While most stars of his generation, unsurprisingly, are playing greatest hits concerts, if anything, Mr. SimonÕs new album is competing with those of Drake and BeyoncŽ on pop music charts, and with Radiohead and Deerhoof for college radio airtime.
So Mr. Simon could leave the public stage with one last hit record and final memories of high-energy performances by his touring band, a collection of masterful musicians rooted in Latin America, Africa and the United States who are taking frisky, joyful turns with the Simon canon and his newest songs. His North American tour comes to an end on Thursday and Friday in Forest Hills, Queens, where he grew up, went to school and met a boy named Art Garfunkel.
For his audience, at least, finishing the American chapter of his career in Queens, where he began, would be punctuation ripe with history and emotion. Mr. Simon insists that the place holds no sentimental power over him, but he did note that it was the last venue where he played with Mr. Garfunkel, from whom he is estranged, as he has sporadically been since they became adults.
ÒItÕs an act of courage to let go,Ó Mr. Simon said. ÒI am going to see what happens if I let go. Then IÕm going to see, who am I? Or am I just this person that was defined by what I did? And if thatÕs gone, if you have to make up yourself, who are you?Ó
This routine has been followed for virtually all the 36 dates so far on the bandÕs tour: performance, grinding refinement, performance.
Mr. Simon cautions that this fastidiousness is no rebuttal to his declaration that heÕs ready to let it all go. ÒThat doesnÕt mean I donÕt want my band to sound great,Ó he said.
His new album, ÒStranger to Stranger,Ó was released this spring into a shower of laudatory reviews. The performances by his touring group surge with moments of Òdelight and revelry,Ó as Mark Stewart, a guitarist (and cellist and player of the PVC pipe) described it. The album and a single, ÒWristband,Ó have been among the top songs played on college radio. He has a detailed genesis for each tune, lyrically and musically.
ÒI was having dinner with Paul Muldoon, the poet, and I said, I had this title I donÕt know whether I want to keep it, ÔWristband,ÕÓ Mr. Simon said. ÒHe said, ÔItÕs a good title. You could go a lot of places with that title, you should keep it.ÕÓ
Sometime later, he got stuck while working on a lyric that involved a musician who steps into an alley behind a club and finds himself locked out, unable to regain entry without a wristband. He wasnÕt sure what would happen in the song.
ÒFrom out of nowhere, I said, wristband, itÕs just a metaphor for, ÔYou canÕt get in. You donÕt have whatÕs required,ÕÓ Mr. Simon said. ÒAnd thatÕs whatÕs going on. That battle is being fought right now, the haves and have-nots. Ò
His successes in popular music cover six decades, giving him rare late-inning creative triumph. In 1957, when he was 15, he and Mr. Garfunkel, playing as Tom and Jerry, had a minor hit with ÒHey, Schoolgirl.Ó In 2016, ÒStranger to StrangerÓ reached No. 1 on BillboardÕs lists for both best-selling rock and Americana/Folk albums. It could put him in the running yet again for a Grammy among musicians 40 years his junior. (He has already won three Grammys for Album of the Year.)
He labors at music and lyrics, he said, unwilling to accept what would have been satisfactory to him a few years earlier, feeling stalled. Then the songs will move ahead in leaps.
ÒI was 21, maybe 22, when I wrote ÔThe Sound of Silence,Õ which seems to me like quite a big jump from where I was before that,Ó he said. ÒAnd why or where, I have no idea. I thought the same thing when I wrote ÔBridge Over Troubled WaterÕ Ñwhoa, that song is better than what IÕve been doing. Different chords and something special about it. The same feeling with ÔGraceland,Õ and ÔStill Crazy After All These Years.ÕÓ
The successes mystify him, he said: ÒAll of a sudden youÕre there, and youÕre surprised. This happened to me at times where some line comes out, where IÕm the audience and itÕs real, and I have to stop, because IÕm crying. I didnÕt know I was going to say that, didnÕt know that I felt that, didnÕt know that was really true. I have to stop and catch my breath.Ó
He paused, then added, ÒIt doesnÕt happen too often.Ó
With that gift came popularity, a bewildering force in anyoneÕs life, he said.
ÒIÕve seen fame turn into absolute poison when I was a kid in the Õ60s,Ó he said. ÒIt killed Presley. It killed Lennon. It killed Michael Jackson. IÕve never known anyone to have gotten an enormous amount of fame who wasnÕt, at a minimum, confused by it and had a very hard time making decisions.Ó
He has a European tour scheduled for the fall, when he will turn 75. Then his vague plans are to drift and travel for a year, he said, perhaps with his wife, the musician and composer Edie Brickell, if her work permits.
For now, he has started rehearsing songs for the last moments at Forest Hills, including an Elvis tune, ÒThatÕs Alright (Mama).Ó
And if that turns out to be a finale, thatÕs all right by him.
ÒI donÕt have any fear of it,Ó he said.
PAUL SIMON
STRANGER TO STRANGER 2016
"Simon isn't looking to the past, though: he's writing toward an inevitable sunset, mindful of mortality -- just like he was on 2011's So Beautiful or So What -- but he's firmly grounded in a tumultuous present, embracing all the cut-and-paste contradictions endemic to the digital age."
--Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Full album listen...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTO9MV3rSuc&list=PLLtQvkTqKXTjMf0mdiT33I86GMae-G_ya
AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
"The Werewolf" opens Stranger to Stranger, Paul Simon's thirteenth solo studio album, with a heavy rhythmic thud -- bass, drums, and maracas lumbering along in a modified Bo Diddley beat not a far cry from the Who's "Slip Kid." Simon isn't looking to the past, though: he's writing toward an inevitable sunset, mindful of mortality -- just like he was on 2011's So Beautiful or So What -- but he's firmly grounded in a tumultuous present, embracing all the cut-and-paste contradictions endemic to the digital age.
With the exception of a pair of hushed acoustic numbers and the expansive title track, all positioned to provide necessary pressure relief from the density of the rest of the record, Stranger to Stranger feels built from the rhythm up, a tactic familiar to Simon since 1986's Graceland. Unlike the easy gait of Graceland, the words here are clipped and rushed, sliding in with the bustle of the rhythm. It's not that the songs aren't melodic -- hooks arrive in snatches, sometimes forming through the rhythms themselves -- but the tracks are cloistered and colorful, accentuated by traces of gospel and doo wop; there's even an apparent "Love Is Strange" sample.
Echoes of tradition existing within this modern framework are telling, underscoring how Simon is making music where the past is ever-present but not consuming: he's shifted his aesthetic to mirror his times, a tactic common in his solo career. In many ways, Stranger to Stranger is as bracing and ambitious as Surprise, his 2006 collaboration with producer Brian Eno -- this is especially true of its opening triptych, all created with Italian dance musician Clap! Clap! -- but the tenor of this album is different. Where the specter of 9/11 hung heavily over Surprise, Simon seems at peace on Stranger to Stranger, acknowledging the twilight yet not running toward it because there's so much to experience in the moment. He's choosing to push forward, not look back, and the results are invigorating.
............
Paul Simon, 74, 'Ready to Give Up Music'
AFP 4 hours ago
New York (AFP) - More than half a century after he wrote ÒThe Sound of Silence,Ó American singer Paul Simon says he is ready to hang up his guitar and stop making music.
ÒYouÕre coming toward the end,Ó he told The New York Times in an interview published Wednesday. ÒShowbiz doesnÕt hold any interest for me,Ó said the 74-year-old. ÒNone.Ó
The folk star turned world music champion, whose US tour ends Friday, released his most recent album, ÒStranger to StrangerÓ on June 3 to rave reviews.
Its single ÒWristbandÓ is one of the most played songs on college radio.
His current tour ends in Queens, the New York borough where he grew up and met his now estranged music partner Art Garfunkel.
He is then scheduled to begin a month-long tour of Europe on October 17 in Prague, shortly after his 75th birthday.
Following that, he told the Times that his intention is to drift and travel for a year, perhaps with his third wife, the musician Edie Brickell.
ÒItÕs an act of courage to let go,Ó Simon told the newspaper. ÒI am going to see what happens if I let go. Then IÕm going to see, who am I?Ó
If he does quit music, Simon will bring to a close an extraordinary career that has spanned six decades, won him more than a dozen Grammys and produced songs tracking 50 years of social awakenings.
He and Garfunkel were a signature act of the 1960s, starting off with clean-cut folk songs before delving into fusion. The duo produced hits such as ÒBridge Over Troubled WaterÓ and ÒMrs Robinson.Ó
Simon has been named by Time Magazine one of the Ò100 People Who Shaped the World,Ó collected more than a dozen Grammys and been named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.
He told the Times that ÒWristband,Ó which was released in April, is a metaphor for todayÕs struggle between rich and the disenfranchised.
The title refers to a musician who steps into an alley behind a club and finds himself unable to get back in without a wristband.
ÒItÕs just a metaphor for, ÔYou canÕt get in. You donÕt have whatÕs required,ÕÓ Simon said. ÒThat battle is being fought right now, the haves and have-nots.Ó
The singer also spoke out against fame, saying he saw it Òturn into absolute poisonÓ in the 1960s.
ÒIt killed Presley. It killed Lennon. It killed Michael Jackson. IÕve never known anyone to have gotten an enormous amount of fame who wasnÕt, at a minimum, confused by it and had a very hard time making decisions.Ó
________________________________________________
The actual writing of a song usually comes in the form of a realisation.
I can't contrive a song. Ð GENE CLARK |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 29/06/2016 21:55:36 |
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PAUL SIMON'S most played new album may be his last
