Paul Simon - Graceland
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This episode focuses on Paul Simon's 1995 masterpiece, Graceland, an album that found Simon at his peak as a songwriter. The making of this album was an adventure starting with a cassette lent to Simon of South African music. This resulted in a trip to South Africa to seek out the music, with the idea to incorporate it into his new album.
Culturally significant and musically adventurous, the recording of Graceland was not without controversy. Simon went to South Africa to record during the height Apartheid, breaking with the cultural boycott of South Africa at the time. However, by sharing the spotlight on this album with many South African musicians and singers, Simon gave many of them international exposure and for the first time and bringing them to the attention of many who might otherwise have never heard their music.
THINGS WE DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE
Watch Simon and Garfunkel perform the “Sounds of Silence” live on Canadian TV in 1966.
The One Sheet for the 1980 movie One Trick Pony, staring Paul Simon.
Watch the Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo perform on Saturday Night Live in 1986.
Watch Paul Simon and Chevy Chase cutting up in the video for “Call Me Al.”
Steven Van Zandt with Coretta Scott King, left, and Julian Band, behind him, and Vernell Johnson (Manhattan Records), right in 1985.
Little Steven co-founded “Artists Against Apartheid” with record producer Arthur Baker. The organization was founded to protest against apartheid in South Africa. The United Nations had instituted a cultural boycott of the Country in 1980 and the Artists Against Apartheid enthusiastically endorsed it. The group was vocally outraged at Simon for what they considered his breaking the boycott by traveling to South Africa to work on Graceland, and he was placed on ta UN list of blacklisted artists as a result. He was removed in 1987.
