One idea that seems to help pass the time on a long (solo) road trip is to bring along CDs that you haven’t listened to in a long time. Sure, toting usual favorites may make for a slightly more pleasant and simple sing-along experience, but if a music fan has something in his/her library that is a personal “keeper” for more, er, legitimate or commendable reasons (and it doesn’t get heard as often around the house, for one or more reasons), listening to such a work while on the highway can be somewhat enlightening and interesting. And the primary “enlightening facet” is the fact that such albums will probably be sonically scrutinized more intensely than a sing-along favorite; i.e., the latter “category” of album or self-dubbed anthology can quickly fade to melodic background noise if you’ve heard it time and time again. So that’s why Paul Simon’s remarkable 1991 concert in Central Park was such a retro-revelation for yours truly on a recent trip.
His career was already laudable, with umpteen hits from his association with Art Garfunkel as well as a distinguished solo sojourn, but Simon was perpetually in search of new musical frontiers (and such probably still the case).
Following an also-remarkable (if nostalgic) reunion with Garfunkel in 1981 in the same NYC landmark, Simon had released Heart and Bones in ’83, which had reportedly begun as a reunion album with Garfunkel.
And as if the versatile songwriter hadn’t already created enough musical touchstones, he then stunned the world with 1986’s Graceland, which pulled in influences and musicians from Africa and other locations.
He would follow up that effort in 1990 with Rhythm of the Saints, which gravitated more towards South America, but was also intriguing (and he used African musicians on that album, as well).
Those two albums were memorable enough, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when Simon opted to do a free concert in Central Park a decade after the reunion with Garfunkel, his material would span his entire career, with an emphasis on the two most recent albums. The show opened, appropriately, with “The Obvious Child” the leadoff track from Rhythm of the Saints, and the presentation included a percussion ensemble from Brazil called Olodum, which had played on the original recording.
One wonders how many musicians—be they professional, hobbyist, aspiring, or armchair—have a disproportionate amount of live albums in their respective collections. The notion of comparing live arrangements to the original studio versions are always interesting, and the resulting two-CD set from Simon’s ’91 concert would turn out to be a definitive template of this “concept”. For example, bouncy, popping bass riffs introduce a lilting, melodic tune that is listenable but not recognizable until Simon sings the first line of “Kodachrome,” and such delightful moments would occur at other times during the concert. Paul Simon fans probably recall his songs from when they came of age as their personal favorites, which would mean that the original duo songs with Garfunkel would be applicable to many Baby Boomers, and I’ll have to admit that listening to “The Boxer” brought tears to my eyes…again. There’s not a bad track on this masterpiece, and it validates, just as it did for concertgoers over 22 years ago, why Paul Simon is a national treasure.
