13 October 2011
VVN Music
Look for a lot of activity next year from Paul Simon all surrounding the 25th anniversary of his landmark album Graceland.
Sony Legacy will release the box sometime in the May timeframe with a tour that is currently in the planning stages. Simon told Billboard that he has been reuniting with many of the musicians from the original album, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, with whom he played a concert last July that was shot for the box set by director Joe Berlinger. The show also included Hugh Masekela.
Simon went on to say "The documentary took me back to the artistic aspects and the political aspects of making Graceland and the controversy that surrounded it and how it was resolved, plus what remains of it and what we learn from it."
Graceland was Simon's sixth solo album after the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel and was a landmark in its combining of standard pop-rock music with the music and styles of South Africa. The album peaked at number 3 on the Album chart and contained such classics of the songwriter's catalog as You Can Call Me Al (1986/#23 Pop/#15 Adult Contemporary), Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes, The Boy in the Bubble (1987/#86 Pop/#15 Mainstream Rock) and the title song. It was awarded Album of the Year at the 1986 Grammys and came back in 1987 to see the title song win Record of the Year (eligibility based on release date of the single).
