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Post by rick on Jun 7, 2012 22:45:01 GMT -5
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 12, 2012 20:44:13 GMT -5
I can't help but wonder if Paul Simon's choice to integrate Linda Ronstadt into the original Graceland project was a conscious decision or opportunity to allow his friend Linda some payback to her many critics for her earlier visit to South Africa under the ban. And then to name the film of this conflict after the song that is partly about her is just too coincidental. Why wasn't she more involved in this second project? Once again she has managed to be in the thick of it and in some great moments in history. I love the way she is able to do that over and over again.
But there have been incidents and accidents, hints and allegations in Paul Simon’s road to Graceland. Of the many extras contained the Graceland 25th anniversary box set, the DVD of director Joe Berlinger’s new documentary Under African Skies is the most substantial. (It’s also included in the 1-CD/1-DVD deluxe edition, and as a stand-alone Blu-Ray.) The film features many talking heads, and even a Talking Head: Warner Bros. Records’ Lenny Waronker, Roy Halee, Oprah Winfrey (who calls Graceland “my favorite album of all time”), Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, Philip Glass and David Byrne. But the heart of the film is a meeting between Paul Simon and Dali Tambo, of Artists Against Apartheid. Tambo was one of the most outspoken critics of Simon’s decision to ignore the United Nations’ cultural boycott of South Africa, and he’s given the luxury of time in Under African Skies to defend his viewpoint. He’s joined by other notable political figures including Dr. Wally Serote of the African National Congress. The occasion for the dialogue was Simon’s return to South Africa in the summer of 2011, at which time he reunited with many of the album’s key players.
To what extent should politics dictate music or art? That’s the question posed by Simon in the film. Though his face is now fuller and his hairline thinner, he comes to much the same conclusion as he did in 1986, that the ends justified the means. He’s hardly alone in his assessment; South African musician Barney Rachabane states that “Graceland set a tone of hope in my life.” The bond between Simon and his multi-cultural cast is evident in the rehearsal footage from the July 2011 reunion. Ray Phiri, who played on the album as well as the subsequent, far-reaching tour, offers the observation that “music is the closest thing to religion…it can inform and bring people closer…and Graceland did it.” Bakithi Kumalo honestly avers that, back in 1986, he asked “Who is Paul Simon?” and that Simon and Garfunkel “didn’t ring a bell!”
The film tells the story entertainingly, emphasizing the political risks in Simon’s troubled waters, but also exploring the artist’s process in creating the songs and productions. He talks about the inspirations for “Graceland” and “You Can Call Me Al,” and the multiple sessions in studios from Johannesburg to London. In describing “You Can Call Me Al,” Simon says he wrote the song about a “self-obsessed person [becoming] aware.” Was he writing with an autobiographical eye? There’s plenty of choice footage to illustrate the record’s journey, including the vintage Saturday Night Live performance of “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,” filmed before Graceland ever hit stores, and a fascinating discussion at Howard University in which Simon is angrily challenged by a student and vigorously defends himself.
Berlinger is reasonably objective, and isn’t afraid to let Simon come off as both touchingly vulnerable and defiantly arrogant, sometimes at the same moment. What to think when Simon admits sloughing off the advice of his confidante Harry Belafonte (also an interviewee and still a close friend) and proceeding with his plans to record in South Africa? It’s hard to argue with Dali Tambo’s assertion that Simon put what was best for the individual before what was best for a country and a people, but it’s equally hard to deny the many claims throughout that Graceland broke the color barrier down and allowed many of its musicians to taste freedom for the very first time. Paul McCartney candidly offers his belief that Simon’s controversial “appropriation” of South African music was no different than The Beatles’ lifting of black American R&B forms.
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