Paul Simon por Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 19 de mayo de 1973

Paul Simon
Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 19 May 1973 
There Goes Rhymin' Simon is the title of Paul Simon's new solo album, and last week he was in New York to talk about the album and his plans now that he's back on the road. Paul seldom looks comfortable during an interview but he managed to relax and talk at length about his career, emphasising his extreme nervousness at starting out on the road once again.
How does it feel to be back on the road again?
Good, very nice. I like it.
How quickly did you get into performing again?
I had a very uncomfortable two weeks at rehearsals worrying about it but on the stage it worked and I liked it.
Who are the musicians you're working with right now?
I'm working with these South American musicians. Urubamba, who took their name from a river in Peru. Two of them were with Los Incas so two of them I've worked with before; also the Jessy Dixon Singers, a gospel group - three girl singers, a bass player and Jessy plays organ and he sings.
How many people are with you in all?
Fifteen people are traveling with us.
And will they all be coming to England?
Yes. All I've ever worked with is one other voice and a guitar and this is great, I love it. I get off easy because I have a group to play with, people to sing and play with.
I should imagine it's the vocal ensemble thing that's getting you off most of all?
Yes, I love it. I wouldn't say it's something. I'd missed in the past but now that I have it I like it a lot.
Are you featuring much material from the new album on stage?
I'm doing four songs but I think I'll add another because the new material seems to be going over very well. I thought people would want to hear most of the old things, not new, but they seem to like the new ones.
Are you doing many of your old songs?
Well with the Jessy Dixon Singers I'm doing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' and 'Sound Of Silence' and 'Mother And Child Reunion', and with Urubamba I do 'El Condor Paso' which they played on, and 'Duncan', which they played on, and 'The Boxer', and it really comes out good. On stage I come out and I do five or six songs by myself, then I bring out Urubamba and that closes the first half - it's about ten or twelve songs altogether. Then I come out and I do about five or six songs and then I bring out Jessy Dixon. We do a couple of numbers and each group does a couple of numbers by themselves and then we combine the whole roadshow.
You've expanded your musical horizons a good deal having got into reggae, jazz, Latin and so on. Is it something you've consciously tried to do or have you come into contract with it naturally?
Closer to the second. I just wanted to be with musicians that I liked, that's how I found it.
Do you enjoy reggae music?
Yeah. I like reggae. I was more into it…no. I like it, no qualifications. I haven't been listening too much lately but for a while I listened to it a lot.
Why did you record the new album in so many different locations?
Not so many different places. Mostly in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one or two in New York, one in England, one in Jackson, Mississippi.
Was it for convenience?
Musicians, always for musicians, wherever the musicians are that's where I go.
But did you know what musicians you wanted - did the album take a long time to record?
It took a little under four months from start to finish. I knew who I wanted in most of the cases - some of them just fell in, like one of the tunes that I was going to do I arranged to do with Quincy Jones. I could have done that in L.A. but he was coming into New York to do a concert with Roberta Flack so we did it in New York. The Muscle Shoals group have their own studio and it fits like a glove. England…I went over to because I wanted to record strings. I did one track with Paul Samwell-Smith and that's all I did. I used an arranger who I think is fine called Del Newman. The thing with Paul Buckmaster is that I associate him so much with Elton John that I didn't want to do that: I think he's great though, that's no reflection on him. The song was 'American Tune' although the organ, drums and stuff were done back in the States.
I think it's my favourite track on the album - very hymnal.
Well it comes from a Lutheran hymn and must be five hundred years old. Bach used it in St. Matthew's Passion.
Had you worked with Allen Toussaint before?
No. I hadn't worked with him before. He was great, very nice guy, very musical. The band did a little thing with him and he was good. I didn't do too much with him but maybe I'll get a chance to do more with him in the future. He records a lot in Atlanta and I didn't get to Atlanta although I'd like to see what's going on there.
Do you spend much time out of New York other than when you're touring?
Sure, I live partly out of New York City. I have a place in New York and a place in the country in Pennsylvania.
Do you still get much of a creative charge out of the New York environment?
I love New York, I'm very happy here.
Don't you find it difficult sitting back from your album sufficiently to be able to produce it?
I don't particularly like it. I find it very time consuming but there's no chance, it's mine, it's my music. Producing is a word that keeps changing its meaning and for me, since I know what I want musically, I have to organize it, there's no way round it.
Did you work with Roy Hallee on this album?
No, only one cut, 'Tenderness'. It's the first time I haven't worked with him and he's a tremendous engineer. It's not that you can replace him or anything, it's just that there's less emphasis on engineering on this album and there's more emphasis on music. More accent on vocals than in the past.
There seems to have been a greater influence on your music.
Yes, well the biggest influence lately on my music is that two years ago I went back to study. I went back to study classical guitar around the time of late 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. I improved my technique in that I learnt more about harmony and orchestration and now I find it easier - I can change keys when I want to and I know more musical options than I did in the past, I don't just have to Travis pick in the key of G.
Was your early environment strictly folk oriented?
Well, my musical taste was straight out rock and roll, fifties group rock and roll New York style, and then it was Tin Pan Alley writing and in the late fifties, early sixties I tried to do that kind of thing but was not very successful as it, and then the next thing was folk in the early sixties.
Of course, you were in England in the early '60s. Was that an influential period in your career?
That's right. It was definitely influential. I remember Bert Jansch when he first came to London from Glasgow, Davey Graham was there and Sandy Denny - we all used to live in the same house, me and Artie (Garfunkel), Judith Piepe, Sandy Denny and this other guy Jackson Frank. Al Stewart was sort of a couple of years later but he was coming on, John Renbourn, Ian Campbell Folk Group were real popular when I first came. That period taught me lot about performing too because I did a lot of performing by myself. I really learnt a lot about being on the stage. During that time I went over to Paris to work and that's where I met Los Incas.
Let me think now, my London songs were 'Blessed', 'Most Peculiar Man', 'Homeward Bound' I wrote in Liverpool when I was bound for London - I was just arriving in Liverpool when I started working on it but I was thinking of London. 'Home On The Underground Wall' was written about Whitechapel tube station. 'Richard Corey' was written in London, 'Patterns' was written partly in London and partly in Nice, 'Cathy's Song' was written here but it's about London.
Would you consider playing any small clubs again?
No, I would never play a small club in New York because when I was here and wanted to play small clubs there wasn't one small club that wanted to give me a job. But even in London I think it would be silly... and I wouldn't just turn up and play anywhere either - it's a mistake, it's confusing to people, they see you and they don't know what you're doing there and they're not prepared and it takes away the whole atmosphere. People want to think about it, think they're going to think about it, think that they're going there and have their expectations at what you're going to do. It doesn't really have any impact.
How has being alone affected your musical approach?
Freer. It hasn't affected my writing because I always wrote alone anyway. I just feel freer now, freer to sing, I enjoy singing more than I used to and I think I'm better at it.
Do you hang out with many musicians in New York City?
Errr, I guess I don't do too much hanging out when I think of it. Most of my friends are vaguely around music, if they're not musicians they're something.
Do you feel that there's fewer contemporaries that you can relate to as the musical climate continues to change?
Well it's like Lenny Bruce said, the music business is always changing. If you write a good song people still like it. Gilbert O'Sullivan wrote that song last year and everybody in the world sang it.
You were virtually a rock and roll fanatic back in the '50s. Do you still have the same interest?
Oh. I like hearing the oldies. Some are good and some are bad but everybody is nostalgic about their teenage years. But I wonder if those kids who were born in 1955 like it - they probably don't. But do you know what I find interesting? The music that was the precursor of group rock and roll which is gospel quarters reached its popularity before I was born, late thirties early forties, and then through the forties. I love that music. I mean quarters like the Swan Silvertones and the Dixie Hummingbirds and that's why I use those groups on the records.
Do you hear much contemporary rock music that you like?
I guess the answer to that is no because I can't think of anything I like offhand. Sometimes I hear something I like, I heard a song today that I liked, it reminded me of Bob Dylan. It was called 'Stuck In The Middle With You', and I guess it's a big hit although it's the first time I heard it. I don't listen to much really, I listen to car radio.
Would you want to become involved in another movie score like The Graduate?
Yes, I think so, if something interesting came up.
Have you had many offers?
Yeah, but nothing much. There haven't been many interesting soundtracks in a long time.
What do you think of the state of Broadway - they don't have any super musicians like they used to?
It's because they don't have any super writers and that's because the best writers of popular songs never wrote for the stage, so consequently you get people who did poor imitations getting the big hits.
Jesus Christ Superstar?
Jesus Christ Superstar was pretty good, actually. I was thinking of Hair. The really interesting writers should write for the stage, it's another area to go to.
You've said that there's too many albums on the market, is this one reason why there have been long gaps between your albums?
Well, that's not really so. That's what they say but this album is fifteen months after my last and that's pretty fast if you're writing songs. If you're band then that's not fast but if you have to write ten or eleven individual songs and then write ten or eleven arrangements that really takes a lot of time, and there's just no way around it. When the Beatles used to put out an album they had three people contributing but I don't see how you can do it anymore.
You were talking earlier about 'One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor' - is that based on anyone specifically or is it general?
It's based generally on New York paranoia, you can just draw upon it without having experienced that exact thing.
How's your relationship with Artie Garfunkel right now?
I haven't seen him since his wedding in October but I talked to him about a week ago for the first time in six months. I asked him what he thought of the album.
And what did he think?
He said he liked it.
Did he ask for his gig back?
No, he didn't. He's working on an album out there in San Francisco. I asked him how he was doing, how's life. He went to the Kentucky Derby, and I said 'You're crazy, too many people.'
Do you and Artie still have very much in common?
Errrr, I suppose so, yeah, sure. We have all those experiences in common. We're not close friends at the moment, but we're not enemies either. We grew up together and we had obviously that whole Simon and Garfunkel thing but it's drifted apart.
Are you doing some stuff with Peter Yarrow?
No, I gave him an old song I had, he was making an album. He asked me, if I had any material and I found a song I'd forgotten that I'd never recorded. He liked it so we went in, me and Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and we cut a track called 'Ground Hog'.
Do you have a lot of surplus songs that you haven't recorded?
No, not too many, none in fact.
Have you been back to Jamaica?
Not since I went down to Jamaica two and a half years ago to record 'Mother And Child Reunion'. I liked it but I haven't been back.
Did the reggae beat come after the song or did you set out to write a reggae song per se?
It is a reggae song. But you know I wrote that song as ska. I came down and they said 'That's ska, we don't play ska, we play reggae.' So great. Ska is basically very simple, rock steady is supposed to move the bass line a little bit and reggae I can't define.
Apart from that rhythm guitar bit?
That's this one guy. Hucks Brown, and I think he's the originator of that style. I heard it on the Jimmy Cliff record of 'Vietnam' years ago and I called up the producer Leslie Conn and said 'Can you get me the same guy that played on 'Vietnam' by Jimmy Cliff' Did you see The Harder They come? Hucks Brown was in that movie and that was the studio I recorded in.
Did you have any feelings about the movie at all?
I loved it, I loved that movie. I'm a big Jimmy Cliff fan, I really like his voice.
Now your album is out have you made any plans say for when you return from Europe?
No, I'm going to take the summer off and teach my son to swim. I might do a movie, if this movie comes through that I'm thinking of I might do the music. But I'm ready to take a plunge into anything, something different is what I'd like to do, something that would make you a little nervous, something that pushes you and makes you stretch out a Little bit.
Why do you like New York so much?
I grew up here, it's my home town. There's a lot of action. I'm sort of at the same pace as New York, I'm comfortable at the pace of New York although when I went back to London I really loved it and thought I ought to live there for a few months each year.
Why haven't you performed live for so long?
I wasn't going on the road until recently because I didn't have anything to go on the road with. I didn't want to go out with a whole repertoire of Simon and Garfunkel, I wanted to be an artist of some stature on my own and now I think I'm approaching that status. I like being up on stage singing because I have a touch of the exhibitionist in me.
© Jerry Gilbert, 1973.