On Tuesday, June 5, the 25th anniversary edition of Paul Simon’s Graceland will be released, and CBC Music is celebrating. Graceland is Simon’s most successful album, selling over 14 million copies. It brought many South African musicians to the world’s attention – Ladysmith Black Mambazo sing on the album, Youssou N'Dour (from Senegal) plays some percussion. Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela toured with Simon.
The album was also controversial because Simon was accused of breaking the cultural boycott of the apartheid regime. Regardless of the politics, many critics consider the album one of the top 100 ever recorded. And Simon himself thinks the title track, “Graceland,” may be the best song he has ever written.
We asked several musicians and Canadian personalities to tell us their thoughts about the legendary album. We heard from Feist, Shad, Hawksley Workman, Rich Terfry, David Myles, André Alexis, Sarah Richardson, Peter Lynch and Richard Poplak. Read their responses below.
Leslie Feist, musician
“Graceland was the soundtrack behind a certain layer of my childhood, which I have my parents to thank for. When I moved out and got my own turntable, it was the first album I bought. To this day it has a total and complete success at lifting me out of any funk and usually makes me tidy up my house.”
André Alexis, writer
“Graceland is one of the most important albums in my life. I have loved it and resented it and loved it again. I still think the accordion and drums that begin the first track, 'The Boy in the Bubble,' are thrilling. But Graceland introduced me to South African music. From this one album, I've gained immeasurable beauty: the Soul Brothers, Mahlathini, Mahotella Queens, Steve Kekana. Hearing township music was like hearing something that made such perfect sense, I couldn't believe I hadn't heard it before. To me, Graceland wasn't like someone stealing something. It was someone saying "Look what I found! It's wonderful." For that alone, I'm forever in Paul Simon's debt.
To be honest, I started to resent Graceland because I played it to death. It wouldn't leave me alone, until I broke up with my girlfriend and she inherited the cassette. A couple years ago, I decided to listen to it again. From the first notes of the accordion, everything that I'd loved came flooding back to me: not just Graceland but the music of South Africa it had introduced me to. I'm more careful how much I listen to Graceland, these days. But no album moved me as much until Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, 24 years later.”
Rich Terfry, musician/broadcaster
“When I was in junior high school, I knew that the situation in South Africa was bad and that I was on the side of those fighting against apartheid. But all I really knew about the place was the brutal images I had seen on TV. The media showed us an ugly face to appeal to our hearts. I was as horrified as anyone else, but my thoughts about the place were abstract. I certainly couldn't relate on a personal level. What was happening there was nothing like what I knew in rural Nova Scotia. But Paul Simon helped me to care on a deeper level and connected me to the people who were struggling there.
He did that with Graceland. It was my introduction to African music. It was so warm and it seemed to smile. The music made me happy. Seeing a happier face and feeling the joy in the tones of Ladysmith Black Mambazo drove it all home for me. That something so awful was happening in a place where the expression was so beautiful made me care so much more than images I could barely wrap my head around. Paul Simon's light touch was much more affective for me than being hit over the head by the screaming media. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.”
Shad, musician
“I can say that was a big album in our house when I was a little kid. My dad loved the album. My two aunts that lived with us at the time, they loved it. So we played it out. I have really positive memories around that record. 'Crazy Love Vol II' has some amazing lyrics. Some of my all-time favourite. 'Homeless,' too. It's an all-around incredible album. I remember a couple uncles that felt Simon was profiting off African musicians so they weren't into the record. It was big in our house though. Most of my friends have really positive associations with it, growing up with the album and still listening to it now. We still run 'I Know What I Know' at house parties.”
Hawksley Workman, musician
“Paul Simon's Graceland is a stunning, collaborative work. You can hear the ache of countless hours of work, and the freest moments of creative whimsy. But for me, maybe the biggest inspiration is that Paul Simon made this record in his mid-40s. In a business obsessed with beauty and youth, and the perpetuated assumption that an artist's early work is the only work of value, Graceland stands as a testament that an artist's life and work go through changes and seasons and if you stay true to your craft and remain unshakably focused on evolving and growing, great things can come at any age.”
Sarah Richardson, design maven
“The best elements of the arts are timeless in their appeal, and as I listen to the songs of Graceland playing in our home on a warm spring evening, Graceland remains an enduring and relevant album that seems as fresh and unique today as it did when it was released. As a teenager I was struck by the lyrics and political message, yet pulled in by the upbeat tone of the music, which seemed somewhat incongruous with the lyrics. I think Graceland has kept an important cultural and class issue in our daily frame of reference, despite the fortunate circumstances that we enjoy in Canada. And while we take 'world' music influences and collaborations for granted in 2012, Graceland stood out as being a unique and new approach a quarter of a century ago. Thanks to my husband’s love of great music, we listen to it often!”
Richard Poplak, South African/Canadian writer
“Growing up white during apartheid, Africa in general, and African music in particular, were scrubbed from our cultural lexicon. Tragically, I was introduced to the music of my homeland via a world music pop album written by one half of Simon & Garfunkel. Every time I hear one of Graceland's perfectly crafted tracks, I get the same stirring – memories of an awakening, of a rage that burns unabated to this day.”
David Myles, musician
“I didn't really grow up with Graceland like many other people my age did. It wasn’t until pretty recently that I got into it. It's definitely amazing that he incorporates and pays homage to all this incredible music from around the world. But what really blows my mind is how and when he does that. Not many people in the West were familiar with South African pop and vocal group music when Graceland came around. He'd been listening to the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band well before most people in the American pop world and managed to incorporate elements of what makes that music so rad into what he does whilst keeping it Paul Simon. The way he manages to write familiar-sounding popular melodies and lyrics over rhythms and harmonies from quite a different musical tradition is awesome. He's always on the lookout for something new to inspire him and, therefore, us as listeners. I dig that. If anything, he's giving us a great reason to get into the music that inspired him, and there's a whole lot of that out there.”
Peter Lynch, filmmaker
“I remember controversies surrounding Graceland’s release dealing with apartheid and cries of cultural appropriation. For me, Simon’s Graceland transcended this body politic and polemics about the sanctity culture as a brilliant fusion of pop poetry with landmark African beats and rhythms.
Graceland ultimately created dialogue and introduced white North Americans like me to the likes of the incredible music of Joseph Shabalala, the leader of the a cappella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Ray Phiri. It sent me on a voyage of musical discovery that went far beyond the album.
By blending these cultures, Simon ventured way beyond his band's normal terrain and mainstream radio’s musical palette. This kind of cultural fusion is no stranger to American music. African-American jazz musician Louis Armstrong and many others traversed Afro Cuban sounds with the American jazz of the time … Afro beat influenced important musicians like Brian Eno and David Byrne, who credit Fela Kuti as an essential influence…. Simon did not just appropriate African music, he involved some of the greatest African musicians of the time to actually play and contribute to the creative process. Paul Simon skillfully brought this beautiful cultural expression to a mass audience and that, for me, was a beautiful thing.”
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