paul simon graceland tour

Greatwoods, Chicago - USA / IllinoisePoplar Greek Theater, Milwaukee - USA / Wisconsin The solution is clear: South Africa’s apartheid system of government must be abolished. Yes, the wind do that.

Paul Simon Graceland Tour. And Shabalala, who lives quietly in the black township of Claremont, outside Durban, with his wife, Nellie, and eight of their nine children, professes little interest in the worldly rewards of pop success. Simon calls Shabalala, the group’s songwriter and lead singer, “an enormous cultural treasure, a cultural gold mine.” Shabalala says, in halting English, “When we start to sing, the people enjoy. Not only did he pay the South African musicians on Graceland the equivalent of the triple union scale commanded by New York studio vets, but he is not accepting any payment for his Graceland concert performances to ensure that the two dozen members of his road band get maximum paychecks. Tumblr. Rutfaro Stadium, Munich - Germany If you look at the position taken in the recent whites-only election and the subsequent actions of the government there, it does not seem that singing out here makes any difference.”, But Hugh Masekela thinks otherwise. But the miracle of Mambazo music is that it possesses an emotional resonance that transcends mere technique and choreography, not to mention language. “People went wild, just wild,” says Simon, still raving about the February 1st blastoff of the Graceland tour. The very suggestion that his songwriting is politically incorrect makes Simon’s blood boil. Nowhere was the dance-floor enchantment and implicit spiritual harmony in township jive à la Simon more evident than in the February 14th and 15th Graceland performances in the capital city of Harare, Zimbabwe, nearly a day’s drive from South Africa’s northernmost border. Other S & G number and solo representative music, is a must-listen title of large recommendation was also appointed reproduce the African musicians live the ethnic line from the album “Graceland”! It just came itself, like this. I respect people who come up with solutions, not people who come up with big wind that means nothing.”.

Also, he believes Graceland should not be the last word in the dissemination of black South African music. Rotterdam - Netherlands Ahoy . They’re doing that to these people?’, “Besides that, a strong artistic community within South Africa is important to ensure freedom of expression. It was very uplifting. The crack rhythm section, led by guitarist Ray Phiri, put real spring into Simon’s rhymin’ as the forty-four-year-old singer-songwriter ran through such Graceland numbers as “I Know What I Know” and “You Can Call Me Al” with pride and relish, making only minimal concessions to his past (“The Boxer,” a high-stepping “Mother and Child Reunion,” a zesty reading of an old doo-wop favorite, the Del-Vikings’ 1957 hit “Whispering Bells,” grafted onto the tail end of “Gumboots”). Even if they didn’t say it, it made you wonder, ‘How can these people play so great and be treated like that?’ There is something to be said for that.”, A staunch defender of Simon’s links with black South African musicians, Masekela believes that Simon is being unfairly compared to other musicians who have gone to South Africa, like Elton John, Chicago and Rod Stewart. But that he was able to bring so many people to hear my country’s music was wonderful.”. If I sing, ‘Come back, Nomathemba,’ I do this” — he gestures as if pulling something toward him.

Madison Square Garden, [ Excessive Fans ] © Copyright 2020 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. It soothes them.”. “When one of your main participants asks if you’re going to check for bombs, you check for bombs.” Security for the shows was provided by the Zimbabwe army. This is one reason why we do not want people to go there.”, Gbeho says there is no official UN position on black South Africans performing outside the country, as Ray Phiri and Ladysmith Black Mambazo are doing on the Graceland tour. It’s more important to me what people outside southern Africa will think, how they will react and what it will mean to them. It was this Jewish man from New York who made it happen for us. But the implications of the music certainly are. Indeed, the past few months have been, as Simon sings on Graceland, “days of miracle and wonder” for him and his South African collaborators.

“There were so few shows, really, and they sold out so quickly,” Simon says. Feb 06 1987. In 1962, the UN General Assembly initiated a trade boycott against South Africa. Internationally, rage is rising over the oppressive measures instituted by the country’s white-minority rulers in the face of increasingly violent black-majority resistance.

Simon and his troupe, in fact, were fueled with so much opening-night nervous energy that they ripped through the Rotterdam show, originally timed to run two and a half hours, in only two hours and five minutes. [ Translations ] But it didn’t rain on either day. I think that’s fantastic.”. Those artists, says Masekela, “were not moved by the music there. They are doing their job. Paul Simon was sweating bullets. ‘Under African Skies’ is talking about ‘take this child … give her the wings to fly through harmony.’ You don’t get up and say things are bad without giving a solution. Yet Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Miles Davis could make this incredible music in spite of all that. Olympiahalle, San Francisco - USA / CaliforniaMasonic Auditorium, Los Angeles - USA / CaliforniaUniversal Amphitheatre, St. Louis - USA / Missouri “Miriam said, ‘I hope you’re going to check the speakers for bombs,'” Simon says soberly. Google+. in 1980s, Midnight Dreamer, Paul Simon 2016/06/23 181 Views, Paul Simon / Graceland On Tour / 2Pro-CDR /Midnight Dreamer. Graceland‘s success has also spawned sister releases on Warner Bros, by Hugh Masekela (Tomorrow) and Ladysmith Black Mambazo (Shaka Zulu, produced by Simon). San Remo - Italy Pala Rock . Feb 11 1987. Feb 10 1987. It was through them that you knew about the plight of the people. He also hopes the benefit gigs will spark similar projects. “If you do not understand the song,” Shabalala says, “we can make the song talk with our hands. “This is a gift from God,” he says during a brief layover on the Graceland tour. So we just sing, all over. Brusseles - Belgium Forest National . Essen - Germany Grugahalle . “It will be the end of this chapter with me,” he says of the tour, “but these other bands, like Black Mambazo, will continue to tour.” In fact, Ladysmith Black Mambazo has made a video with Michael Jackson and, in addition to Shaka Zulu, has three albums available in the U.S. on the Shanachie label.  Fan Database “As Miriam says, you have to fight the battle all different ways,” says Simon.


Every one of the Mambazos’ twenty-four South African albums has gone gold there (25,000 sales), with some of them going double gold (50,000) and platinum (75,000). (The rest of the proceeds will be divided between the United Negro College Fund and municipal charities in each city on the itinerary.) Graceland, the unlikely product of Simon’s encounter with a mysterious cassette of South African mbaqanga during the summer of ’84, is in 6 million homes around the world. The entire world, it seems, is suddenly moving to a South African beat. Let the musicians who play the songs they approve of get out there. Feb 02 1987. The Concert in Hyde Park. “It is claimed by some people that this is an artistic endeavor,” she says, referring to the Graceland record and tour. “We sing for everybody,” he says. Quite the contrary.  Chords & Lyrics, Rotterdam - Netherlands Paul Simon with fellow musicians from the Graceland tour at Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands on February 1st 1987. Ahoy, Harare - Zimbabwe Because we thought it would be special. We did it another way.”. (In South Africa, the album has been Number One for nine weeks and has sold 110,000 copies, making it the biggest-selling international release there since Michael Jackson’s Thriller.)

Rotterdam - Netherlands Ahoy . Paul Simon / Graceland On Tour / 2Pro-CDR, David Bowie / California Connection 1990 / 3CDR, David Bowie / Serious Moonlight In Hartford Second Night / 2CDR, Patti Smith / Everything Under The Sun / 2CDR, Simon & Garfunkel / Live At The Tufts University / 1CD, Chick Corea New Akoustic Band / Live In Tokyo / 1DVDR, Mott The Hoople / The Saturday Gig Reunion 2009 / 2CDR, Pink Floyd / The River Runs Dry / 17CD+1Bonus DVD Box Set, Beatles / Complete Acetate Collection 1961-1970 / 5CD Wx Slipcase, George Harrison / Run Of The Mill 1963-1971 / 13CD+2DVD Box Set, Led Zeppelin / Black Dragon With Blue Axe / 6CD Box Set, Jackson Browne / Cuyahoga Falls 1978 / 2CDR. “When he goes to South Africa, Paul Simon bows to apartheid. Albums. Coverwall, Paul Simon. Paul Simon, Graceland: The African Concert Zimbabwe, Africa- 1987 1.

“These final concerts came about really because Hugh, Ray Phiri and Miriam said it was a pity that the black community hasn’t gotten to see the show, because they would really get off on seeing it” — although he admits that a major obstacle is the fact that in sales Graceland was, in his words, “a white record.”, Another issue is the South African government’s policy of arresting and detaining black children. “Then,” Simon adds, “there are all the other groups in South Africa. Assuaging pain is an important part of the Zulu choral tradition that gave birth to Ladysmith Black Mambazo.