Album Reviews

Twenty five years later, it’s easy to forget that Graceland, the album many consider to be Paul Simon’s finest musical achievement, was mired in controversy because of the continuing disgraceland that was apartheid South Africa. Nelson Mandela was still jailed and protests erupted on college campuses and in the halls of government around the world.

Simon visited South Africa at around the same time “Little Steven” Van Zandt had also gone on a musical mission to South Africa to plan for a new album. Van Zandt was appalled by what he witnessed generally but specifically at Sun City an interracial gambling resort not unlike the ones we have today in America run by Native American tribes. It was an oasis of Las Vegas style glamor surrounded by grinding poverty.

Much as our Native American resorts exist on tribal land and so are exempt from many federal and state laws, Sun City was located in the Bantustan (black ‘homeland’) of Bophuthatswana, which was declared an “independent state” by the South African government, so banned activities like gambling and topless dancing could take place.

Van Zandt discovered that apartheid was modeled after America’s Indian reservation system and decided to take action, but not before some of the biggest musical stars from Frank Sinatra to Rod Stewart to Elton John and Queen and Black Sabbath, to Dionne Warwick and Tina Turner had played there.

Van Zandt decided to write a song (“Sun City”) about the place but at the behest of my old WBCN-FM compatriot Danny Schechter “your news dissector” (then at ABC News), turned it from an obscure protest song into a worldwide phenomenon with help from everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Miles Davis, Keith Richards, Jackson Browne and U2 (the list stretches on). The artists pledged to not play the resort and Jonathan Demme made a documentary.

Meanwhile Paul Simon quietly went about his decidedly non-political business, traveling to South Africa with engineer Roy Halee to discover the musical scene he’d first heard on Gumboots: Accordion Jive Hits, Volume II, a cassette a friend had given him in 1984 that sounded remarkably like the 1950’s rock’n’roll he’d grown up on in Queens, New York.

Simon met with the musicians like the group Ladysmith Black Mambazo and guitarist Ray Phiri and his group Stimela and recorded there a great deal of what became the Graceland album with the remainder recorded in New York with some of the same musicians. This despite a United Nations boycott then on against making cultural contact with the toxic regime, even though it was the musicians and not the government that would get hurt in the political crossfire.

While most of us happily consumed the album as a sunny, productive collaboration between a white American musical star and his new South African friends that went on to became a huge worldwide hit, Simon’s tour supporting it was met with picketing protesters and claims of “musical colonialism” by African-American college students and others in the “politically correct” community.

And as Simon later went on to admit, though he treated the musicians as collaborators and not as “hired hands,” and though he was expecting some in-studio difficulties because of cultural differences, it turned out to be more problematic than he’d anticipated, despite the joy laid down on tape.

Time and the end of apartheid have healed most of the political wounds, though Los Lobos still claims Simon stole from them—a charge he vehemently denies.

Apartheid is thankfully gone along with the controversies surrounding the creation of this album, and while the song “Sun City” and the album Van Zandt released containing it have been placed in the musical dustbin (which is not to diminish the quality of the music or its historical and political significance), Graceland sounds as fresh as the day it was first released.

What was in the grooves that could not be denied then has only gotten better with age both musically and in this superb vinyl reissue, sonically as well. Like a great dish that tastes better the second day thanks to the ingredients all blending better together, Simon’s joyous mix of “township jive” American country, Zydeco and Tex-Mex sounds even more remarkably seamless and “worldly” than it did in 1986. And the metaphorical poetry throughout soars.

If there’s an album easily pointed to as one that not only stood the test of time, but sounds fresher than ever, it would be Graceland. Repeated plays do not diminish the listening pleasure thank to the musical content and Roy Halee’s superb engineering. Getting into, and digging out all of the hidden production nooks and crannies requires a great turntable properly set up. I’ve found that as both my set up skills and my equipment improve, there’s always more to pull from the grooves of this great production.

For this 25th anniversary reissue, original recording engineer and vinyl fan Roy Halee, went back to the original analog master tape and worked with original mastering house Sterling Sound and the young George Marino protégé Ryan Smith.

Greg Calbi, who mastered the original LP is still at Sterling but he’s no longer cutting lacquer (or in the case of the original Graceland DMM—direct metal master cut to copper disc). But Calbi did have input and did monitor the work as it progressed.

The original was a decent sounding record that could sound thin at times with a bit of over-thumpy bass, but that’s being pretty hard on what was, for that time, one of the better sounding rock releases.

Calbi visited me a few years ago and I played for him the original Graceland. When it was over he said “It was a better sounding record than I remember it being. In fact, I heard things here on vinyl I hadn’t heard on the original tape!” Don’t let anyone tell you audio systems haven’t improved over the past twenty-five years!

This lacquer cut processed and pressed at RTI on 180 gram vinyl sounds dramatically superior to the original in every way. The overall tonal balance is far superior. The low bass is as powerful as on the original but much better controlled. If the opening drum “thwacks” on “Boy In the Bubble,” don’t sound deep, ultra-tight and tuneful, blame your system, not the record. You are guaranteed to hear heretofore hidden musical details and parts that on the original slipped through the musical cracks.

This reissue has an overall tonal richness and clarity as well as dynamic impact only hinted at on the original. I played the test pressing at the recent New York City audio show and everyone who heard it was wowed.

The album includes a large, well-produced on heavy stock full color poster and a high bit rate MP3 digital download with bonus tracks. There’s also a Collector’s Edition Box Set that you can read about here.