Los Incas: the band who changed Paul Simon’s sound
Paul Simon has always been an adventurer. When he was a kid, he’d grab his baseball glove, dig out his bike, and, rather than looking for kids in his Queens neighbourhood, travel into the Irish and Italian neighbourhoods surrounding it to play ball with. He talked about this with Rolling Stone magazine, saying that he was “the kid who knew more kids in different neighbourhoods.”
Part of the joy of life was immersing himself in the experiences of others, so when he became a musician, it made sense that he wouldn’t just take in all different kinds of music but create it, too.
This is a man who made his name as a folk singer but has turned his hand to jazz, rock, Broadway and the traditional music of many different countries. In fact, one of his commercial peaks came from Graceland, an album mainly inspired by mbaqanga music from Johannesburg. His flirtation with music from other countries came a decade and a half earlier, though, on his other commercial peak, the 1970s Simon & Garfunkel masterpiece Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Coming directly after the opening title track is ‘El Condor Pasa (If I Could)’, one of the album’s high points and the fourth single off it to boot. The journey towards this song (and the controversy that followed it) began five years previously at a theatre in Paris. Simon & Garfunkel were booked into a week-long residency at the Théâtre de l’Est Parisien, and their support act were Los Incas. An Andean folk music troupe made up of South American expats to Paris. Part of their support slot was a song called ‘Paso Del Condor’, and the first time Simon heard their version of it, he was hooked.
According to Songfacts, Simon said, “I used to hang around every night to hear them play that. I loved it and I would play it all the time, and then I thought, let’s put words to it.” While they were working on this song, Simon became friends with Los Incas, even producing their first album, which was released in the US. So, when the bandleader told Simon it was a traditional song, so only he should get a cut of the royalties for helping arrange it, Simon believed him. Big mistake.
This is because ‘Paso Del Condor’ is not a traditional folk song. One passed down from common knowledge that belongs to no one. Even more than that, it’s from a musical of the same name. One was written in 1913 by Daniel Alomia Robles and had been registered under copyright law in America since 1933. Upon the album’s release in 1970, Robles’ son, filmmaker Armando Robles Godoy, immediately filed a copyright suit against Simon, and rightly so.
Shockingly, the suit that followed was quite possibly the most good-natured and relaxed lawsuit of that century. Godoy completely understood that Simon had encountered some false information, and Simon was eager to see the song’s royalties go to the right source. Just as well, really. If this escapade had gone any differently, we might have had a very different musical future from Rhymin’ Simon, one with a lot less boundary-pushing and one with a lot more in thrall to musical borders.
