“A privilege”: The concerts Paul Simon called the peak of his performing career
Lasting success is not an easy thing to come by in the music industry. While some artists enjoy a burst of popularity for a few months or years, most slide inevitably into obscurity once they grow old or become less relevant to modern audiences. Paul Simon, on the other hand, is an outlier. The songwriter has been an unavoidable part of the industry for upwards of six decades now, and his extensive discography continues to resonate with audiences to this day.
From his early days in the 1960s, performing alongside Art Garfunkel, the songwriting of Paul Simon proved to be an instant hit with audiences. A key figurehead of the folk revival during that time, one of the most impressive aspects of Simon’s songwriting was its broad appeal. As opposed to many other musicians of his generation, who aimed to appeal almost solely to the younger generation, Simon’s music was not limited to one generation. As such, his music did not suffer once the young people of the 1960s grew up.
Another key aspect of Simon’s success in music has been his tendency to explore a wide variety of different sounds and influences over the years. An artist of lesser ambition might have stuck to that folk-adjacent Simon and Garfunkel sound that the songwriter had originally found triumph with, but Simon chose instead to adapt and develop his musical interests as the years went on. It was this appetite for sonic diversity that led the singer to foster a deep-rooted appreciation for the music of Africa.
Perhaps more so than any other continent, the vast land of Africa has produced a wealth of diverse and captivating sounds, going back centuries. From the highlife and Fuji music of West Africa, all the way to the Apartheid-era jazz of South Africa, so many different styles are contained within the continent. Simon adopted the essence of many of these styles within his own work, most notably on the 1986 album Graceland.
For an artist as accomplished as Paul Simon, it must be a tricky task to select any kind of career highlights. Seemingly, though, the songwriter’s time spent in Africa following Graceland is certainly up there with his favourite moments. Speaking to The Guardian earlier this year, Simon reflected on his controversial tour of South Africa under Apartheid, saying, “That band was magical, and then being able to go back and perform in Johannesburg [in 1992] was extraordinary”.
“You know, in Africa, I met friends I never would have met who stayed friends my whole life,” he continued. “It was a privilege for me, as a white American, to participate in other cultures.” In turn, his participation in that culture led to some definite highlights within the musician’s discography, adding multiple new layers to the inherent sound and performance of Paul Simon.
In fact, Simon went as far as to reveal, “I’d say that Zimbabwe concert, the two concerts I did in Central Park – with Artie, then on my own – and the concert in Hyde Park for the 25th anniversary of Graceland are the peaks of my performing career.” Those colossal shows in Central Park, which saw Simon perform for half a million attendees, came to define the performing career of the folk singer, so the fact that he holds them in a similar regard to his concert in Zimbabwe speaks volumes about his appreciation of African music and culture.
Although the singer is now well into his eighth decade on Earth, Simon shows few signs of fully retiring from music anytime soon. Nevertheless, it has been a few years since the songwriter appeared to audiences on stage, and his current health problems mean that a full tour is more or less out of the picture. So, those iconic performances in Central Park and Zimbabwe might forever remain the greatest Paul Simon concerts to ever occur.
