“Intimidated”: the group Paul Simon thought was too good for him
Any songwriter who has been doing it for decades is going to reach a point where things start sounding stale. No one can make the same tune forever and still be satisfied, so there needs to be some sort of alternative that gets them out of their creative rut and inspires them like they were in their salad days. Paul Simon had already started taking cues from other genres as far back as Simon and Garfunkel, but when putting together Graceland, he was almost intimidated when working with Ladysmith Black Mambazo for the first time.
Then again, Simon wasn’t looking to just be a wayward acoustic guitarist for the rest of his life. As far back as Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, he and Art Garfunkel were already starting to toy with what made them popular, taking ‘The Sound of Silence’ one step further by making choral-style vocal harmonies and even taking a few cheap shots at Bob Dylan’s style of songwriting on ‘A Simple Desultory Phillipic’.
Even when he separated from his vocal partner, Simon wasn’t about to slow down. Throughout projects like Still Crazy After All These Years, tracks like ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’ had him experimenting with jazzier chords, with each run-through of the verses never having a repeated melodic phrase in the backing track.
He had already conquered Western music, so why not try his hand at world music? George Harrison had already taken the concept of world music a step further with his work with Ravi Shankar, but Simon’s decision to go to Africa during apartheid to work on Graceland is still one of the gutsiest moves that any artist has attempted.
Once Simon arrived, though, this was a major shakeup compared to what he had been prepared for. As opposed to his sincere form of songwriting, Ladysmith Black Mambazo always sounded like they were singing as a form of spiritual exercise half the time as if the music wasn’t something that was trained but instead was pulled out of the artists themselves.
As soon as Simon heard what they could do, he admitted that he might not be fully cut out to make the record he wanted, saying, “The music was enchanting – it was all a cappella, and it was so beautiful that I was intimidated. They were so good at what they did, and it was so contained that I didn’t know at the time how I could possibly fit into their world and if they wanted me to fit into their world.”
And while Simon did let his guard down and turn in some fantastic hits like ‘Under African Skies’, his backing group really deserves credit for helping translate his style into world music. Whereas Simon knew the ins and outs of a genre like folk, having Bakithi Kumalo deliver incredible bass breaks on ‘You Can Call Me Al’ and the lines on ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’ took what could have been mundane tunes and transformed them into soulful juggernauts.
Despite being completely knocked out, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned from Simon’s interactions with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It would never be easy trying to adapt to a new style of music, but if anyone feels that rhythm in their soul, sometimes the finer details come a lot easier.
