Album dossier / 1986

Graceland

Paul Simon · World/Pop/Folk

After hearing a bootleg cassette of South African 'township jive' (Gumboots: Accordion Jive Hits Vol. II) lent to him by singer Heidi Berg, Paul Simon flew to Johannesburg with longtime engineer/co-producer Roy Halee in February 1985 and tracked the core rhythm sections, built around bassist Bakithi Kumalo, drummer Isaac Mtshali and guitarist Ray Phiri, at Ovation Recording Studio before writing lyrics over the finished instrumentals back in New York, a near-total reversal of his usual songwriting method. Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Joseph Shabalala co-wrote and sang on 'Homeless,' 'You Can Call Me Al' and 'Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes'; Halee famously took Kumalo's 'impossible to play' bass run on 'You Can Call Me Al' and reversed the tape to make it sound even more virtuosic. Made amid the UN and ANC cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, the album drew controversy alongside acclaim, but its 1987 world tour played to an integrated audience in Zimbabwe, and the record has sold roughly 16 million copies across formats.