Articles

Lyndon Blue

Going to Graceland

July 7

The show I was going to write about didn’t quite happen. It almost did. At the last stumbling block, it evaporated into a puff of chilly blue anticlimax. The next day I was nestled a by a hot log fire on a cold patch of coast, three hours south of Perth. Plenty of possums here, plenty of cool nights but none that owed their coolness to music shows. The suggestion came by carrier peacock from CPN headquarters: in lieu of a live review, a piece about the contemporary influence of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album, or something of the sort? As I’d happened I’d noticed that very record gathering dust in the beach shack’s record cupboard. Fate, serendipity, destiny, quel chance!

It was 1984 and Paul Simon was of course, ungarfunkled. With his most recent album garnering a lukwarm reception, he was staring down the barrel of a rut. One summer’s day Simon acquired a cassette called “Gumboots: Accordion Jive Hits Volume II.” Simon knew nothing about it except that he dug it. It turned out to be South African ‘mbanqanga’ or ‘township jive,’ the street grooves of Soweto. By February of the next year he was in Johnnesburg harnessing the talents of musicians he’d heard on African Records, including the Boyoyo Boys Band who played on “Gumboots.” Many of the songs that feature on “Graceland” were just tunes these collaborators already performed, with new lyrics penned by Simon. Call it outsourcing, but it worked. “Graceland” became a resounding, landmark success, injecting precious life-juice into Simon’s career, earning him a Grammy. A quarter-century later and I guess I’m wondering what sort of precedent Paulie set with that album. Did the somewhat audacious, if by many accounts brilliant record steer us towards a new tradition of cross-continental musical loans and a fashionable cosmopolitanism? Maybe. The fire crackled like the devil’s bacon. I poured another glass of port, played the record and mulled it over.

Pop music has long been indebted to Africa. Blues, jazz, and less directly reggae and ska, may all be traced there. Most things can be traced to Africa if you try hard enough I suppose; the point is, pop was no stranger to the influences of the plateau continent. But not until “Graceland” had such authentic, relatively unmediated “exotic” music found itself crowning the pop charts. That album hit #1 in Australia and the UK in 1986. Loungerooms that might never have housed a Ladysmith Black Mambazo album were now awash with Soweto jive, afro-funk, zulu walking rhythms and Isicathamiya singing – via the reputed songster from Queens. It could be argued that this was the birth of “world” music as a facet of mainstream pop.

‘Graceland’ may be the most notorious English-language album in terms of borrowing African sounds, but it’s certainly not the only one. Brian Eno and David Byrne both call Nigerian afropop wizard Fela Kuti an ‘essential muse.’ Speaking of Byrne, the band he collaborated with on the highly ace 2009 tune “Knotty Pine” – Dirty Projectors, also betray a deep african influence, most notably in the jagged fingerstyle guitar playing of frontman Dave Longstreth. Speaking of Dirty Projectors, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend fame once joined them on a European tour playing saxophone. Vampire Weekend, whose track ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ referenced Congolese soukous dance music, are probably the first band that comes to mind when you think of african-tinged pop music today. Ezra was also born the same year that Paul Simon first heard “Gumboots,” and they’re both Jews from New York. New Yorkers TV On The Radio also borrowed the horns from the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra for their “Dear Science” album. This all all getting a little freaky. Calm down. OK. Meanwhile, the recent trend of afropop-infused-indie can be seen extending to bands like Givers, Fool’s Gold and The Very Best (Malwai singer Esau Mwamwaya meets London electronic duo Radioclit).

We can then turning our gaze homeward to Australia easily recognize that Cloud Control, Parades, & Jonothan Boulet amongst many being flogged on the Js are all emulating that sound which was delivered to the mainsteam by Simons.

Esteemed Perth muso Simon Kelly has no qualms about admitting to the influence, self describing his group’s sound as like “if Paul Simon had recorded Graceland in Jamaica.” Meanwhile, Perth’s home to the Askari Afrobeat Orchestra who churn out afro-grooves by the truckload.

Does that prove a whole heap? Maybe not; Australian pop musicians have always looked overseas for inspiration. Sure, afropop has made its mark here and elsewhere, but exactly how instrumental Paul Simon was in that process we can only speculate. Perhaps what Graceland DID do for pop music, here and elsewhere, extends beyond what can be evidenced by various bands’ predilections towards afropop. Perhaps Paulie opened the door to a new approach: one whereby it’s ok to deviate from everything you’ve done in the past, and dive into a specific sound, if that’s what’s basting your proverbial turkey at that particular time. And why not? Additionally, there’s the ‘Graceland’ technique using a rotating cast of members, turning an album into a party where everyone’s invited, not just four guys who try to do a million different things. In Perth we’ve got bands like Pond who will happily extend their essential 3-to-4-piece structure into a fully-fledged jamboree. And there’s a rising tendency among bands to ditch the pub circuit once in a while, and simply put together parties wherein anyfolk may jam along, bands are amorphous, bonfires are lit, dances are danced, songs are sung by all until the early hours. I joined in the full moon drumming with an African drummers down at Swanbourne beach a few times, and got a similar vibe. I imagine a Soweto jive party might foster that very excellent vibe also. Say what you like about Graceland – and I’d say it probably ripped a few people off, took some credit where credit wasn’t due – but it was a pretty special album. If, in its trail of influence, we may locate a trend towards greater musical exploration and stylistic interaction, then that’s gotta be a pretty cool thing. See you folks next week – the possums can hear that fretless bass slinking along, and are all set to groove until the early hours. Time to stoke the bonfire!