Paul Simon: Still creative after all these years

Paul Simon / Feeling groovy late in the evening.

Paul Simon's 13th solo album, Stranger to Stranger, is just out to critical acclaim, and following two recent weekend concerts at UC-Berkeley's Greek Theater, the 74-year-old singer/songwriter stopped by City Arts & Lectures in San Francisco last week for an insightful conversation with Dave Eggers that was a benefit for the writer's 826 Valencia project.

For over 90 minutes, Simon, whom New Yorker critic Kelefa Sanneh recently labeled as "one of the most accomplished overthinkers in the history of popular music," spoke both thoughtfully and haltingly about a variety of things, including: his new album, a series of songs filled with experiments in rhythm and texture throughout its lithe 37-minute duration; his creative process; his approach to writing music and composing lyrics that paint an imperfect world; and the emotional outpouring from singing "The Boxer" on the same night as Muhammad Ali's death, just moments after learning of The Greatest's passing.

As Simon spoke about the physics of sound – "the tone of the universe is a slightly flat B-flat" – he also strummed a faux air guitar, picking at the melody with his right hand and moving the fingers of his left hand up and down his imaginary fretboard. Later on, he reached for a guitar positioned behind his chair to illustrate a chord progression as he crooned the notes to a song.

On Stranger to Stranger, Simon's collaborators include the Italian electronic producer Clap! Clap! and long-dead composer and inventor Harry Partch, whose variety of homemade instruments contributed to the texture and dreamlike ambience of the album.


https://soundcloud.com/concordmusicgroup/the-werewolf


On "The Werewolf," for instance, Stereogum.com, writes: "Warped banjo, hand claps, and intricate down-home percussion are interjected with peculiar invest bursts. Simon soulfully warns of a werewolf's impending approach with some vivid storytelling and irresistible melodies."

Always a storyteller, Simon shared a funny anecdote about a 2004 Simon and Garfunkel reunion concert that he and his former music partner Art Garfunkel gave on the grounds of the Rome Colosseum. He said that while Garfunkel was singing an extended solo, Simon gazed out at nearby residents listening from their apartment balconies while thinking to himself, "I wonder what an apartment like that would cost?" He also talked about his 1986 ground-breaking album Graceland, and waxed about what it's been like being in the midst of a late-career renaissance.

"He has managed to become neither a wizened oracle nor an oldies act, and his best songs convey the appealing sensation of listening to a guy who is still trying to figure out what he's doing," wrote Sanneh in his New Yorker article, "Cool Papa," published last month.

Paul Simon and Dave Eggers / Old friends.

"Ain't no song like an old song," Simon once wrote, and the New York native has been practicing his craft for the past 50 years, releasing a new album about every three years or so. Although Simon said he doesn't keep up with the latest music trends and hits, he remains an attentive listener with a curious mind, one who always is collecting raw ingredients and rhythms for the future. Writing music, he noted, gets harder.

"But harder is fine. It's not like harder is the opposite of fun."

By night's end, Simon broke out an acoustic guitar and sang "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)," which served as a nice bookend. He left to a standing ovation from the mostly Baby Boomer audience at The Nourse.

It all made for a memorable and enjoyable evening.

Photos: By Michael Dickens © 2016.

Elvis Costello: A master of high fidelity and storytelling, too

Elvis Costello / Charming crowds with his music and storytelling.

Elvis Costello knows how to charm the pants off an audience. He's done it successfully for the past 40 years as one of his generation's greatest songwriters. Now, with a simple wink, a friendly smile, or just the right choice of words and upbeat tone of voice, the bespectacled and iconic English musician who was once described by a critic as a "pop encyclopedia," is delighting crowds with his good-natured manner and geniality of conversation. He's become a master of the craft of storytelling.

Last Thursday evening's City Arts & Lectures event at the Nourse in San Francisco provided Costello with a forum for talking at length about his new memoir -- 'Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink' -- that (at a hefty but very readable 670 pages) shows Costello to be an intelligent, thoughtful, witty and lyrical writer.

In conversation with Dan Stone, editor-in-chief of Radio Silence, Costello showed why he's a wonderful conversationalist and gifted storyteller. Costello stood and read several passages from his memoir that recalled a mostly happy childhood growing up in a musical family in Liverpool, England, and the special relationship he shared with his father, Ross MacManus, who was a professional singer in a popular dance band. The younger MacManus recalled with clarity watching his father play afternoon dance gigs at the Hammersmith Palais in the 1961. By the end of the decade, Costello had gone into the family business, following in both his father's and grandfather's footsteps, and he took the popular music world by storm by the age of 24, replete with his black-framed Buddy Holly glasses.

Over the course of about 80 minutes, there were many funny and good-natured reminisces about Costello's coming of age, including: one of his first jobs as a data-entry clerk for cosmetics giant Elizabeth Arden; the influence of the Beatles on both his and his father's musical careers; coming to play San Francisco for the first time in his early twenties back in the 1970s; and his infamous TV appearance on Saturday Night Live. Costello punctuated his fluid storytelling by sharing many candid family photos that were projected overhead on a giant movie screen for the audience to delight in.

While 'Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink' doesn't adhere to a linear chronology, what I have read thus far has been a fun and enjoyable read, and each chapter presents colorful highlights in Costello's remarkable life. The New York Times called 'Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink' "some of the best writing -- funny, strange, spiteful, anguished -- we've ever had from an important musician."

Throughout last Thursday's conversation and later, during a Question and Answer period with the house lights turned up, we learned why Costello, 61, is truly a music fan and delights in championing the works of other musicians such as country star George Jones, jazz pianist Allen Toussaint, pop composer Burt Bacharach, rock guitarist and producer T Bone Burnett, English singer/songwriter Nick Lowe, former Beatles icon Paul McCartney, and hip hop/neo soul band The Roots, to name just a few whom Costello has collaborated with over the years.

But wait, the best part of the night was yet to come. Without any prompting, Costello asked the audience: "Hey, you wanna hear a song?" The sold-out audience at the Nourse responded by amping up their already enthusiastic applause. Before the cheering could fade, an acoustic Gibson guitar was brought out and handed to Costello to play and, quickly, a stool, microphone and music stand were in place for "the show" to go on.

Thus, Elvis began an impromptu "mini concert" by performing a very meaningful and moving -- and slowed-down -- version of "Every Day I Write the Book" from 1983's Punch the Clock, followed by "I Hear a Melody," originally recorded in 1977 for his debut album My Aim is True. Finally, a medley of "Radio Sweetheart/What Jackie Wilson Said," the former penned by Costello and the latter composed by Van Morrison, brought the crowd to its feet. The night was complete.

Photo images: Courtesy of 'Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink', 2015.