Graceland Tribute Show Intro...

On Sunday, March 13th, I will be performing at Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 2, as part of benefit for City Harvest.  We will be doing the entire "Graceland" album by Paul Simon.  Below are my remarks I will make at the top of the show, to 'frame' it all for those in attendance:

In 1986, I was three years old when Paul Simon released “Graceland.” One of my earliest memories is of sitting in my living room on the east side of Buffalo, NY, in the late afternoon watching Chevy Chase sing on VH1 in a music video on this super catchy song called “You Can Call Me Al.” I remember laughing and clapping along to the song, and thinking that Chevy was such a great singer.

About 10 years later, I would be at my friend’s house one day when their Mom said “hey - let’s listen to Graceland” and my friends cheered. I had never heard it before, and wasn’t Graceland where you go see Elvis? “You Can Call Me Al” came on and I exclaimed “Oh! I know this one!” But I thought to myself, what does the Chevy Chase song have to do with any of this?

My first ever experience with Graceland happened then, at age 13. Since then, I have purchased it on vinyl, on cassette tape, on CD (twice), and three times digitally. I have purchased DVDs about its making, DVRed countless other shows about it, and tirelessly tried to decipher the lyrics and different instruments on the record.

I can now tell you that Paul Simon wrote the song “Gumboots” before ever going to South Africa. I can tell you that at the time, his career was practically a shambles, having released a very ill-received album before doing "Graceland." I can tell you that Paul Simon jammed and recorded in South Africa, then deconstructed the songs he jammed on and reconstructed them later in the studio, adding lyrics and percussion with help from Steve Gadd on drums. I can tell you that South Africa in 1985 was undergoing a radical change of national mentality, and that this piece of art literally helped tipped the scale towards the end of Apartheid.

The lyrics are some of the most cryptic and beautiful ever penned to song. Yet Simon used phrases like ‘ever since the watermelon’ and “Fat Charlie the Archangel” not just because of their poetic meanings and interpretations, but because of the percussion the words created coming out of your mouth.

Try it, repeat after me: “Fat Charlie the Archangel”, “That’s the Thing That I keep in the Back of My Head”, “Don’t I know you from the Cinematographer’s Party” See? It was a new way to write words for Western music – we tend to load in meaning to every single word, every single line. Simon did that, but also explored what it would sound like to just put two sounds next to each other. Brilliant.

But even more so, I can tell you what it means to me. "Graceland" is all about redemption. It’s about learning that wherever I go, there I was. It’s something I can play when I have to work, it’s something I can play when I feel great, and it’s something I can play when I feel like things aren’t working out how I hoped they would. Graceland makes me feel deeper and see wider than I was able to do before. And that, I think, is the definition of great music.

It’s with sincere pleasure then that we present to you “Graceland”, in its entirety, for you and our friends at the City Harvest. Please give kindly and as much as you can. And please clap nice and loud, because all the artists tonight are up here because they believe in Simon's fundamental message of hope and second chances.

"Maybe I've reason to believe, we all will be received in Graceland." Thank you!