When I was sixteen, I was sitting on no stoop nowhere, and I never smoked me a „J“, and hellz to the NO, I was never out late in the evening. Until I turned eighteen, I had to be home by 11 p.m..
A year before, at fifteen, I had gotten my hands on the „Graceland“ album, and it was a musical epiphany. My parents with their Miriam Makeba albums had already planted an incredible musical curiosity in me, at the age of ten I had discovered and listened to almost the entire work of Harry Belafonte (what the allowance of a ten-year-old would buy, mind you, vinyl was expensive in the 80s), so to hear Simon’s approach on especially South African music was amazing. I fell in love with his voice, and tried to get as much information on him as possible – imagine that long before there was Google and Youtube. I went to actual libraries to find stuff on him.
We didn’t have MTV at home, so I remember every time we were at my uncle’s house (they had cable TV including MTV) I glued myself in front of the tiny extra TV they had in the bedroom. Needless to say, Simon wasn’t huge on daytime MTV (it wasn’t teenager music), most of the shows featuring more mature artists were on late at night, so I was lucky to even see „You Can Call Me Al“ every once in a while.
But yeah. I was smitten with him, musically speaking and truth be told, my fifteen-year-old self did find this Jewish little man from Queens innocently sexy. Sigh.
So, I was sixteen, and I had learned that Simon was one half of the superfamous Simon & Garfunkel duo (that was news to me). Over the course of a year, maybe more, I had been saving all my paper route money to spend it on CDs (those were supernew back in the day and one CD cost 30,- DM), solo Simon but also with Garfunkel. I wanted to hear it all, I was like a sponge, getting lost with the headphones, reading the lyrics in the little CD inlay, looking at the pictures… I was in my own little bubble, and there was just Paul and me. And the music on my walkman.
And then – OMG – I heard that in 1980, he had made a movie. Not appeared in a movie (he was in Woody Allen’s „Annie Hall“, and that is one boring movie, man), but actually wrote a script, found a director and a team of producers and made a movie.
Of course I had to watch that.
It was even worse than Annie Hall but I sat through it.
Cause that movie wasn’t about the plot (boredom has a new name). It was about the soundtrack. Simon had rounded up his regular rhythm section team (Steve Gadd on drums, Richard T on piano, Eric Gale on guitar, and Tony Levin on bass), gave them all parts in the movie and made a killer soundtrack. Seriously. Don’t watch the movie (nobody cares), but listen to the soundtrack. Especially the horn section on „Late In The Evening“.
That song especially grabbed me and instilled the desire to play in a band with other people.
I got to play in a band with other people. Playing in that band opened me up to even more musical possibilities, I came in contact with a couple of jazzy-funky pearls that we played…
Unfortunately, we never played „Late In The Evening“ in the school big band, but the song stuck to me.
So much that I had to refix it.
I’d love for you to click my hearthis link – for some reason, wordpress won’t have the player embedded.
Obviously, you can use the player right here, but I kinda do care about my hearthis stats…
Thank you very much and keep dancing!
Kommentar verfassen