And thus we enter 1972, it felt like a very long time going through the plethora of music that came out in 1971. Major events in this year include the birth pangs of Pakistan and Bangladesh and the last manned moon landing (for now) with the Apollo 17 mission. Despite Woodward and Bernstein breaking the Watergate story, Nixon was re-elected with a landslide (it’ll be another couple of years before he resigns), amid a flurry of diplomatic moves such as his famous trip to China. The Vietnam War rumbles on (it’s this year when the famous photo of a naked 9-year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running down the road after a napalm attack was published) despite “Vietnamisation”, and in Ireland a group of British soldiers panic and fire upon unarmed civilians during the Bloody Sunday massacres, stirring up decades of violence to come.
Business as usual, in other words. It'll be interesting to see if any of that is reflected in the music. It occurred to me, though, that usually there's going to be a lag between current events and the music, thanks to the time taken to write, record, edit, press, and release it.
And talking of the music:
Paul Simon continues his ongoing quest to incorporate
world music, starting with the track named after a chicken and egg dish, Mother
And Child Reunion. I lamented back on the Beatles White Album that the first
(and so far only) ska track that we’ve had was done by some white guys, and now
the first reggae track is done by this most New York of New Yorkers. At least,
however, Simon actually went to Jamaica, and the musicians featured include Hux
Brown and Jackie Jackson of Toots And The Maytals, as well as members of Jimmy
Cliff’s backing group and Cissy “Mother of Whitney” Houston. And, rest assured
folks, I’ve looked ahead and Bob Marley is inbound (in a fog of weed smoke).
Most of the rest of the album is Americana
that looks back to the troubadour styles of Woody Guthrie and Jack Elliott, but
with a modern twist. Duncan is the tale of a man who travels down from the Canadian
North-East to the American North-East in a very Dylanesque saga of the humble
working man (with flutes from Los Incas, making the song sound like
an extended version of El Condor Pasa). Papa Hobo tells of a wanderer from
Detroit, continued musically in an old-school Delta bluesman style with Hobo
Blues.
And then there’s whatever Me And Julio Down
By The Schoolyard is. Sort of Latin beats, I guess? That distinctive “whoop”
percussion is a samba drum called a cuica, and it’s a jaunty number set in
downtown Corona, New York. The names Julio and Rosie also bring to mind Latino
culture.
Going back to my original musings on the
headlines of the year, of course none of these have happened yet, we’re still
in holding pattern from the various scattered terrorisms and revolutions of
1971, not to mention Simon’s own marital difficulties and his break from
Garfunkel, so it’s perhaps not surprising that some of the music should be a
look backwards. The subject matter, however, continues to be Simon’s mix of
eclectic curiosity and explorations of isolation, and all of the tracks are
decent stuff.
Comments
Post a Comment