Saturday 14th January
Paul was adrift in the Eighties, like so many great artists of the Sixties and Seventies. ‘Hearts and Bones’ had flopped and he felt he had lost his inspiration and was considering retiring. But Paul has always been a musical magpie; most artists are but Paul had been accused of stealing the music for Scarborough Fair, and of using Urumbaba for their Pan Pipes on ‘El Condor Pasa’. And he achieved maybe the greatest steal of all with Graceland. He had been listening to some very raw tapes of South African groups and decided that was the key to his next album. He travelled to apartheid South Africa despite a cultural ban, and recorded with a few African Musicians. With Pauls vocals and melodies the mix was irresistible and ‘Graceland’ would sell 14 million and be his greatest album. In many songs he basically sang over the top of traditional African rhythms; many accused him of using these musicians – but he paid them well and later brought them to New York and toured with them. Without Ladyship Black Mombaza ‘Graceland’ would have lacked two songs, but they alone could never have written ‘Diamonds On The Soles Of Their Shoes’.
Paul followed this with ‘The Rhythm of the Saints’, another attempted steal from South America this time. But the songs were more complex and lacked something; somehow he couldn’t perform the trick twice. He then got involved in writing a musical called ‘The Capeman’ about a Puerto Rican young murderer in 1959. He worked on this for several years and when staged it flopped and closed after 2 months, Paul losing millions. But Paul released an album ‘Songs From The Capeman’ and sings most of it. I love this record, it is superb, full of diverse songs and is very sad – but again it more or less flopped.
Paul has released the occasional record since, but they all seem flat; there are one or two good songs on each record but it seems that Paul’s heart isn’t really in it any more. He seems to be constantly searching for a new sound but it doesn’t matter, Paul has given us a handful of wonderful records that stand alongside anything Paul McCartney or any of the other Sixties stars have achieved (with the possible exception of Joni, Dyland and Leonard).
