Paul Simon

"I don`t know anything, really," said Paul Simon, who has probably forgotten more about making memorable music than many singer-songwriters will ever learn.

His half-serious, half-facetious claim to the contrary, Simon knows exactly how to remain a vital creative force in the ever-fickle world of pop. And with his impeccably crafted new album, "You`re the One," he begins the 44th year of his recording career with his restless nature and desire for artistic growth still intact.

That is why his first North American solo tour since 1991 will not only showcase his new album but many songs he has never before performed live from his previous releases.

"You have to keep developing, otherwise, it`s not interesting," said the man who helped introduce millions of pop fans to the music of South Africa, Brazil, Puerto Rico and beyond with his landmark "Graceland," "Rhythm of the Saints" and "Songs From `The Capeman`" albums.

"If you`re going to be talking to your generation and the generations that are close to you - as we all get older - you better have something to say," continued Simon, in a recent interview from a mid-Manhattan rehearsal studio.

" ... I have no interest in repetition. If the Beatles got together and made an album that was like the Beatles, I wouldn`t care. It`s over. What else do you have to say? What else do you have to say about me, today, as a listener?"

What Simon has to say about himself on "You`re the One" is alternately playful and profound, carefully considered and spur of the moment.

"Stuff came like a torrent and I was very surprised, particularly by the emotional elements," he said. "And it was funny, too. It just seemed simpler. But there`s also something about it that`s very sweet."

One of his most relaxed albums in years, the 11-song "You`re the One" features the same international cast of musicians that backed him when he toured last year on a double-bill with Bob Dylan. Simon will promote his new album with TV appearances and will be the musical guest on the Nov. 4 edition of "Saturday Night Live."

"You`re the One" offers a thoughtful, sometimes whimsical, treatise on youth, aging, love and the intricacies of seeking and sustaining a sense of community, belonging and history. All are delivered with the lyrical eloquence and musical sophistication that have long been trademarks of Simon, who turns 59 on Oct. 13 and is the father of three young children - Adrian, 7, Lulu, 5, Gabriel, 2 - by his third wife, former New Bohemians singer-songwriter Edie Brickell, 34. (Simon has a son, Harper, 27, from his first marriage.)

His new album also provides an understated, yet enchanting, summation of where Simon has been in his multifarious career, while offering little indication of where he might be headed next.

"I think that`s accurate," he said, before quickly adding: "I think this (album) is pretty much a step forward."

That it is.SUMMATION CATEGORY

But "You`re the One" is also a refinement of the previous styles he has embraced, which range from gospel, rockabilly and homegrown pop idioms to South African township-jive, Brazilian samba and Puerto Rican plena and bomba. It does not, however, represent the kind of groundbreaking progression as such landmark Simon albums as 1986`s "Graceland," 1990`s "Rhythm of the Saints" and 1997`s "Songs From `The Capeman.`"

"Yeah, I understand that," he said. "Because this album draws from all of my recording career, it`s more in the summation category than those (previous) albums were. ... I don`t really know, to tell you the truth. It`s not the kind of question I ask myself.

"Because I don`t have those feelings; I don`t think anything I do is bold. I just get an idea that interests me. And if the idea draws upon another culture, well, so be it. And that`s the way it had been over the past 15 years, almost, since `Graceland.` And this is now really back to songwriting and melody and rhythm, and (me) playing more guitar. There is not another particular culture" (whose music is featured on "You`re the One").

The role of Simon`s band was extremely important in making his new album.

He usually works mostly on his own to write and hone his songs before entering the recording studio. But for "You`re the One" he interacted almost from the start with the members of his talent-rich band, which features such veteran Simon collaborators as drummer Steve Gadd and guitarist Vincent Nguini and such relative newcomers as percussionist Jamey Haddad and multi-instrumentalist Mark Stewart.

"It was a band that started this album," Simon said. "I had the sound of a band in my head and went looking for it, to find the players to make up that band. And once I had that sound, (the goal) was to play for the fun of it, and we did.

"The music started to evolve from that, and had its own quality. And it also sounded a lot like the other albums I`ve done. It had both qualities, and that felt pretty comfortable. The process was one of the most enjoyable albums I`ve made and, actually, one of the quickest, even though I started two years ago. With one or two exceptions, all the lyrics came lightning-like for me, in a day or two. That`s very fast, and considerably faster than the pace of `Graceland` or `Rhythm of the Saints.`"

He chuckled.

"The lyrics for the song `Graceland` probably took me three to four months, maybe more, for that song alone!" he recalled. "It took a month or two before I even said: `Why am I writing a song about Graceland? I better go there. I don`t even know what I`m doing.`"MUSICAL INGREDIENTS

Simon has long preferred to let his songs speak for themselves, so that listeners can have their own interpretations.

But he`s happy to discuss the musical ingredients of his work, the distinctive mix of Buddy Holly-inspired guitar work and polyrhythmic Afro-Cuban drumming that opens "Old," a wry song (and the first single) from his new album.

"That guitar part came first and it sounded like Buddy Holly, and that`s why I started to sing about (Holly`s) `Peggy Sue,`" Simon explained. "That was the jump-off point. The first line is so important in a song. And I always try and make the first line as if it were two lines that were connected, but then going at an angle, going off in the distance at some kind of angle, the light of the angle.

"You open up (a song) in a certain way, and say: `That`s interesting, but I don`t really know how it ends.` Now if you started with the first line and knew how it would end, you`d be in trouble, because then how would you hold your interest?

"That`s very important, that whole sense of: How do you keep interest? How do I personally keep my interest, and keep from being bored and boring others?"

Simon`s constant quest for surprise and originality is commendable.

But, sadly, it`s all too rare in this age of talent-challenged teen-pop groups, dial-a-rant rap-rockers and all-image/no-content pap-pop confectioners. And that should be a serious concern for any veteran musician - be it Joni Mitchell, Don Henley, Tracy Chapman or Simon himself - who refuses to pander to the fleeting attention spans and superficial aesthetics fostered by MTV and myopic pop radio programmers.

"I sort of preceded my contemporaries in that category, since no one played me on the radio for a long time. They didn`t even play `Graceland` that much on radio," Simon said.

"I think about it, and here`s what I think: Mainstream popular music is mostly about a very young demographic. But mainstream popular music isn`t the whole world. There`s a lot of music going on in the world that`s very, very interesting, and it`s going on all over the world. It`s not withering at all.

"I know a lot of musicians who are extraordinary players and composers, and they are not selling the amount of records that the top-of-the-chart artists are. But they`re working at getting better, and the impact they are having is probably more powerful than whoever the latest teen act is, simply because, well, how powerfully can you have an impact on a 7- or 8-year-old?"

Perhaps thinking of his own young children, Simon laughingly corrected himself.

"Well, as I say that, I think, pretty powerful!," he continued. "But on another level, for more mature listeners, there`s plenty of music that is nourishing enough. So for artists who were once on the charts, and now its tough to get radio-airplay and maybe you won`t be on top of the charts - if that`s the case, you have to think: Is that what I`m really doing?

"Am I in the top-of-the-charts business, or am I in it for the music? If you`re at top of charts, and in it for music, then it`s both. But if the chart success goes away, I don`t think: `This is terrible.` I`m in it for the music. I`m not interested in being No. 1 and repeating myself.

"I`m only interested in what I like. I can`t help it. It`s nice to have a hit, but as far as the work goes, it doesn`t matter if it`s a hit. How others feel about your work is more what counts. That is what counts. That`s the only concern: Is the work good? You can`t be distracted by the fact it was 5 million people, and now its 500,000 (that buy your albums). The record company might be, but the artist shouldn`t."`THE CAPEMAN`

Making an impact on a smaller number of people is something Simon experienced first-hand with his short-lived 1998 Broadway musical, "The Capeman," which he co-wrote with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Derek Walcott.

Simon himself financed much of the $11 million cost of the critically lambasted production, which saw him fire several directors until settling upon famed choreographer Mark Morris, who had never before directed. The show closed after just two months, despite featuring some of the finest songs Simon has written and a cast headed by Ruben Blades and Marc Anthony.

"What I learned from it, musically, was a very good experience," Simon said of his "Capeman" travails. "I worked with new musicians and another culture. And I had to write 30-odd new songs, which taught me how to write stories, which I did anyway, so that was good.

"On the other levels, of course, it was very frustrating that it got dispatched so quickly. That wasn`t what I was hoping for; that was a disappointment. Why did it happen? I don`t know. There are a lot of different theories. My opinion is, it`s a very good piece of work, and I`m proud of it. When somebody does it again, they`ll probably figure out how to do it the way it should be, and that`s what should be done."

He sighed.

"You know, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn`t have made some of the mistakes I made. But I didn`t know, I just didn`t know. It was an artistic try. We didn`t make up a story by focus group, and we weren`t supported by corporations. We were just doing it the old way, which is: `I have an idea and believe in it, and I`m going to do it.`

"And that`s what happened. I guess it was so different that it was hard to see in the context of Broadway. But I thought it belonged. And even though it had a relatively short run, there were still 100,000 people or so who saw it. Maybe it came at the wrong time."

The tone in Simon`s voice made it clear he is still smarting.

But his disappointment about the fate of his first Broadway foray is tempered by his delight regarding his new album. He`s equally excited about his impending tour, which begins Oct. 16 in Sweden, concludes Dec. 9 in New York and exclusively favors intimate theaters over the sprawling venues he performed in last year on his joint-tour with Dylan.

"The tour I did with Dylan was the first one I did in eight years, and when I stopped eight years ago, it was because I didn`t want to do it," Simon said. "But I really did enjoy that tour with Dylan. I like playing with this band, I really liked making this record and I think I`ll like playing it live. I`m not crazy about being away from my family for any long length of time. So I`ll tour long enough to let people know the album is there. And that`s not so long that it will be too hard."

That said, Simon stressed that he doesn`t like making predictions or planning too far ahead.

"The record hasn`t come out yet, and the tour hasn`t happened yet," he said.

"Somewhere around the first of the year I`ll know something I don`t know now, whatever that is. But I`ll know more than I do now, and that will tell me something. If not, it doesn`t matter, because I`ll get back into my family. And at some point in time I probably will think: `I have a good idea for a record,` or somebody else will ask me to do something; people ask me to do things a lot. And then I`ll pick something and try it, but I don`t know what that will be.

"It`s the journey that`s important. The record charts and radio (airplay) are a big distraction. On the other hand, we`re busy human beings and we`ve got to get distracted, otherwise we don`t know what to do with ourselves. I like to be part of an audience, too, and to be surprised. I don`t want to know everything and plot everything out, not at this point in my life.

"I`m just sort of like everybody else in my generation, I guess, just feeling their way. And I have a full plate in front of me."

(c)Copley News Service

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Author: George Varga