The Rhythm of the Saints

by Paul Simon

Paul Simon may never live down the way he reinvented himself on Graceland. For nearly 20 years he has been paying court to the musics of the world. But this was the first time he had grafted his own songwriting so closely onto other musics - in this instance, South African township jive or mbaqanga - and it was apparent just how much his waning muse was drawing sustenance from borrowed sources. If only Simon had attempted something musically more radical he might have received less flak for his supposed ‘colonialism’ and aroused fewer of those troubling questions: how much of this music was really his? how were the musicians paid? what sort of plagiarism, if any, was covered up in the credit ‘Words and music by Paul Simon’?

The problems are even more apparent on The Rhythm of the Saints, in which Simon, more discreetly this time, pays homage to Brazil. Again he uses an international cast - Brazilian percussion groups Olodum and Uakti, but also Cameroonian guitarist Vincent Nguni and Americans J.J. Cale and Michael Brecker.

Enjoyable as it is, the album suffers from its low-key approach. The melodic adventure of the more hi-tech Graceland, is lacking here. Strangely enough the feeling on many tracks is that Simon has learnt less from the cultures he visits than from those who have been there before him - in particular Talking Heads, whose approach is evident on The Cool Cool River and the title track.

Besides, the tight-assed reticence of Simon’s voice holds him back. Where experimenters like David Byrne or New York producer Kip Hanrahan involve themselves in Latin styles by jettisoning their reverence and mucking in, Simon’s approach seems hidebound and timid, as if he were trying to hide in the backdrop.

Yet at the same time he seems overimpressed by his own importance as an experimenter: compared with the results when Brazilian artists like Caetano Vaeloso and Tom Ze pay back their debt to US music, this is tame indeed.

Simon claims in the press release: We’re sailing cultural seas that haven’t been charted’. But this misses the point. These seas have been charted plenty; the challenge is to redraw the maps. Simon’s naively reverent approach to cultural exploration fails to take that on board.