New Simon CD buoyant, never boring

By Jay Lustig

The Star Ledger, November, 1997

‘Songs from The Capeman’, Paul Simon’s first collection of new material since 1990’s ‘The rhythm of the saints’, proves there is equal inspiration in the rhythm of the sinners.

‘The Capeman’ is a serious project, portraying convicted murderer Salvador Agrón as a child living in poverty, a teen-age gang member, a prison inmate and, finally, a man who transcends his past. But there’s nothing drab or dour about the music.

Revisiting his doo-wop roots and experimenting with vibrant salsa rhythms, adding plaintive ballads and jazz-tinged soft-rock, Simon has produced an album that’s frequently buoyant and rarely boring.

There are 39 songs in the musical but only 13 here (…). “I had to pick those songs that were most compatible with my voice or the ones that had only one or two characters,” says Simon. “I wasn’t going to overdub myself 40 times.”

The album provides a rough sketch of the storyline while showcasing Simon’s versatility. ‘Satin summer nights’ (featuring Marc Anthony’s sweet, yearning lead vocals), ‘Quality’ and ‘Bernadette’ reflect Agron’s youthful exuberance with rich doo-wop arrangements, while ‘Born in Puerto Rico’ evokes the land of his birth with the sounds of salsa: an unstoppable wave of bongos, congas and other percussion instruments, wildly skittering trumpet solos, deftly syncopated piano chords.

In ‘Killer wants to go to college’, a swaggering shuffle beat echoes the belligerence of an inmate who mocks Agrón’s educational aims. ‘Can I forgive him’, a conversation between Agrón’s mother and the mothers of the two boys he killed, is shocking in its simplicity, with Simon, accompanied only by acoustic guitar, singing lines like “I think you’d have to be Jesus on the cross/ To open your heart after such a loss.”

Simon carefully constructs the arrangements throughout the CD, adding a touch of flute here, a dab of vibes there, blending genres at will. This is the kind of album you can’t imagine a young man doing –only someone with a wealth of musical experience could make it work.

Still, as good as the album is, it’s not as consistently as Simon’s last two efforts, ‘Graceland’ and ‘The rhythm of the saints’.

With his wan vocal tone, Simon is not believable as Virgil, the threatening prison guard, and his final statement as Agrón (“If I travelled my whole life,/ You guys would still be on my case”) lacks the emotional edge it needs.

Occasional touches of heavy-handed preaching don’t help: “The politics of prison are a mirror of the street:/ The poor endure oppression,/ The police control the state,” sings the adult Agrón in ‘Time is an ocean’. True, maybe, but not particularly poetic.

Most of the characterizations are vivid, though some segments become confusing with just one person singing. ‘Born in Puerto Rico’, for instance, includes some conversation, but it’s not until you read the lyric sheet that you realize Simon is portraying both the adult and the teen-age Agrón.

‘Songs from The Capeman’ is best experienced as a whole; the portrait of Agrón is richest when everything is taken in context. That said, most songs work in isolation, and some, like ‘Quality’ and ‘Bernadette’, sound like long-lost hit singles unearthed from a 1959 jukebox.

Simon says he didn’t intend to release an album like this when he started working on ‘The Capeman’. It was only recently  that he changed his mind, realizing that his versions stood up on their own and that the album would help generate interest in the Broadway show.

A full original-cast album is due out by February. “I’m looking forward to producing it and making it something exceptional,” Simon says. Judging by ‘Songs from The Capeman’, there’s little doubt it will be.