The Library of Congress established a new award, the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, recognizing greatness over a long career and last month Paul Simon became the first recipient. An excellent choice, IMHO, as Simon’s music is (to transplant Cringley’s concept) invisible; that is, his songs are so much a part of our culture that they’re… just there. You hear the opening notes and make the connection.
To give him the prize, they put on a big show last month in D.C. with Simon and a group of hugely talented artists performing his songs and PBS was there to capture it. I just finished seeing the HD cablecast recorded the other night and highly recommend you watch it, there are many scheduled showings.
Simon does a terrific version of Bridge Over Troubled Water with Art Garfunkel (who still has the big shock of bushy hair ;), though disappointingly the duo sing no other songs together. Since James Taylor was on the bill and did a few songs I was hoping the three of them would get together for (What a) Wonderful World, but no luck. Ladysmith Black Mambazo did Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes with Paul plus a song of their own and Simon, Stevie Wonder and the Dixie Humminbirds teamed up for Love Me Like a Rock and the very first song was Simon and Wonder on .
My favorite performance was definitely Allison Kraus and Jerry Douglas on an austere, elegiac interpretation of Graceland. With the tempo slowed to about half that of the recorded version and Douglas’s twangy acoustic slide guitar the main backing, Kraus’s vocals were spiritual. Just intense!
Between songs video clips were shown. A very amusing duet on Feeling Groovy by Sesame Street’s Elmo and Grover, the attempt by Charles Grodin to exploit his similar appearance to Garfunkel in an SNL skit, Simon’s sweet performance of Mrs. Robinson in the Yankee Stadium right after Joe Dimaggio passed away and, most memorably, the time George Harrison and Simon performed Homeward Bound on Saturday Night Live, which I’m posting from YouTube:
To be fair, the two also sang Here Comes the Sun, which I love and is also on YT.
Plenty more I’m not listing, absolutely recommended!
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