Forty years on, the furore over Paul Simon’s Graceland seems almost quaint
From our UK edition
‘The story of Graceland’s origins,’ writes Ashley Kahn in his deep dive into Paul Simon’s multi-million-selling album, ‘is the story of a cassette: a bootleg tape.’ Entitled Accordion Jive Hits, Volume II, and containing a collection of decade-old Mbaqanga songs from the townships of black South Africa, it had been lent to Simon in 1984 by the Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Heidi Berg. She had come to know the musician through his friend and neighbour, Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live, and Simon had offered to produce her. She explained she needed the tape back, as it belonged to someone else, but that this was essentially what she had in mind for her next record – though there were many obstacles to working with musicians in apartheid-era South Africa.
