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Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

In an airy classroom in Astoria, Queens, one cold January afternoon, Blanca Bohorquez was making her way through an English-language exercise, filling in occasional blanks on a sheet of lyrics to “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” which played on a stereo nearby. Читать далее »

Vampire Weekend’s 2008 debut album was quick to draw frequent comparisons to Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ for its incorporation of African musical influences. But the band members are quick to dismiss the notion.

“In some ways the fact that it’s the only thing that comes up can be kind of frustrating,” said Vampire’s singer and guitarist Ezra Koenig in front of an audience at the TimesCenter on Saturday as part of the New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend event. “It makes it sounds like that we’re totally one-dimensional, that all we do is rip off Paul Simon. Even from the early days that became like a thing. I think the first time [somebody] yelled ‘Paul Simon!’ That was in Omaha, Neb., and I was angry for the rest of the show.” Читать далее »

The early ’80s were an interesting time in the career of Paul Simon. The past glories of hits with Simon & Garfunkel - along with his sizable solo charting - were behind. And he had yet to reinvent himself as a world music maven with 1986’s fine Graceland. His 1980 album One-Trick Pony had yielded a hit with “Late in the Evening,” but the semi-autobiographical film of the same name, in which Simon showcased his acting chops, was widely panned.So this 1980 concert at Philadelphia’s Tower Theater (which has already been previously released on DVD) finds Paul at the precipice. And musically, it was a good, loose place to be.

Never the most demonstrative of live performers, Simon is nonetheless in fine voice on the 11 numbers that survey his career to this point, in front of an appreciative Philly crowd. His soaring take on “Still Crazy After All These Years” is particularly fine, before the song had become the ubiquitous calling card for middle aged men facing mortality. Читать далее »

Art Garfunkel doesn’t kid himself. When he goes on tour, he knows that almost nobody shows up wanting to hear his new songs. No, people come to hear his golden oldies, the long-ago hits with Paul Simon that put Garfunkel in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Читать далее »

Want to have a good, long career as a professional singer? You could do lots worse than to follow the very practical advice of Art Garfunkel, who plays in Raleigh on Friday. There’s an interview with him in Sunday’s paper. And when I asked how he preserves his signature voice at age 67, he reeled off the spiel below with all the aplomb of a performance poet: Читать далее »