01.Jun.2010 New Album News

According to Roger Friedman, Paul Simon has been a busy man lately:

• His next album, which he’s been working on with Phil Ramone, is almost done and is, according to Paul, his “best work… in 20 years.”
• He’s thinking of asking Bob Dylan to sing on the record.
• He’s moving his back catalogue to Sony/Columbia Records (Paul has been with Warner Brothers since the late 1970s).

Though Friedman gets a detail wrong (Paul received the Gershwin Prize two years ago; he served on the nominating committee that selected this year’s recipient, Paul McCartney), he claims to have gotten the scoop at a Yankee Stadium chat with Simon last Friday night.

News surfaced in March that Paul had conducted a few recording sessions with Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver:

Josh Trivett, Doyle’s new manager, told us that the band had a blast recording with Simon. They were contacted after Paul decided that he wanted to use some bluegrass sounds on this new project. He had asked Jerry Douglas, who has toured and recorded with him in the past, who he should get, and Jerry suggested that he listen to Nashville Bluegrass Band, The Del McCoury Band and Quicksilver. After checking them all out on YouTube, Simon decided that Doyle and company had the sort of blend he liked to hear, and contacted them about coming up to record.

But these were not bluegrass songs they were cutting. Trivett said that one song had a sort of Afro-Cuban beat, but with bluegrass instruments in the mix.

“It was cool to watch him work. After seeing the way bluegrass is produced, it was interesting to see someone who works in a wider spectrum.

The guys were a little uncertain about how they would blend in when they first heard the song, but Paul made it all work perfectly.”

All of the band members were involved in the recording, though Jason Leek just sang and didn’t play bass.

Josh is hoping that an initial conversation about Doyle and Quicksilver doing some shows with Simon after the album comes out in the Fall will come to fruition. Now that would be cool!

Doyle told Carole Beaugard a little more about the recording process:

“Quicksilver played on 3 tracks, and sang on 2. He said that the recording process was so different – very challenging.

Rather than start a song from the beginning, Simon would start at the end and have them sing with the scratch vocal on a loop. This was their rehearsal and Paul suddenly said, ‘lets try one.’

When Paul said ‘we got it,’ Doyle was surprised, but then after thinking about it, realized that it was a very efficient way to get the vocals done quickly.”

Simon & Garfunkel are touring across Canada this summer, with a handful of stops in the U.S.

Update: The post has been updated thanks to Joanna, who pointed out that Paul Simon cannot appear at the June 2nd Gershwin prize concert because he’ll be performing at the annual Children’s Health Fund event, presumably singing with Joan Baez.