Ashley Kahn is a Grammy-winning music journalist and the author of Days of Miracle and Wonder, a thoughtful consideration of Paul Simon's landmark 1986 album, Graceland. The innovative record mixed rock, folk, zydeco, and South African genres such as Township jive, making it both enduringly popular and a focal point of criticism. Kahn discusses all that and more here.
The Writer's Life
Ashley Kahn: Music on Its Own Merits
Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland is one of the landmarks of 20th century music. An innovative melding of rock, folk, zydeco, and South African genres such as Township jive, the album was an enormous critical and popular hit. It was also controversial, as Simon was accused by some of cultural appropriation and was criticized by others for breaking the boycott of South Africa over apartheid. Ashley Kahn, a Grammy-winning music journalist, writes about Graceland in Days of Miracle and Wonder (Atria; reviewed in this issue); here he discusses the album's creation and its enduring influence.
How did being part of the tour production team for Graceland and tour manager for Ladysmith Black Mambazo influence you as a journalist?
I had dabbled in music journalism in high school and college but set aside the typewriter for the world of concert production and tour management. As the 1990s came to a close, so did my interest in being on the road. I got off the bus, and when I returned to writing about music, I found my perspective, especially on popular music and the notion of genres, had changed. I no longer thought as a critic but as a participant with an appreciation for all aspects of what went into music creation.
I also found myself thinking about music as musicians did--on its own merits, free of judgment and filters or the need to categorize. I found myself on those buses listening to what the groups wanted to hear.
In the '00s, Da Capo published the first of a short-lived annual series, "The Best Music Writing of...." Nick Hornby was a guest editor. His opening essay was a sort of anti-critics creed. He wrote that no music is made without sacrifice and feeling, and that writing about music demanded a "generosity of spirit." That's a good summation to describe what my touring years provided me as a writer.
Your previous books are about legendary jazz albums. How would you compare their impact to Graceland?
Every great recording has its moment in the sun, and then it joins the list of classic recordings. Once they attain a certain level of timeless respect and reverence, they tend to be passed down, generation by generation. Kind of Blue [Miles Davis], A Love Supreme [John Coltrane], and Graceland have all achieved that level and are more alike than not.
All three artists continue to shape how music is performed and recorded today. Tracing that influence with any degree of accuracy is an entirely different matter. That's where the challenge comes as a music writer and historian. And when one considers the era and circumstances in which each album was made, they each have fascinating, multi-tiered stories to tell. For a writer, that's gold.
How do you think industry changes since the 1980s have affected the music produced today?
The era in which Graceland was born is long gone. The hegemony that record companies, radio networks, and the like once held is now in the hands of streaming services and other online platforms. For good or bad, the impact of the Internet continues to be a fragmentation of pop culture. The idea of a recording that everyone is listening to is less likely than ever, and with a dwindling revenue stream.
Paul Simon's primary complaint about the music scene of the '80s was how centralized everything had become as the industry enjoyed greater profits than ever, with a stifling effect on creativity. It couldn't be further from that now. One can achieve a level of global reach with a 20-second TikTok video.
Was your process in writing Days of Miracle and Wonder different from your other books?
Great question. While I found myself asking the same questions I did with other recordings, the manner in which I did it was vastly different in that so much of our collective cultural history is now online. This includes the words of musicians and music-world folks who are no longer with us but whose stories, memories, and insights can be found in print and online. This meant needing to plan on being home a lot--so my process included scheduling time to be seated, and to get up stretch and take walks regularly. Keeping the fridge well-stocked. Reaching out by e-mail or text to Graceland participants around the globe to double-check a fact or to add some insight.
Do I miss face-to-face interviews and getting up and visiting libraries, the feel of hardback books and old magazines? Of course. But at the same time, now I can satisfy a burning desire to know a certain fact or figure or piece of information that much faster, and I love that.
Can you think of other popular artists who created an album the way Simon did with Graceland: traveling to a distant land, assembling musicians they'd never worked with, and so on?
Graceland was nowhere near the first such album. Simon had done that with Andean music from South America in the '60s and reggae musicians in Jamaica in the early '70s. Malcolm McLaren--former manager of the Sex Pistols--and Elton John had preceded Simon in recording South African music. (But neither suffered the undying criticism Simon dealt with, for various reasons.) And the general interest in supporting Africa from the music industry in the '80s--BandAid in the U.K., "We Are the World" in the U.S.--all that preceded Graceland.
Interestingly, in the late '00s and early teens, with the advent of groups like Vampire Weekend, tUnEyArDs and others, there was suddenly a number of recognizable heirs apparent to the Graceland sound, re-created not by collaboration but self-generated, intrinsically. I liked tracing that effect much more than trying to find others who were simply following Simon's playbook.
What albums by other recording artists would you say have had an effect as great as that of Graceland?
I don't want to be the arbiter of what is and isn't classic with any sense of self-importance. Then again, there are recordings that just are there on that list. One measure is they have never been out of print. Another is that they continue to be discussed, and these titles and artists get inducted into halls of fame.
I think the most effective measure is if I can continue to listen to a recording for the 100th, 200th, or 300th time and it still has something to say, that it still inspires, and that maybe I hear something new. Because the music hasn't changed. I have.
What other Simon recordings would you recommend to someone unfamiliar with his work?
Start with the best Simon & Garfunkel albums. They are an essential part of Americana of the '60s and '70s, especially Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water. Add in a number of Simon's 1970s LPs, like There Goes Rhymin' Simon and Still Crazy After All These Years. Two of Simon's best recordings are the albums he created just before Graceland (Hearts and Bones) and right after (Rhythm of the Saints.) And don't sleep on his later albums, especially So Beautiful or So What, with a title that has to be a knowing nod to Miles Davis. --Michael Magras
Mildred Pitts Walter, "a Los Angeles schoolteacher who grew up in the Jim Crow South and wrote award-winning children's books focusing on Black characters, filling a void in her students' reading material," died on May 19 at age 103. Born at a logging camp in Sweetville, La., she wrote more than 20 books that "changed the course of children's literature" and won the Coretta Scott King Award for Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World (1986).