Surprised (and pleased) to see the normally interesting but anodyne UCR taking such a(n accurately) scathing hardline against a critical darling like Paul Simon. Don't get me wrong, I too absolutely adore a lot of his material, both group and solo, but what he did on Graceland was reprehensible on many fronts, regardless of its artistic success.
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Should Paul Simon have given more acknowledgement or credit to certain people involved? More than likely, yes.
But several musicians included in the making of Graceland would not have had the careers they did, were it not for Paul. Ray Phiri, Bakiti Kumalo and Joe Tshabalala are three obvious ones. Phiri made hundreds of thousands of Dollars US just from touring with Paul.
Would LBM have had the long, international career they enjoyed without Paul? I'd like to say yes, but it's unlikely.
Had this been the only album Paul Simon made, one could accuse him of fraud. But we all know that to very definitely not be the case.
Just my ten cents worth, yer honour.
Can't really discuss this without bringing up Solomon Linda.
Some of those you tube links are pretty damning ..... While i am not unhappy the music was brought to a wider audience ....Some more public sharing of the credit might have been good also.