Paul Simon Talks 'So Beautiful' Album, 'Graceland' Reunion Tour

"Songwriter" is the title of Paul Simon's first compilation released by Sony Music. It's a title he takes seriously, the job description he holds closest to his heart, and an area in contemporary pop music that he finds has become emotionally vacant.

Simon's April release, "So Beautiful or So What," his first project since joining Concord Music Group, was a healthy reminder that Simon continues to be one of pop music's greatest songwriters, a title he's laid claim to for 45 years. "The Sound of Silence," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Graceland," "The Obvious Child" and the new "Rewrite" -- all featured on Songwriter -- are highlights of a canon that seems to never peak in quality, a collection of personal yet universal songs that touch on a multitude of musical styles far beyond the original folk of his beginnings.

In lieu of his mammoth success as a recording artist, it's easy to overlook the fact that Simon spent years honing his craft as a songwriter prior to Simon & Garfunkel's 1965 breakout hit, "The Sound of Silence." He wrote and recorded in a variety of settings with Carole King and others, working as a song-plugger for music publisher E.B. Marks and scoring a pop hit as co-author of "Red Rubber Ball" by the Cyrcle.

"I really see myself as a songwriter," Simon says as he gears up for second round of U.S. touring behind "So Beautiful or So What." "Next is a record maker and third is as a performer. I like all the aspects of my career, but as a songwriter-that's my first love. By calling the album 'Songwriter' it says, 'Pay attention to the songs.' ...There are probably five or maybe 10 songs I've written that I have always thought were good songs. Maybe not hits or particularly well-known, but examples of my writing that have traveled well over the decades."

He runs down the list: "Peace Like a River," from his 1972 debut solo album; "The Late Great Johnny Ace," which he wrote after the murder of John Lennon; "Rene and Georgette Magritte with the Dog After the War," from 1983's "Hearts and Bones" ("It was a surrealistic song about a surrealistic painter," Simon says); "Darling Lorraine," from 2000's "You're the One," which "is one of the best songs I ever wrote, but it's seven minutes long so it never got played on the radio"; and "Tenderness," which gospel group the Dixie Hummingbirds recorded with him and preferred over their other collaboration, "Loves Me Like a Rock." "I thought that was pretty good for a young guy to write," he says of the recording from 1973.

While Sony Legacy is pushing its new compilation -- his first four solo albums from the early to mid-'70s were also released in June -- Concord is entering the second phase of its promotions for the album, which the label sees as having a life span of more than a year, possibly two. As part of its December pledge drive, PBS will air a video of Simon's June concert at New York's Webster Hall that'll be available on DVD. Simon, who'll only swap out three songs from the April set list, is on a U.S. tour that wraps Dec. 6, and he's already planning a trek for next year.

"We're in the very early stages of creating a 'Graceland' reunion for the second quarter of next year," Simon says, planning a tour that, when it played around the world in 1987, had a 24-member ensemble.

In July, with the 25th anniversary of "Graceland" looming, Simon returned to South Africa with his band and performed with trumpeter Hugh Masekela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo for a crowd of 300. Director Joe Berlinger, whose credits include documentaries on the West Memphis Three and Metallica, shot the performance for a film that'll be included in a 25th-anniversary boxed set that Sony Legacy will release in late spring. Berlinger's movie is also expected to be submitted to film festivals.

"The documentary," Simon says, "took me back to the artistic aspects and the political aspects of making 'Graceland' and the controversy that surrounded it and how it was resolved, plus what remains of it and what we learn from it."

As reviews have pointed out, "Graceland" and "So Beautiful or So What" share a fair number of traits -- Simon's phrasing, which he says he has worked on to hide the lack of power in his voice; the African touches; and the inspiration of black music from the American South.

Robert Smith, VP of A&R and artist and content development at Concord Music Group, says "So Beautiful or So What" "is so new, but stylistically it reflects back on his career. It's good that it will coincide with 'Graceland'--the two stand side by side very well."

The genius of celebrating "Graceland" and "So Beautiful or So What" is the seamless way in which music from the two albums mesh. "Graceland," the first international "world music" hit, brought together South African township jive, a cappella, zydeco and Mexican conjunto; "So Beautiful or So What" combines gospel, the guitar music of Mali and Bo Diddley. Simon sees it as much more.

"It felt, not intentionally, like the recapitulation of the whole career," he says of "So What." "I started by writing the ballads, because I didn't want to start with the rhythm tracks, which is the way I have worked since [1990's] 'Rhythm of the Saints.'

"After I made up a guitar lick for 'Rewrite' I brought in a kora player that gave it an acoustic African feeling. Then I went to 'Getting Ready for Christmas Day.' That track has a Bo Diddley feel to it, a foot-stomping late-'50s/early-'60s New York feel. Once we added the sample of Rev. J.M. Gates it made the whole thing quite unusual. I'm using old sounds a lot-and always have--then some of the African things I am comfortable with. It was a track that worked--my favorite track on the whole album."

Early rock'n'roll and gospel from the '30s and '40s -- B.B. King turned him on to the Golden Gate Quartet -- were primary influences on the album, which he says was recorded with "almost no bass, very little instrumentation and nothing from within the Pro Tools vocabulary."

Simon began work on the album on his own dime in early 2010. His deal with Warner Bros. was ending--"I wanted to leave. I was frustrated" -- and when he left, he took with him the 12 albums in his catalog. Those titles wound up at Sony Legacy, the home of his five Simon & Garfunkel studio albums and other related material.

With much of "So Beautiful or So What" completed, he took the album to several labels and played it for A&R executives and label heads, and was most impressed by the enthusiastic attitude of Concord's Smith.

"I was stunned by how good and contemporary it was," Smith says. "For a label like ours it was a good fit--we're very good at reaching an adult audience, but we have to use alternative means. This was done so far in advance of its release that we had the opportunity to set it up before it came out. By then, every song on the album was available as a stream."

The response was significant. "So Beautiful or So What" posted Simon's highest first-week chart position, No. 4 on the Billboard 200, on sales of 68,000 copies the week of April 12, according to Nielsen SoundScan. With 254,000 total units sold, it'll likely top his last album for Warner Bros., "Surprise," which has sold 296,000. The album is one of Concord's best sellers this year, alongside Alison Krauss' "Paper Airplane" (284,000).