Paul Simon: Still Crazy After All These Years (Expanded + Remastered) CD Track Listing

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Paul Simon Still Crazy After All These Years (Expanded + Remastered) (1975)
2004 Warner Strategic Marketing\n\nOriginally Released October 1975\nCD Edition Released \nRemastered + Expanded CD Edition Released July 13, 2004\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: The third new studio album of Paul Simon's post-Simon & Garfunkel career was a musical and lyrical change of pace from his first two, Paul Simon and There Goes Rhymin' Simon. Where Simon had taken an eclectic approach before, delving into a variety of musical styles and recording all over the world, Still Crazy found him working for the most part with a group of jazz-pop New York session players, though he did do a couple of tracks ("My Little Town" and "Still Crazy After All These Years") with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section that had appeared on Rhymin' Simon and another ("Gone at Last") returned to the gospel style of earlier songs like "Loves Me Like a Rock." Of course, "My Little Town" also marked a return to working with Art Garfunkel, and another Top Ten entry for S&G. But the overall feel of Still Crazy was of a jazzy style subtly augmented with strings and horns. Perhaps more striking, however, was Simon's lyrical approach. Where Rhymin' Simon was the work of a confident family man, Still Crazy came off as a post-divorce album, its songs reeking of smug self-satisfaction and romantic disillusionment. At their best, such sentiments were undercut by humor and made palatable by musical hooks, as on "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," which became the biggest solo hit of Simon's career. But elsewhere, as on "Have a Good Time" (written for but not used in the film Shampoo and perhaps intended to express the shallow feelings of the main character), the singer's cynicism seemed unearned. Still, as out of sorts as Simon may have been, he was never more in tune with his audience: Still Crazy topped the charts, spawned four Top 40 hits, and won Grammys for Song of the Year and Best Vocal Performance. [In 2004, Warner Strategic Marketing reissued Simon's studio albums as remastered editions with bonus tracks, packaged in a cardboard digipack. Like the other Simon reissues in this series, the remastering is excellent. Still Crazy has the fewest number of bonus tracks out of any of the reissues -- just two previously unreleased cuts, one a loose and appealing demo of "Slip Slidin' Away" (later released on the compilation Greatest Hits, Etc.), the other a demo of "Gone at Last" recorded with the Jessy Dixon Singers that plays up the song's gospel origins quite expertly.] ~ William Ruhlmann\n\nAmazon.com essential recording\nPaul Simon's third solo album unifies the varied threads running through its predecessors--confessional ballads, wily story songs, agnostic spirituals and snapshots of modern life, circa 1975, are extensions of the models on his self-titled debut and--There Goes Rhymin' Simon. Here, Simon and producer Phil Ramone establish a more cohesive, explicitly urban setting that burnishes the artist's acoustic folk accents to spotlight his sophistication as an inventive composer and, as always, deft wordsmith. Included is his last great collaboration with Art Garfunkel, the bittersweet "My Little Town," a pop gospel romp with Phoebe Snow on "Gone at Last," and the sly adulterer's solution of "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" (arguably the antithesis of Willie Dixon's classic "29 Ways"), along with the tender "I Do It for Your Love" and the woozy, dissolute "Have a Good Time." Best of all, of course, is the brilliant title song, shifting from anecdotal verse to soaring bridge and colored by keening strings and Phil Woods's knowing tenor-sax solo. Simon was crazy, like a fox. --Sam Sutherland \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nSimon turns inward, July 12, 2002\nReviewer: VoodooLord7 (Oklahoma, USA)\nComing on the heels of Paul Simon's first two light and somewhat carefree albums was the darker, more introspective, and subtly beautiful Still Crazy After All These Years. Making a shift from acoustic guitar to electric piano as well as from subtly humorous narrative songs to more abstract, personal vignettes, Simon here made a clean break from his first two records. The lyrics focus mostly on lost love, with some very tender vocals from Simon, who here reminds that he is, in fact, a fine singer - displaying some astonishing vocal performances here in some actual fine singing, before he retreated into the sort of half-singing/talking that would come to dominate his later albums (this album also features a duet with Art Garfunkel and an excellent one with Phoebe Snow.) The music matches the words: the album is infused with the sound of the electric piano (an instrument which, outside of Steely Dan, is strangely rare in rock music), and epic strings. It seems to have been heavily influenced by its producer, the legendary Phil Ramone. Indeed, this album seems to foreshadow the producer's later hugely successful collaborations with Billy Joel. There are several truly great songs here (the title track, 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover), some good but not great ones (My Little Town, I Do It For Your Love, Gone At Last), and some throwaways (Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy, You're Kind) - but, overall, it's a good, solid record. Although in a year that contained masterpieces from Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, and Elton John - to name just a few - one can easily question whether or not it deserved it's Album of The Year Grammy, Still Crazy After All These Years is certainly a fine Paul Simon album, and an essential one for any fan.\n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\n70s Classic Still Essential After All These Years, September 16, 2000\nReviewer: Anthony G Pizza "trivialtony" (FL)\nIn his book chronicling American life during the 1970s, David Frum charted the changing relationships between sexes, decay in city life, abandonment of religious and family traditions in search of self. He added that many luxuriated themselves in music from the decade's singer/songwriters, who emotionally summed the era's self-absorbtion. \nOr, in Paul Simon's case, epitomised it. "Still Crazy..." is a snapshot of mid-70s, post-hippie urban life as vivid, detailed and episodic musically and lyrically as Simon & Garfunkel statements like "Bookends" were sweeping and anthemic. Such was the low-key prescence here that Simon, upon winning a 1976 Grammy award for his work, thanked recurrent winner Stevie Wonder for not releasing an LP that year. \n\nFor this project, Simon and producer Phil Ramone gathered the royalty of what, 15 years later, became "smooth jazz." Bob James arranged strings on several tracks. Percussionist Ralph McDonald and drummers Grady Tate and Steve Gadd (his drums kick-start "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover") turn in stellar work (McDonald later played on "Saturday Night Fever.") David Sanborn and Michael Brecker turn in fine sax solos. (Brecker, so say the liner notes, actually plays "Still Crazy" 's solo while Phil Woods contributed on the equally tasty "Have A Good Time.")\n\nAtop this lush musical carpet, Simon laid restrained melodies and knotty vignettes on middle-aged urban life. "You're Kind" plays like a straight, dry love song until its punch line hits like a "Seinfeld" re-run. The black rainbow and deceased ballplayer in "My Little Town" and "Night Game," respectively, capture childhood's frozen, dashed dreams. But "Have A Good Time" and the title song convey a survivor mentality with sly wit missing from the Eagles' bombastic, similar-themed "Take It To The Limit."\n\nThis LP is credited with influencing New York-centric, lyrically world-weary work from Harry Chapin, Billy Joel, (who recruited McDonald and Ramone for the "Stranger" sessions) and even Woody Allen, whose "Annie Hall" featured Simon and played from a similar world-view. Joel would sell more LPs, Allen more show tickets than Simon, whose work before with Simon & Garfunkel and after with "Graceland" received more acclaim. But "Still Crazy After All These Years" remains essential to any 70s music collection and important to any study of that fascinating, transitional decade.\n\nHalf.com Album Credits\nArt Garfunkel, Contributing Artist\nBob James, Contributing Artist\nDavid Sanborn, Contributing Artist\nJoe Beck, Contributing Artist\nPatti Austin, Contributing Artist\nPheobe Snow, Contributing Artist\nSteve Gadd, Contributing Artist\nToots Thielemans, Contributing Artist\nToots Thielmans, Contributing Artist\nJerry Masters, Engineer\nPhil Ramone, Engineer\n\nAlbum Notes\nPersonnel: Sivuca (vocals, accordion); Patti Austin, Phoebe Snow, Art Garfunkel (vocals); Hugh McCracken, Joe Beck, John Tropea, Pete Carr, Jerry Friedman (electric guitar); Toots Thielemans (harmonica); David Sanborn, Mike Brecker, Phil Woods, Eddie Daniels (saxophone); Leon Pendarvis, Richard Tee (piano); Bob James (electric piano); Barry Beckett, Ken Asher (keyboards); David Hood, Gordon Edwards, Tony Levin (bass guitar); Grady Tate, Roger Hawkins, Steve Gadd (drums); Ralph McDonald (percussion); Rev. Jessy Dixon & The Chicago Community Choir, Valerie Simpson (background vocals).Paul Simon.\n\nProducers: Paul Simon; Phil Ramone; Art Garfunkel.\n\nSTILL CRAZY marked the end of one era for Simon and pointed toward the beginning of another. Simon was always the kind of artist whose growth could be easily measured from album to album, as he progressed from and expanded upon his previous work. The songs here are the furthest logical extensions of the songwriting style he developed in the early '70s. The musical and lyrical sophistication of said style is at its apex; it was the best Paul Simon album possible at that time.From the brooding sexual disconsolation of "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" to the the barely veiled psychosis of the title track, STILL CRAZY is full of expertly crafted songs of neurosis and disaffection. Also at its peak is the Randy Newmanesque irony Simon was fond of practicing in the '70s, as on "You're Kind" and "Have A Good Time." Listeners must have thought there was nowhere left for Simon to go after this seeming creative peak. Little did they know, they hadn't heard nothin' yet.
This rock cd contains 12 tracks and runs 45min 34sec.
Freedb: 9b0aac0c
Buy: from Amazon.com

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