Paul Simon – One-Trick Pony (1980/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 00:43:24 minutes | 934 MB | Genre: Rock
Official Digital Download – Source: acousticsounds.com | © Legacy Recordings
Recorded: 1979–1980
Though it was released to coincide with the opening of the film One-Trick Pony, which Paul Simon wrote and starred in, the One-Trick Pony album is not a soundtrack, as it is sometimes categorized, at least, not exactly. If it were, it might contain the Paul Simon song “Soft Parachutes” and other non-Simon music featured in the movie. Instead, this is a studio album containing many of the movie songs, some of them in the same performances (two were cut live at the Agora Club in Cleveland). The record is not billed as a soundtrack, but a sleeve note reads, “The music on this Compact Disc was created for the Paul Simon Movie ‘One-Trick Pony.’” Anyway, if Simon was in fact writing songs for Jonah, his movie character (as seems true of songs like “Jonah,” “God Bless the Absentee,” and “Long, Long Day”), he intended that character to take a somewhat less considered lyrical viewpoint than Paul Simon generally does, but to be even more enamored of light jazz fusion than Paul Simon had been on his last album, Still Crazy After All These Years. Tasty licks abound from the fretwork of Eric Gale, Hiram Bullock, and Hugh McCracken, and the rhythm section of Steve Gadd, Tony Levin, and Richard Tee is equally in the groove. This is the closest thing to a band album Simon ever made, and it contains some of his most rhythmic and energetic singing. But it is also his most uneven album, simply because the songwriting, with the exception of the title song and the ballads “How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns” and “Nobody,” is not up to his usual standard. Maybe he was too busy writing his screenplay to polish these songs to the usual gloss. (It can’t have been than Jonah wasn’t supposed to be as talented as Paul Simon. Could it?) In any case, though the album spawned a Top Ten hit in “Late in the Evening” and may have sold more copies than the film did tickets, it remained a disappointment in both artistic and commercial terms. –William Ruhlmann
Tracklist:
1. Late in the Evening
2. That’s Why God Made the Movies
3. One-Trick Pony
4. How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns
5. Oh, Marion
6. Ace in the Hole
7. Nobody
8. Jonah
9. God Bless the Absentee
10. Long, Long Day
Bonus Tracks:
11. Soft Parachutes (Unreleased Soundtrack Recording)
12. All Because of You (Outtake)
13. Spiral Highway (Unreleased Soundtrack Recording)
14. Stranded in a Limosine
Personnel:
Paul Simon – vocals, guitar, percussion
John Tropea – acoustic guitar
Patti Austin – vocals
Joe Beck – electric guitar
Michael Brecker – saxophone
Hiram Bullock – electric guitar
Jon Faddis – flugelhorn
Don Grolnick – synthesizer
David Sanborn – saxophone
Marvin Stamm – trumpet
Ralph MacDonald – percussion
Randy Brecker – trumpet
Dave Grusin – horn and string arrangements
Gordon Edwards – bass
Steve Gadd – drums, percussion
Eric Gale – guitar
Lani Groves – background vocals
Anthony Jackson – bass
Tony Levin – bass
Irwin “Marky” Markowitz – trumpet
Hugh McCracken – acoustic guitar
Jeff Mironov – electric guitar
Richard Tee – piano, tambourine, background vocals
Bob Friedman – horn and string arrangements
John Garcia – guitar
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