among the many reasons to love emusic.com includes their recent addition of columbia records and warner bros. records. the result of this is that i could download my own copy of graceland, the south african pop record by paul simon released in 1986. i grew up listening to my dad's copy, one of his first CDs purchased in 1987.

emusic has the 2004 re-release of this record which includes, among other bonus tracks, a vocals and bass only mix of one of my favorite cuts on the record, "diamonds on the soles of her shoes."

the bass is played by bakithi kumalo, who contributes some stellar fretless work on five tracks of the record. however his work is best on "diamonds" working incredible, rubber tone with some slap and great melodic interjections.

all of this is yet more gratifying being able to hear it without the clutter of a great pop track around it. it's kind a manual on how to play fretless bass in a pop record.

if you're not familiar with this record, do yourself a favor and procure a copy, the re-release, if you can find it.

robb.

It's in my own Top 10 Records of All Time list. I listen to it regularly.

Oooo yeah, I must see about picking that one up!

Can you buy just the one track?

Good question. I'd like to know as well. I have the original recording on vinyl but would love to hear the track you cite.

How about anyone who wants a copy of the one track just mail Robb a dollar and he can email back an mp3?

How would that help the situation?

I think that was one of the last LP's I bought on vinyl. I'm going to the store later. I'll look for the re-release.

After the album was released, WBCN in Boston broadcast a concert from that tour, somewhere I may still have a cassette. One great album from a great songwriter, who knows where to find other great musicians.

OT, but speaking of vinyl, my cousin and her two little dogs are staying with us this week, and this afternoon one of the lovely little canines bit his way through the power cord of my early-1980s-vintage B&O turntable. Sob!

Amazing album, probabaly one of the subliminal influences that made me love bass.

Isn't there a track on there that Bakithi recorded backwards, so the mwah is reversed?

The solo on You Can Call Me Al was recorded frontwards and then played backwards on the finished mix.

It's a slap solo, no mwah.

I don't understand what this means.

learn the music backwards, then record it that way so that when you play it back in reverse, it comes out normal.

robb.

Or... play whatever you want to, and then flip the tape backwards and see what it sounds like.

Wow. That sounds like it would have an extremely low likelihood of sounding good, but what do I know?

To further hijack the thread...

Examples of backwards masking.

Why?

There are so many great songs on that record. "Boy In A Bubble" is my personal fave.

Meh. According to the audio purists, you should have bought an upgraded uber sonically correct-time wound-molecularly hexagraphic power cable from Rapemeforallimworth Cable Company a long time ago.

The Beatles used this effect often: Rain, I'm Only Sleeping, Strawberry Fields....for vocals on the first, guitars on the second and drums on the third.

The first time I heard it was the song, They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha. The flip side of the 45 (which I still have) is the whole song reversed.

With the advent of CD, the whole "flip-side/B-side" concept went away. I think something important was lost due to that, though I"d have to have some more coffee and wake up more before I could expand that idea.

IIRC, Bakithi Kumalo (sp?), was not the only bassist on "Graceland", I believe the great (and greatly underappreciated) Conrad Lozano, of Los Lobos, played bass on "That was Your Mother", and one other tune as well.

I thought it was recorded frontwards and halfway through the solo, the backwards version is added. Apparently if you listen closely you can hear the "split". I really do not recall where I read it, think it was in a BP magazine. And I don't know if I'm right about this, cos I'm usually not

If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me Al

Video w/Chevy Chase -- Priceless

oh, no. it regularly sounds awesome.

alternatively, you could learn your entire song backwards and perform it in video like mute math did:



robb.

Thank you. This just reminds me I need to add this album to my collection again.

The slap solo on "Al" is only 2 bars. The first bar is played forward, and then the second bar is the same first one, played in reverse.
I got to know this around 1996, when I had been playing that song (from about 1988 when I played it live for the first time with one of the cover bands I was in at the time) ALL forward. I learned the whole phrase as if it was played all the way through, and almost 10 years after I read Bakhithi only played the first half!. Imagine my surprise.. (BTW... "Imagine my surprise" is also the title of an album by DREAMS, which was a band in which were Will Lee, the two Brecker brothers, and Billy Cobham, cannot remember who the keyboard and guitar player were. I treasured that LP, which I found for the real cheap on one of my then-frequent visits to pawnshops, and happened to hand it to a friend who could not believe they actually had a group back then, and where Michael Brecker was singing in some Psychedelic style. I never had that LP back again, nor have been able to find it around... )

Oh, and eMusic... I used to have an account there until about a year and a half ago. Yes, you can buy a single track off a record, or the entire record if you want to. Then eMusic started (well, not them exactly, but the record companies they make deals with) putting some restrictions, so if you were in any country other than the States, you would not be able to download certain albums. That is how I lost the chance (by now...) to complete my Frank Zappa collection. But if you happen to live in the States, I am pretty sure you have full access to the entire catalog (last time I wandered around, they got the ENTIRE Norman Granz's Pablo TK records catalog!).

I just bought the track from Amazon for 99 cents.

it's awesome.

Now I want one like that for Peg by Steely Dan.

or The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines by Joni Mitchell (with Jaco on bass).

Oh, definitely!

What he said.

Bass in that tune is so up front in the mix that it already is, for all practical purposes, bass and vocal.

You know, just how it's supposed to be.....