![]() (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy) Getty Images for The Recording Academy Besides Simon’s own version of “Graceland’s” title track near the end, the record that might be the landmark album of the ’80s is represented by Take 6 channeling Ladysmith Black Mambazo on the a cappella “Homeless” and Angélique Kidjo and fellow South African native Dave Matthews bringing figurative swagger and literal strutting to “Under African Skies” and “Al.”Īngélique Kidjo and Dave Matthews perform onstage during Homeward Bound: A GRAMMY Salute To The Songs Of Paul Simon at Hollywood Pantages Theatre on Apin Hollywood, California. Minor also plays bass in the 17-piece house band he’s assembled, and you may find yourself wondering how the hell he was able to play the signature bass parts on “You Can Call Me Al” so expertly, until it’s announced - from on high, by final presenter Oprah Winfrey - that “the last living member of the ‘Graceland’ band,” Bakithi Kumalo, is also present in the ensemble. It may or may not seem surprising that some of the best stretches of the show come from Simon’s 1987 album of the year winner, “Graceland” - it’s shocking only if you didn’t believe that Rickey Minor would be able to assemble a band capable of playing that stuff to its maximum African-continent potential. None of the other guests quite count as actual ’60s-era contemporaries the way Wonder does, but with other frequent awardees like Bonnie Raitt also on board, it feels like Old Home Week when it comes to this “Salute” almost secondarily serving as a tribute to the Grammys themselves. ![]() With a Paul Simon, you pretty much want something closer to a peer-on-peer review panel, which you’re definitely getting when one of the guests of honor is Stevie Wonder, the only guy who won more album of the year Grammys in the 1970s (three) than the pair of album trophies Simon picked up during that same decade. But it’s fine that they didn’t bring in, like, Gayle for the occasion. There are no sops to the youth vote, except for the inclusion of the Jonas Brothers reviving “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” which, with all due respect to their respect for one of the greats, probably clocks in as the least essential performance here. As Giddens and Simon perform “American Tune,” you may feel like you’ve gone off to find America, and actually kinda succeeded in that search, over the course of just one number.Įverything else about the telecast - which was filmed before a live audience at Hollywood’s Pantages back in April (see Variety‘s next-day coverage here) - feels immaculately chosen by producer Ken Ehrlich, if hardly marked by left-field surprises. But if you have only about a 10-minute stretch to spare for televised non-holiday music in the days leading up to Christmas, maybe make it the closing act of this special - especially the generational handoff number that has one master, Rhiannon Giddens, movingly joining another. Viewers won’t go wrong watching the two-hour entirety of “Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon” tonight on CBS.
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