Okay, so Paul Simon isn't exactly "off beat." You won't find him spinning at Avalon, or opening at a hometown club, or at the obscure locations our normal Offbeat participants frequent.
But sometimes a big league player takes a step back to try out something different - let's call it art for art's sake. You might have heard of Simon's short-lived Broadway musical The Capeman; and if not, you've probably at least heard of its unfortunate demise.
The production was a pet of Simon's. He spent eight years researching the tale of Salvador Agron, a notorious New York City murderer who murdered two Irish teenagers in August of 1959. This 16-year-old Puerto Rican immigrant traveled the streets with his gang, the Vampires, donning a trademark long, black, red-lined vampire cape.
The Capeman, which covered his youth, his crime, and his eventual redemption, opened on Broadway in 1997, and closed down only 68 shows later amid faltering ticket sales and scathing reviews. Most of the critics said the same thing: stellar music, horrendous staging.
I haven't seen the show, yet it makes sense: Simon's two main strengths as a singer and a songwriter are his voice, and his poetry. He's not in the show, so his voice was never part of the score, and perhaps his poetry (along with co-writer Derek Walcott's) was obscured by visuals that, apparently, were not up to par.
Songs from the Capeman is a quality purchase for this reason. This album is not the score from the play - rather, it's 13 of the 30 songs, sung by Simon himself. His songwriting talent makes him a gifted storyteller, and with this disc he gets a change to express his eight-year passion through his own words and music.
Perhaps The Capeman would have been best left as a concept album. Simon's songs aren't catchy enough, or flashy enough, or sweeping enough to captivate the theatergoer, and I can't imagine visuals that could make them come to life onstage.
They do, however, sparkle on record. With Songs from the Capeman? Simon fuses his trademark style with a different sort of flavor - this time, Latin and doo-wop harmonies combine in an appealing mix. The songs play out like a street-corner quartet in Spanish Harlem, sweet love songs with attitude that gel together to tell Agron's tale. In "Bernadette" he sings to his lover that "When the leaves are dark I've got a hiding place in Central Park." These heartwarmers are offset by Agron's time in prison, serving time for a crime he feels no remorse for: "Killer wants to go to college/Another bullshit degree."
This may not be Simon's story, but the Simon-esque flavor never leaves Songs. Lines like Born in Puerto Rico's "No one knows you like I do/Nobody can know your heart the way I do/No one can testify to all that you've been through/But I will," are purely him.
Marc Antony (of "I Need to Know" fame) starred in the musical, and guest vocals here in the charming "Satin Summer Nights," a throwback to '50s high school dances ("I know that these jitterbug days I'm livin'/Well, they won't last for all of us/But they'll last for a long summer night."). He captures the innocence of a teenager in love - innocence that there for any 16-year-old. Even one accused of murder.
Simon loves his subject - The Capeman was as much a research project for him as it was an artistic endeavor. Just like Graceland's jaunt into African rhythms, and Rhythm of the Saints' South American drum beats, he doesn't just draw from inspirations - he takes them head on. He it the right way, while still staying true to the poetry and style that makes him legendary.
