Paul Simon - Hearts and Bones

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by yesstiles, May 14, 2007.

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  1. Rickchick

    Rickchick Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    I worked at WEA when Hearts and Bones was released. The word was that Paul wiped Art off the album because the songs were too personal. That makes sense to me.

    And as much as I love Graceland, this is his best album.
     
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  2. Peace N. Love

    Peace N. Love Forum Resident

    Yes, that's re-affirmed in Hilburn's book. I still would like to hear the S&G version, though - certainly more than a Graceland remix album! :)
     
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  3. Jamey K

    Jamey K Internet Sensation

    Location:
    Amarillo,Texas
    It's my favorite of his solo albums.
     
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  4. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    I recal hearing Art-ful mixes of some of these on Y'all's Tube some years ago....
     
  5. Ken K

    Ken K Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sayreville, NJ USA
    My question would be, erased from the multi-track tapes, or remixed without Art's vocals? I would think it would be a lot of trouble just to erase certain vocal tracks on a batch of songs. A remix would be a lot easier.
     
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  6. pool_of_tears

    pool_of_tears Searching For Simplicity

    Location:
    Midwest
    Probably remixed without Art’s vocals.
     
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  7. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    It’s not difficult to erase something, and Paul probably needed the tracks to record his own harmonies.
     
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  8. Kiss73

    Kiss73 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    For reasons I cannot explain, to this day, this is the only Paul Simon album I do not own.

    I am familiar with the songs Train in The Distance, Rene & Georgette and Hearts & Bones from the Negotiations & Love Songs compilation and I guess never felt there was anything else on the album to justify a purchase.

    Might need to bite the bullet and go for it.
     
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  9. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    No one likes Simon & Garfunkel more than me, and ordinarily I'd be in the position of lobbying for Art's vocals on any album he did with Paul - but not in this case.

    I discovered HEARTS AND BONES very late - just a couple of years ago - probably a page ago in this thread. I don't think I liked the title, and I wasn't "ready" for new Paul Simon material at the time. So it came and went. I heard "The Late Great Johnny Ace" on the reunion in Central Park concert and found it an odd song, made even odder by the wacko who stormed the stage during it. And through some box sets and throwaway singles collecting over the years, managed to own about half of the tracks from the album.

    One day, probably spurred on by something here at SHF, I started assembling those tracks from the box sets, compilations and 45s into a sort of album preview and was totally impressed by what I had dismissed all those years ago. And I just had to find me a copy of the full album, so I scoured eBay and found an old WB CD. What a treat it was to hear the whole album in context. At no point in this process was I aware of any Art Garfunkel participation early on. And after hearing - and really loving - the album as is, I have no desire to hear Artie on this very-much Paul Simon album.

    The album is now a desert-island-type album in my estimation, and it deserves to stand on its own. It makes me sad to see discussion of it always seeming to turn toward the "what-if" about Mr. Garfunkel.
     
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  10. pbuzby

    pbuzby Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, US
    I recall reading Paul saying once that it was too hard for him to work with Art in the studio and that he thought up the "songs were too personal" explanation to be nice to Art. The Hilburn book mentions both issues.
     
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  11. Peace N. Love

    Peace N. Love Forum Resident

    I agree it may very well be better as a solo album. My perception is skewed by having originally heard "Think Too Much" and "Cars are Cars" performed live by S&G, in the context of being songs from their forthcoming reunion album; and by having heard Art's lush "laughing boy" vocal on the bootleg take of "Train in the Distance."
     
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  12. ChuckyBuck

    ChuckyBuck Forum Resident

    Location:
    Albuquerque, NM
    How is the vinyl reissue on this? I've got an original with a bit of crunch on it but not bad really. Thanks.
     
  13. Yovra

    Yovra Collector of Beatles Threads

    I knew Paul Simon for ages when I stumbled on this album and for me it’s become a great favourite. Highlights are the title track, the acoustic/slow version of ‘Think Too Much’ and Train In the Distance. ‘The Late Great Johnny Ace’ is the best Lennon tribute I’ve ever heard.
     
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  14. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Always liked it the way it is.
     
  15. ChuckyBuck

    ChuckyBuck Forum Resident

    Location:
    Albuquerque, NM
    Yeah. I'm not really looking for it to be better, just not worse.
     
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  16. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Sorry. Wasn't intending to be snarky.
     
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  17. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    The 'too personal' explanation is credible, but so is that Simon found working with his old partner difficult (they'd been seeing rather a lot of each other since 1981, and maybe familiarity bred contempt).

    I first heard H&B exactly a year after its release - on vinyl, borrowed from the library. My first impressions were of how miserable PS looked in the b&w photo on the inner sleeve. The songs are all high quality, although there are a couple of lesser tracks (discussed already on this thread) that I don't think necessarily let the side down. Listening to it, I get the impression of an artist trying to do several things at once: prove to the world that he still has all his songwriting chops intact and better than ever; make serious statements relevant to the world and his generation's place in it as of 1983; make an album that sounds absolutely up to the minute without being trendy and soulless; and hopefully fire off a couple of hit singles, too.

    To my mind, he achieves most of those aims (Allergies could have been a hit, but the subject matter is too bleak) yet the album famously failed to enhance his profile and didn't shift many units, so Paul Simon ended up looking like a has-been after all. I think this album's relative failure served notice that he had to do something REALLY different to get people to listen.

    For all that, I prefer H&B to Graceland or to any subsequent Paul Simon album: it and Still Crazy...are his greatest works, imo.
     
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  18. Huge fan of this album!! As great as anything he's ever done! Championed it for years as it was his secibd album in a row of lesser sales & then it so overshadowed by the brilliant "Graceland" & was kind of a lost & underappreciated gem in his catalog.

    I first caught songs on the 1983 Simon & Garfunkel Summer Tour where their forthcoming album title "Think Too Much" was even printed on the sleeves of some of the tour shirts. I think they did the fast "Think Too Much", "Song About The Moon", "Cars Are Cars" and possibly "The Late Great Johnny Ace"? 3-5 songs... "Allergies" maybe? I caught him on his supporting tour for the album- the only full solo tour of his career.

    I am thrilled with it being a Paul Simon album myself. I love his vocals on it & don't mind the production at all (the major complaint I ever hear about it).

    That said, I'd still be fascinated to someday hear the Simon & Garfunkel version. With the state of their current relationship I certainly don't see this happening, but... I'd love to see it get a revival via a deluxe edition with the album proper, some demos/outtakes (Maybe live versions from that solo tour) & then the Simon & Garfunkel version with some live versions from that '83 tour.
     
  19. Peace N. Love

    Peace N. Love Forum Resident

    Yeah, it seems unlikely that the the Think Too Much album will come out in the foreseeable future, but I'd still love to hear it. And I base that on, like you, having first heard the songs done by Paul and Artie on the '83 tour, and also by how great Art's voice sounds of the "laughing boy" part of the bootleg version of "Song About the Moon" that has surfaced. Imagine how great it would be to hear him take the bridge of "Rene and Georgette Magritte" ("Side by side, they fell asleep" etc). I've no idea if he actually did a vocal for that, but it's always sounded to me as though it was written for him.
     
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  20. Your original post about seeing that '83 tour was the impetus for my post here.

    Your example was perfect & I too, can hear & imagine those "Art's parts" moments of the would be album. And, while (as I said before) I couldn't be more thrilled with the Paul Simon album it became & all the amazing vocal arrangements & layering he did (which feel at least the equal of anything S & G could have done).... I still would love to so way hear the S & G harmonies for the gorgeous vocal breaks in the title track (meaning "Hearts & Bones") or the bridge you sighted.

    I've posted in other threads here (and maybe even provided links to the article) about an engineer of some sort for those sessions who claimed the whole S & G album was fully finished & rough mixed went home with principle players too... Only finishing touches & final details/mixing was left to be done.... then Paul made his decision & went in & did however much he had to (beyond erasing and/or replacing Artie's parts) & we still got a masterpiece out of it all... and...

    "Citizen Of This Planet" ( written for these sessions) did eventually end up the last officially released Simon & Garfunkel studio track ever released... unless their estates someday see their way to let the full album see the light of day. I doubt that will happen while Paul is still alive (which hopefully will be for a good long while)- thanks to the endless amounts of random mad trash track that Argue seems incapable of ever stopping himself from falling into.
     
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  21. a customer

    a customer Forum Resident

    Location:
    virginia
    Favorites
    01 allergies
    02 train in the distance
    03 late great johnny ace

    Why do so many people dislike allergies I think its a great song (al DiMeola solo awesome)
     
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  22. darling

    darling Senior Member

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    They played all five at some point (Milwaukee 1983 has all of them except Cars are Cars; which they played in Vancouver and elsewhere)
    Johnny Ace was paul solo, I think - just like Central Park

    He did.
     
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  23. Checked set list website & while they had no set list for the Pittsburgh show I saw, the lists for some shows just before & just after & 4 new songs were always featured - "Song About The Moon", "The Late Great Johnny Ace", "Think Too Much (a)" (the faster/poppier one) & "Allergies"... no " Cars Are Cars"...
     
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  24. ChesterB

    ChesterB Well-Known Member

    Location:
    New York, NY
    Here is an interesting tidbit from an article regarding the "Think Too Much Album."

    Think Too Much: The S&G Album That Wasn't

    "The prospect of hearing the Think Too Much album is a tantalizing (if unlikely) prospect. Dan Nash, one of the dozen or so engineers who worked on the album, says, “The entire thing was finished with Artie on it, without a doubt. I have a copy. When Paul made the decision [to make it a solo album], he had Roy Halee make rough mixes of the whole thing.”

    According to Nash, all that was missing was some backing vocals, but the lead vocals by Simon and Garfunkel were complete. “If you heard the rough mixes you’d know all it needs is to be mastered.”

    However, Nash isn’t sure whether the duo had agreed on whether the lead vocals were supposed to be final or just “scratch” vocals.

    Nash feels that the Simon solo version suffered from an attempt to over-compensate for Garfunkel absence. “[Paul] had a clear sense of the structure of the record. But to make the songs sing, he had to come up with musical accoutrements to make it fly. So there were a lot of extra musical parts added – things that were clever, but that weren’t organic.”

    In Nash’s opinion, the Simon and Garfunkel version, even in rough-mix form, is “100 times better than the album that came out.”

    “I recall, and still have somewhere, the rough mixes of the album with Artie on it,” says Arlen Roth. “He was on almost every song, as I recall, and we were all so excited about this being a true S&G "reunion" album, as well as reunion tour! Live, we performed 'Cars are Cars", "Allergies" and "Hearts and Bones".”
     
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  25. Peace N. Love

    Peace N. Love Forum Resident

    The show I was at (Vancouver) had Cars Are Cars, Think Too Much and (I think) Johnny Ace, although I recall the latter was just Paul at the concert.
     
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