RFI: Musicians on "I Know What I Know" by Paul Simon

The Wiki entry on Graceland doesn't seem to have full credits for this track. In particular I'd like to know who's on guitars besides Simon. I'd also like to know if anyone has any info on the Gaza Sisters credited as doing the backing vocals - cursory google searching is not bringing up much.

the vinyl has pretty exhaustive liner notes

I'm not at home with my record collection tho sorry

bump

Bump -- is it possible that the guitarist is Ray Phiri like on most of the other tracks and that the wiki credits are just incomplete?

He supposedly stole from various African musicians,Los Lobos, and some zydeco musicians for that album

http://stereogum.com/archives/video/david-byrne-does-paul-simon-the-worlds-biggest-prick-according-to-some-dude-in-los-lobos_009106.html

he also gave a bunch of s. african musicians exposure they would've never gotten otherwise, resulting in international careers that continue to this day. Really not sure about the whole "Paul Simon stole Graceland" story -- other than the Los Lobos dude, have other musicians who played on it come out and said this?

The zydeco musicians did. Here's more:

“The Boy in the Bubble” was recorded with Tao Ea Matsekha (drums, accordion and bass), from Lesotho. With the Shangaan group, General M. D. Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters (bass, drums, guitar and six female singers), he recorded the tracks for the song that later became “I Know What I Know.” And for another song, later titled “Gumboots,” he cut tracks with the Boyoyo Boys, the group that had first inspired him.

(The quote above is from Stephen Holden’s excellent New York Times article of August 24, 1986, titled “Paul Simon Brings Home the Music of Black South Africa“. It is, unfortunately, locked behind a paywall…)

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/04/02/from-protest-to-collaboration-paul-simons-graceland-and-lessons-for-xenophiles/

yeah I think the accusations of theft are pretty misplaced and overstated - with the exception of the Los Lobos song (which seems like a major dick move, and they were hardly "unknowns" from an obscure country). The liner notes on the back cover of the LP are VERY specific about assigning credit and noting what comes from where and who plays on what. Except for Los Lobos, who are relegated to a single sentence, and don't get a songwriting credit.

The zydeco musicians like Los Lobos complained that they wanted co-credits on the songwriting not just "exposure."

Simon listed folks as playing on the songs but where things matter most monetarily, he took credit.

Yeah, but: (from that article you linked to)
When Graceland was released, it met with two waves of criticism. Some critics accused Simon of exploiting poor, underpaid South African musicians. This seems a bit hard to swallow – in Johannesburg, Simon paid musicians $196.41 per hour, three times the US pay scale at that point for studio musicians. The musicians who shared songwriting credits with Simon continue to benefit from the royalties on the album, which were especially substantial in 1986, it won the Grammy for album of the year, eventually selling 16 million copies. Graceland also raised the profile of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, already a major international act – Simon produced LBM’s subsequent three albums, which sold well in the US and Europe. Bassist Khumalo went on to record with Gloria Estefan and a variety of other US and African acts; Ray Phiri recorded with everyone from Laurie Anderson to Willie Nelson; Isaac Mthsli went on to support Lucky Dube. My guess is that these musicians, all of whom subsequently recorded with Simon, don’t consider themselves to have been exploited by Graceland.

The Los Lobos thing IS weird -- why would Simon do that if he had given credit to the other musicians? Isn't there a demo version of "Myth" on a recent Graceland reissue? Was that Simon's way of asserting that he wrote the song? (I haven't heard it).

On some of the songs, according to the allmusic.com listing of the credits, he does give songwriting credits to others, including "I Know What I know," that lists "Shirinda." But none to Los Lobos or the zydeco musicians.

The Boy in the Bubble Motloheloa, Simon 3:59
2 Graceland Simon 4:50
3 I Know What I Know Shirinda, Simon 3:13
4 Gumboots Masilela, Mkhalali, Simon 2:44
5 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes Shabalala, Simon 5:48
6 You Can Call Me Al Simon 4:40
7 Under African Skies Simon 3:37
8 Homeless Shabalala, Simon 3:48
9 Crazy Love, Vol. II Simon 4:18
10 That Was Your Mother Simon 2:52
11 All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints Simon

Maybe we'll never know! The thing that makes me a little doubtful from the Los Lobos interview is this bit:
At the time, we were high on the musical food chain. Paul had just come off One Trick Pony and was kind of floundering. People forget, before Graceland, he was viewed as a colossal failure. He was low. So when we were approached to do it, I was a way bigger fan than anybody else in the band. We got approached by Lenny Waronker and Mo Ostin who ran our record company [Warner Bros.], and this is the way these guys would talk -- "It would mean a lot to the family if you guys would do this for us." And we thought, "Ok well, it's for the family, so we'll do it." It sounds so unbelievably naïve and ridiculous that that would be enough of a reason to go to the studio with him.
That just seems wrong. Granted, Simon wasn't at the highest point in his career before Graceland, but it's not like he was totally floundering -- he was still one of the biggest selling artists of the 60s-70s! If the dude was viewed as a "colossal failure" ... well, may we all be such collosal failures. I'm sure that even One Trick Pony and Hearts and Bones still sold more than any Los Lobos record.

I'm sure that even One Trick Pony and Hearts and Bones still sold more than any Los Lobos record.

this is easily verifiable. I dunno how well How Will The Wolf Survive sold (which is their only pre-Graceland album) but I was aware of it and heard it and I was just a little kid. I was, by contrast, totally unaware at the time of any Paul Simon output post-70s and pre-Graceland.

The fact that some people understood the mere act of recording with South African musicians (while paying them well and crediting them) to be "exploitation" just smacks of paternalism.

As far as Los Lobos, first of all, while they hadn't had their smash hit yet, Los Lobos was already a commercial, name act at that time, not some podunk, unsophisticated band from the sticks. Even based on their account of how things happened (which Simon disputes), they could have taken a little more care to clarify in advance with Simon just what was being used and who was being credited for what. Second, "songwriting" obviously has a lot of gray area - certain kinds of basic jams/riffs/patterns are used in many songs in a genre without credit or pay. It's not hard to find other South African pop songs that sound like Graceland songs and also that sound like each other. Think of the myriad dub reggae songs that sound similar to one another.

Third, the Los Lobos song isn't really one of the better songs on the record anyway, and if it dropped off the record would be just as big a hit imo.

of course, Simon's supposed borrowing/thievery goes way back -- didn't Martin Carthy accuse him of stealing his arrangement of "Parsley, Sage" from him?

"stealing" arrangements of traditional folk songs seems like a ridiculous accusation imho

I just really don't think the whole album should be tarnished because of what may have partly been a misunderstanding surrounding the creation of one of its least memorable tracks.

I guess Carthy was mainly miffed because Paul just credited "Scarborough Fair" to himself, when it shoulda been "Traditional."
And I like "Myth of Fingerprints"! It's great ...

frankly Myth has some of the best lyrics on the album (the others being the title track and Boy in the Bubble) and I seriously seriously doubt that Los Lobos had anything to do with them. they do not read like Los Lobos lyrics.

Well yeah, that's the other thing - coming up with a riff =/= coming up with a song.

In any case, so I guess the band on "I Know What I Know" is in fact Daniel Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters? And that the guitarist is presumably Shirinda and/or whoever played guitar in his band?

if you are on a mac, option + = will give you ≠

not on a mac

Pulled out the LP.

Credits:
Words by Paul Simon, Music by Paul Simon and General M.D. Shirinda
With General M.D. Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters: Vocals: Paul Simon, The Gaza Sisters Synclavier: Paul Simon

From the liner notes:
The music from I Know What I Know comes from an album by General M.D. Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters, a Shangaan group from Gazankulu, a small town near Petersburg in northern South Africa. As more and more Shangaan people have migrated to Johannesburg, their music has grown increasingly popular, and several Shangaan records have recently become hits. An unusual style of guitar playing and the distinctive sound of the women's voices were what attracted me to this group in the first place.

So no credits to individual members of Shirinda's band. Since the music's lifted from a Shirinda album, I guess that's the place to look for more specific information. (There's some more information about the music here but no credit specifications other than on the album. Maybe Shirinda's the guitar player indeed).

this fragment suggests that Shirinda himself is a guitarist.

Further googling reveals more: He's a guitarist, has 6 wives and 44 children. Busy fella! "I Know What I Know" was originally called "Nkata Mina" and is featured on Shirinda's Xikuma-kumani album. Would love to find that.

Yeah. Not finding any Shirinda records so far except that there's some comp called "African Renaissance Vol 6" that features him.

The sessions were unusual ones. Simon didn’t come into the project with songs – instead, he asked the bands Rosenthal brought into the studio to play different tunes, then asked them to combine a few bars of one with a section from another.

>"Nkata Mina"

have to find this

this is my favorite song on the album by a factor of 30, and it's entirely because of the instrumental & how incredible the Gaza Sisters sound when they come in loud. at first I sort of liked the incongruous way Simon's lyrics about a NYC cocktail party pickup & the gated snare fit with the music, but I'm ready to say goodbye to both of those elements now

always thought the intersection of that song's lyrics, Edie Brickell's lone hit, and Edie and Paul's subsequent marriage was a little creepy

Coming up with riffs =/ songwriting. It's the job of musicians to come up with riffs, and songwriters to organize them.

then again, I believe in being as unprofligate as possible with songwriting.

a composer is someone who puts things together

Los Lobos are obviously responsible for Graceland, which is why there are so many Los Lobos albums as good as Graceland.

that is a mighty fine strawman you built there, pilgrim

Yeah, it's sort of a strawman. But there's definitely a general strain of challops that says that this album isn't really that great because it just relies on afropop and other style musicians and sort of steals their mojo or something.