Paul Simon's History and Radio

[radio11]

From today's column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Simon says something arresting about America when he was coming up: “My culture was radio. It wasn’t like I was singing the music of Queens, you know? We didn’t have people sitting around on the porches in Queens singing fables about what it was like in Queens in the old days.” What he worked with was AM radio Top 40—the Everly Brothers, the Cleftones. America was becoming less local and regional even then, more a national entity projecting a national sound that generation after generation would imitate, recapitulate, expand on.

 

[TheBigA]

From today's column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

Here's a link to a version of the story on MSN

MSN

Simon was comparing the way he found music to the way people did before radio. Radio changed a lot of things for people who grew up with it. Then other things came along.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Ah, Peggy Noonan. She writes stuff like this:

When Simon & Garfunkel first went on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand,” Mr. Simon was asked where he was from. “Macon, Georgia,” he spontaneously lied. Because it sounded like a real place with a real meaning, not just someplace waves were passing through. I mention this because I think that’s a very American longing, to come from somewhere real, discrete and vividly itself.

As if Queens isn't someplace real, discrete, and visibly itself? Had Peggy never watched All in the Family? Possibly she is over-interpreting, but that little remark comes off to me as implying that people from New York City are somehow not American. To me, Simon & Garfunkel, and by extension Simon himself, could only have come from New York. Every place has its unique characteristics and is "vividly itself" if only one pays attention. And each place in the U.S. is part of the American fabric, whether or not it wants to admit it - or whether or not polemicists want to admit it.

I think Peggy needs to do some in-depth listening, to say the least.

 

[TheBigA]

I think Peggy needs to do some in-depth listening, to say the least.

Peggy Noonan has made a living putting her words in other people's mouths. Most notably Ronald Reagan.

That kinda says it all.

 

[michael hagerty]

Well, before we go busting Peggy for one thing, let's make sure it's not another.

Peggy should have noted that Paul himself confessed after being caught in the lie to Dick Clark that:

"Macon Georgia was where Little Richard is from and it sounded better than Queens, New York."

The admission came soon after the broadcast (Garfunkel busted him for it), and it's been in most Paul Simon biographies for the past 20 or more years.

So, Peggy (and certainly the Wall Street Journal's editors) should have done a better job of attribution, but she didn't put words in anyone's mouth.

Paul himself was on with Stephen Colbert a week or so ago and talked about the influence radio had on his work---specifically, the first time he ran across a station playing R&B. The song playing? "Gee" by the Crows:

And Paul essentially told us about that phase of his life, and radio's role in it in a song 40+ years ago:

 

[TheBigA]

Paul himself was on with Stephen Colbert a week or so ago and talked about the influence radio had on his work---specifically, the first time he ran across a station playing R&B. The song playing? "Gee" by the Crows:

The reason people identify radio as an influence was because it had the ability to make them aware of music they might not have known about had it not been put in front of them. Which is why I feel the various 'classic' formats are pretty useless. All they do is keep you in the silo you already know. If Paul Simon grew up in the era of streaming radio, all he'd know is what he already knew. Even the curated services pick music for you based on what you already like. Using that barometer, you'll never hear anything outside of your silo. Like perhaps The Crows.

 

[michael hagerty]

The reason people identify radio as an influence was because it had the ability to make them aware of music they might not have known about had it not been put in front of them. Which is why I feel the various 'classic' formats are pretty useless. All they do is keep you in the silo you already know. If Paul Simon grew up in the era of streaming radio, all he'd know is what he already knew. Even the curated services pick music for you based on what you already like. Using that barometer, you'll never hear anything outside of your silo. Like perhaps The Crows.

Exactly. Music exploration was a huge part of early pop, rock and R&B radio. A friend of mine is working on a documentary about AM radio and we were talking about the early jocks. The analogy that I used was that guys like B. Mitchel Reed (especially from 1966-1967 on, just before he jumped to FM) were tour guides....their shows were basically "Hey! You have got to hear this!"


But the vast majority of people aren't wired that way. I'm a weirdo. I'll gravitate to something I've never heard, to find out whether I like it, long before I'll punch "play" on an old favorite.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Well, before we go busting Peggy for one thing, let's make sure it's not another.

Peggy should have noted that Paul himself confessed after being caught in the lie to Dick Clark that:

"Macon Georgia was where Little Richard is from and it sounded better than Queens, New York."

The admission came soon after the broadcast (Garfunkel busted him for it), and it's been in most Paul Simon biographies for the past 20 or more years.

So, Peggy (and certainly the Wall Street Journal's editors) should have done a better job of attribution, but she didn't put words in anyone's mouth.

Her mistake, though, was to attribute motive, substituting her own motives for Simon's much more straightforward explanation. I wouldn't expect the editors of the WSJ's editorial page to catch that, since that attribution of motive fits well with the standard 13th-century viewpoints of that newspapers. (I miss the days when the WSJ's insanity was confined to its editorial pages and kept out of its excellent straight-news and business-news coverage. Now it's all jumbled together and the quality of the news report has declined as the Journal chases various super-upscale demographics.) As for Peggy, I think her whole career has been to utter a string of platitudes in search of a coherent idea.

Paul himself was on with Stephen Colbert a week or so ago and talked about the influence radio had on his work---specifically, the first time he ran across a station playing R&B. The song playing? "Gee" by the Crows:

Which, to be honest, slipped by me - was this in the version that actually aired, or was it part of the extended features online?

 

[michael hagerty]

Her mistake, though, was to attribute motive, substituting her own motives for Simon's much more straightforward explanation. I wouldn't expect the editors of the WSJ's editorial page to catch that, since that attribution of motive fits well with the standard 13th-century viewpoints of that newspapers. (I miss the days when the WSJ's insanity was confined to its editorial pages and kept out of its excellent straight-news and business-news coverage. Now it's all jumbled together and the quality of the news report has declined as the Journal chases various super-upscale demographics.) As for Peggy, I think her whole career has been to utter a string of platitudes in search of a coherent idea.

I mean, that pre-supposes that Paul hasn't indeed said that somewhere in the intervening darn near 60 years, but sure.

And you're not wrong about the WSJ's slide nor Peggy's overall portfolio.

Which, to be honest, slipped by me - was this in the version that actually aired, or was it part of the extended features online?

It was in the main interview. I haven't seen the extended features.

 

[Mark Roberts]

It was in the main interview. I haven't seen the extended features.

Thanks...I'll have to replay that. It could have escaped my attention because Simon is 15 years older than I am, and the concept of radio from his time seems far removed from the concept of radio as I first experienced it at a similar age, particularly since much of that experience was right in the middle of Storz (WHB, KXOK) and Storz-influenced (KIOA) territory - i.e. play the hits for 90 days, maybe hear them again for a brief period a year later, and then gone for good. There wasn't a whole lot else until my family moved to St. Louis in 1972 - at which point, I quickly abandoned KXOK for FM.

 

[TheBigA]

The analogy that I used was that guys like B. Mitchel Reed (especially from 1966-1967 on, just before he jumped to FM) were tour guides....their shows were basically "Hey! You have got to hear this!"

In those days, people needed a tour guide. They needed an intermediary, a translator, a connection. Someone who knew the music and maybe even the musicians, and could represent them to the public. Today, that function has been taken over by social media. The musicians want to own their own brand and do their own messaging. They don't need an interpreter. They host their own radio channels, and do contests directly with their fan club. BTST, the fans resent being told what they should listen to. The entire dynamic has changed.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Her mistake, though, was to attribute motive, substituting her own motives for Simon's much more straightforward explanation. I wouldn't expect the editors of the WSJ's editorial page to catch that, since that attribution of motive fits well with the standard 13th-century viewpoints of that newspapers. (I miss the days when the WSJ's insanity was confined to its editorial pages and kept out of its excellent straight-news and business-news coverage. Now it's all jumbled together and the quality of the news report has declined as the Journal chases various super-upscale demographics.) As for Peggy, I think her whole career has been to utter a string of platitudes in search of a coherent idea.


Which, to be honest, slipped by me - was this in the version that actually aired, or was it part of the extended features online?

Mark -- It's a good point.
I think it is okay to quote a small part of the op-ed, as radio 11 did above, just to illustrate the analogy she is constructing. Noonan writes

"Alex Gibney’s two-part MGM+ documentary on the making of his most recent album is also beautiful—moving, mellow, sweet and deep. It tells of Mr. Simon’s life and touches on three big themes............, centrally, an ongoing spiritual event in Mr. Simon’s life that sounds like an ongoing miracle, or at least has pronounced supernatural aspects."

She is trying to relate the theme of Easter to song writers who have a spiritual awakening of creativity. It looks to me as if she wanted to write an Easter column, but she wanted to ground it in popular culture.

My family and I enjoy celebrating Easter, and we also enjoy Paul Simon's music. We also enjoy great songwriting, and Paul Simon is among the great songwriters in American culture. He relates a story about how he woke up at a certain time each night and composed song lyrics, which she hints were spiritually inspired. And she thinks that ties her two themes together: Easter is a time of spiritual awakening, and Paul Simon had a spiritual awakening.

As you said, Mark, Noonan is a polemicist. She writes in a way that insists that her point of view is the only correct one, no matter how far she stretches to make a point. I think it is the stubborness of her tone that is off-putting. I think it's a stretch to conflate Easter with Paul Simon, or with Graceland, or with creativity in song-writing, or anything else.

MSN

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Peggy Noonan has made a living putting her words in other people's mouths. Most notably Ronald Reagan.

That kinda says it all.

Exactly right.