The hit song "Late In The Evening" wasn't a successful pop song that climbed to the Top 10.
It was a jam session that never seemed to want to stop. That's the kind of magic Paul Simon created for the first single from his fifth solo album after leaving longtime partner Art Garfunkel, "One Trick Pony," which would also be the title of Simon's debut movie in 1980.
The movie One Trick Pony was written by Simon and stars him as an aging pop singer named Jonah Lewin. Lewin is having a difficult time regaining the magic he once had as a music star, and now finds himself being the opening act for such artists as the New Wave stars The B-52s, which doesn't sit well with him or with his band trying to help him re-find that music stardom.
He so desperately wants to make another album, but is running into obstacles along the way, one of which is his record company president, played by Rip Torn, who has differing opinions on how this album is to be made and points him to a hip, hot, new, younger producer, played by music star Lou Reed.
While Lewin is doing his best to make the most out of a bad situation to keep his career going, he's trying to reconcile with his wife, played by Blair Brown, and his son, played by Michael Pearlman, who like a lot of things in Simon's life, got put on the back burner.
Lewin and Steve Kunelian (Reed's character), painstakingly make the album and, in the end, the one song that makes the most sense is "Late In The Evening," a funky brand of uptempo pop that is driven by a loud Latin salsa beat and a horn section that seems to blow audiences away.
Simon said he wrote "Late In The Evening" as part of a dream sequence of when he was younger. He's lying in his bed listening to the music that he's enjoyed and he's picturing himself up on that stage playing and the fact that he's "underage at this funky bar" isn't bothering him one bit. He remembers getting high ("So I stepped outside and smoked myself a 'J.'), then turning the amplifier up on his guitar and playing it rather loudly.
Throughout Simon's career, he was not afraid to try other forms of music. In 1972, he recorded his self-titled debut album after the breakup with Garfunkel and found reggae to his liking on his debut Top 40 hit and No. 4 peaked hit "Mother And Child Reunion," which he recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, and found a Latin backdrop in recording "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard." On the same album, "Duncan" was recorded with Los Incas, who recorded with Simon and Garfunkel on the 1970 class hit "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)."
The next year, he discovered his gospel roots on the No. 2 smash "Loves Me Like A Rock" from the album "There Goes Rhymin' Simon." And he found a little country-style gospel with The Oak Ridge Boys backing him on his 1978 Top 5 hit "Slip Slidin' Away."
Simon not only played guitar on "Late In The Evening," but he also did percussion, while jazz artist Dave Grusin was in charge of the horn arrangements on the song, featuring Michael Brecker on saxophone and Marvin Stamm, Randy Brecker and Irwin "Marky" Markowitz on trumpets.
The jam session was going to become a big hit in America and was the first release from Simon's first movie. It debuted on the Hot 100 at No. 46 on August 9, 1980, then debuted in the Top 40 on August 16 at No. 29.
One week later, on August 23, 1980, "Late In The Evening" made the biggest move of any song within the Top 40, jumping from No. 29 to No. 13. There was no doubt it would be a Top 10 hit.
Produced by Phil Ramone, "Late In The Evening" did crack the Top 10 two weeks later when it moved from No. 11 to No. 9. Then after two weeks at No. 7, it moved up to No. 6 on September 27, 1980, where it would hold for three straight weeks before heading in the other direction.
And when it did start going back the other way, little did anyone know that it would be the last Top 10 hit for Simon's career. He'd have two more Top 40 hits -- the follow-up hit and title track, "One Trick Pony," only got to No. 40, and the raucous and horns-based "You Can Call Me" got a second chance to make some magic in the Top 40 in the spring of 1987, peaking at No. 23. His last chart single was "The Obvious Child," another song with world music ties to it, in 1990, but it peaked at No. 92.
For years, though, Simon has endlessly been touring, whether solo or with Garfunkel. In 2016, he released his newest and 13th album/CD, "Stranger To Stranger." When the newest CD debuted at No. 1 in the United Kingdom, Simon became the oldest artist to ever score a No. 1 UK album/CD at 74 years old. And at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, he performed "Bridge Over Troubled Water."
When he wrote and starred in "One Trick Pony," his former partner, Garfunkel, had made four movies. And for as hard as he worked on One Trick Pony, the movie was panned everywhere by critics. He had previously bit roles in Annie Hall and The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash.
One Trick Pony may not have done well, and neither did the soundtrack Simon performed. But "Late In The Evening" sure did well as a hit single.
It's the jam session that we never want to stop.
No comments:
Post a Comment