Paths to Graceland

The “Gumboots” album, should you be unaware, has been awarded it’s place in history due to a cassette copy which found its way into Paul Simon’s car stereo sometime in 1984-85 and providing him with the initial inspiration to seek out (and eventually travel to South Africa to record with) the musicians playing on the album. An occurence that has been documented virtually every time the story of “Graceland”s creation has been told, over the course of thousands of interviews, several documentaries, and now again with the release of a 25th anniversary edition and an accompanying tour with Simon reuniting on stage with many of the original album’s participants.

So, considering the legacy of “Gumboots”, one would imagine any music-minded enterpreneurial soul, or even Gallo, the label that allegedly released the original album, would jump at the chance to re-issue such inspirational recordings and make a few bucks off the back of the multi-million selling “Graceland”. Standard form for the music industry, indeed, but in this case, nothing.

(I say Gallo allegedly released it, but as no-one I’m aware of has actually seen a copy of the album, and as repeated enquiries to the label from a multitude of Paul Simon fans have gone unanswered, no-one’s entirely sure.)