More Paul Simon
More Rock and Pop
- A vintage Columbia stereo pressing of Simon’s third solo album with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both sides
- The sound is big, warm and full-bodied (particularly on side two) – it’s much more present and clear, and not nearly as harsh or gritty as far too many of the copies we played were
- Great songs including “Kodachrome,” “Loves Me Like a Rock,” “Was a Sunny Day” (and you probably know most of the other 7)
- 5 stars: “Retaining the buoyant musical feel of Paul Simon, but employing a more produced sound, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon found Paul Simon writing and performing with assurance and venturing into soulful and R&B-oriented music.”
- If you’re a Paul Simon fan, this has to be considered a Must Own Title of his from 1973.
- The complete list of titles from 1973 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
Most pressings don’t have anywhere near this kind of openness and transparency — and they don’t have this kind of richness or warmth either. It’s a real treat to hear these great songs finally get the sound they deserve.
On most pressings, Simon’s voice is a spitty, gritty mess — sure it’s present, but where is the sweetness and warmth?
Well, as a copy like this proves, more of those qualities made it to the tape than you might think
This vintage Columbia stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the Simon, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What The Best Sides Of There Goes Rhymin’ Simon Have To Offer Is Not Hard to Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1973
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We’re Listening For On There Goes Rhymin’ Simon
- Less grit – smoother and sweeter sound, something that is not easy to come by on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon.
- A bigger presentation – more size, more space, more room for all the instruments and voices to occupy. The bigger the speakers you have to play this record the better.
- More bass and tighter bass. The album needs weight down low to rock the way Jerry Masters and Phil Ramone wanted it to.
- Present, breathy vocals. A veiled midrange is the rule, not the exception.
- Good top-end extension to reproduce the harmonics of the instruments and details of the recording including the studio ambiance.
- Last but not least, balance. All the elements from top to bottom should be heard in harmony with each other. Take our word for it — assuming you haven’t played a pile of these yourself — balance is not that easy to find. Our best copies will have it though, of that there is no doubt.
Not only is it hard to find great copies of this album, it ain’t easy to play ’em either. You’re going to need a hi-res, super low distortion front end with careful adjustment of your arm in every area — VTA, tracking weight, azimuth, and anti-skate — in order to play this album properly. If you’ve got the goods you’re gonna love the way this copy sounds. Play it with a budget cart/table/arm and you’re likely to hear a great deal less magic than we did.
Side One
Kodachrome
Tenderness
Take Me to the Mardi Gras
Something So Right
One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor
Side Two
American Tune
American Tune was recorded in England with help from Paul Samwell-Smith. With the help of Cat Stevens, he’s a man who has produced some of the best sounding rock records of all time.
Our guess is that a dub for that song and not the master tape was sent back to the States to use here — you don’t get all the clarity that you hear on the other tracks, but the song can still sound quite good on the best copies.
Was a Sunny Day
Learn How to Fall
St. Judy’s Comet
Loves Me Like a Rock
There’s always at least a touch of grit to the vocals on Loves Me Like A Rock; it’s practically unavoidable. Other that that, Paul’s voice sounds just right on the better copies.
AMG 5 Star Rave Review
Retaining the buoyant musical feel of Paul Simon, but employing a more produced sound, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon found Paul Simon writing and performing with assurance and venturing into soulful and R&B-oriented music.
Simon returned to the kind of vocal pyrotechnics heard on the Simon & Garfunkel records by using gospel singers. On “Love Me Like a Rock” and “Tenderness” (which sounded as though it could have been written to Art Garfunkel), the Dixie Hummingbirds sang prominent backup vocals, and on “Take Me to the Mardi Gras,” Reverend Claude Jeter contributed a falsetto part that Garfunkel could have handled, though not as warmly.
For several tracks, Simon traveled to the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios to play with its house band, getting a variety of styles, from the gospel of “Love Me Like a Rock” to the Dixieland of “Mardi Gras.” Simon was so confident that he even included a major ballad statement of the kind he used to give Garfunkel to sing: “American Tune” was his musical State of the Union, circa 1973, but this time Simon was up to making his big statements in his own voice.
Though that song spoke of “the age’s most uncertain hour,” otherwise Rhymin’ Simon was a collection of largely positive, optimistic songs of faith, romance, and commitment, concluding, appropriately, with a lullaby (“St. Judy’s Comet”) and a declaration of maternal love (“Loves Me Like a Rock”) — in other words, another mother-and-child reunion that made Paul Simon and There Goes Rhymin’ Simon bookend masterpieces Simon would not improve upon (despite some valiant attempts) until Graceland in 1986.