Car Boot Vinyl Diaries

Car Boot Vinyl Diaries

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Hop on the bus, Gus

Still Crazy After All These Years was Paul Simon's fourth solo album.  It was his third solo release post- Simon & Garfunkel (The Paul Simon Songbook was released in the UK only in 1965).

I bought a copy of it for £1 at a car boot sale towards the end of last year:


Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)
 
In the main, this singer-songwriter style album has a jazzy feel, with piano and acoustic guitar featuring prominently.   It produced four top 40 hits in the US.  These were My Little Town (with Art Garfunkel), Gone At Last (an up-tempo gospel track with Phoebe Snow), the title track of course and 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.
 
It's a mostly pretty downbeat album (not surprising for a bunch of songs written around the time of his divorce from first wife Peggy Harper) and the last few tracks are fairly forgettable, but there are still enough great ones to make it a worthwhile investment or at least repeated listens on Spotify.  Top tracks:
 
 
The album reached no.1 in the US Billboard Pop Albums chart and no.6 in the UK.  It also won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1976.



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