Forty years ago, on August 25, 1986, Paul Simon released his seminal album, Graceland. On it, Simon collaborated with a number of South African musicians, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Vusi Kumalo, Bakithi Kumalo, and Ray Chikapa Phiri, among many others. As music historian Ashley Khan (A Love Supreme) points out in his enlightening Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland (Atria Books August 11, 2026), Graceland became a “catalog classic,” a perennial seller that’s never been out of print. Drawing on extensive archival research and on interviews with musicians and others associated with the album, Kahn deftly chronicles the making of the album and its afterlife.
In 1984, Paul Simon had reached a creative and personal crossroad. His marriage was falling apart, and Simon’s 1983 album Hearts and Bones, according to him, “‘didn’t live up to expectation [and] there was some sort of reference to the fact that you probably wouldn’t be hearing Paul Simon on the radio.’” He decided that the next time he made a record no one would be looking over his shoulder.
