Paul Simon - VH-1 Storytellers, New York City, 10-20-1997

Here we go with another episode of "VH-1 Storytellers." This time, Paul Simon is featured.

This concert took place just prior to the release of his 1997 album "Songs from The Capeman." It would be released one month later. These were the songs Simon wrote for a Broadway play he conceived called "The Capeman." That would open in January 1998. However, the play was poorly received and closed only two months later. 

Simon planned to tour to support the album. But when the play flopped, and his album sold poorly, he cancelled plans for the tour. He ended up doing no full concerts in 1997 or 1998 except for this one. It came at an interesting time, just before Simon realized the album and play would do poorly. So, by chance, these contain almost the only versions of some songs he would ever perform in concert. He did four songs here from the "Capeman" album, complete with some other vocalists on the record and in the play: "Adios Hermanos," "Bernadette," "The Vampires," and "Trailways Bus." When he did go on his next tour in 1999, the only song from the album to be included was "Trailways Bus." The other three were only ever performed again in two 2009 concerts supporting a revised (and drastically altered and shortened) version of the play.

As I've mentioned with other albums in this series, the shows almost always started out in the middle of the first song. This episode was doubly annoying. First, it started with only the tail end of "Mrs. Robinson." Then, it included some amusing false starts of "The Boxer," but not the song itself! So I wanted to fill in those versions. 

It was hard finding the rest of "Mrs. Robinson" though, because it was done in a solo acoustic format. Luckily, I found one performance from 1999. Simon sang the song in the middle of the baseball field at Yankee Stadium during "Joe DiMaggio Day," no doubt due to the song's lyric "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, the nation turns its lonely eyes to you." He happened to be accompanied only by his acoustic guitar playing, which worked great for me. But unfortunately one of the songs three verses (and the following chorus) wasn't included. I used the MSVEP audio editing program to get rid of the crowd noise entirely, since 50,000 plus cheering fans in a stadium sound very different then the couple hundred fans in the Storytellers concert. I put in some cheering from elsewhere in the Storytellers concert to help it fit in.

As for "The Boxer," I had to resort to using a version from his 1990 tour, since that more closely represented his version in the false starts. I also got rid of song of the cheering for that that didn't match.

Simon is one of those artists who doesn't talk much between songs in his concert, so it's nice to hear him talk extensively here. I believe everything from this concert remains officially unreleased.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Mrs. Robinson [Edit] (Paul Simon)
02 The Boxer [False Start] (Paul Simon)
03 The Boxer (Paul Simon)
04 Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)
05 talk (Paul Simon)
06 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Paul Simon)
07 talk (Paul Simon)
08 Graceland (Paul Simon)
09 talk (Paul Simon)
10 Adios Hermanos (Paul Simon)
11 talk (Paul Simon)
12 Bernadette (Paul Simon with Marc Anthony)
13 talk (Paul Simon)
14 The Vampires (Paul Simon with Marc Anthony)
15 talk (Paul Simon)
16 Trailways Bus (Paul Simon with Sara Ramirez)
17 Slip Slidin' Away (Paul Simon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17167810/PALSMN1997StrytllrsNwYrkC__10-20-1997_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ydcWqpXE

The cover photo is from a concert in The Woodlands, Texas, in 1999. On September 26, 2004, I slightly updated it with some AI enhancement using the program Krea AI.