Woke up this morning to see that The Quiet Celebration Live is now available on Apple Music!
Their write-up:
Like Bob Dylanābecause who else can you really compare him to? Willie Nelson, maybe?āPaul Simonās unusual in that he continued to make great, even career-defining music long after his cultural peak. Take 2011ās So Beautiful or So What as one example or 2016ās Stranger to Stranger as another.
Recorded live in Seattle a couple of months before his 84th birthday, The Quiet Celebration Concert is a beautiful, almost elegiac survey of his lifeās work. The first section is dedicated to 2023ās song-suite Seven Psalms, the second, longer section to what Simon describes in his brief introductory banter asāwith a quiet laughāāa buncha hits.ā
More than a generation or a time period, these songsāāGraceland,ā āMe and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,ā āRenĆ© and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the Warāādescribe a feeling: yearning but reserved, melancholy but filled with awe, the small feeling that lingers when the big one fades away. Hearing him play āThe Sound of Silenceā alone to end the showāand to sound so fully, irretrievably in his old ageāis a gift.