Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Hello podcast listeners. Malcolm Glabble here. As you know,
Speaker 1: I'm the president of Pushkin Industries. What you might not
Speaker 1: know is that I've been a fan of Paul Simon
Speaker 1: since i was a wee little Malcolm, and recently I
Speaker 1: sat down with Paul Simon and my oldest friend and
Speaker 1: the co host the Broken Record podcast, Bruce Hedlam to
Speaker 1: create a new audiobook, Miracle and Wonder Conversations with Paul Simon.
Speaker 1: Miracle and Wonder is the product of thirty hours of
Speaker 1: sessions with one of the greatest songwriters in music history.
Speaker 1: We talked about his life growing up in Queens, his influences,
Speaker 1: and the sources of his extraordinary creativity. This isn't a biography.
Speaker 1: There are two perfectly good biographies out there already. Miracle
Speaker 1: and Wonder is an audio biography at Shed's new light
Speaker 1: on all Simon's life in his own words and through
Speaker 1: his own music. You can go to Miracle audiobook dot com,
Speaker 1: enter your email and payment. You'll then receive an email
Speaker 1: and follow the easy instructions and Miracle and Wonder will
Speaker 1: be added to your favorite podcast app. Now, I'd like
Speaker 1: to play you a chapter a Miracle and wonder. I
Speaker 1: think you'll hear and understand why I and so many
Speaker 1: others consider him to be one of the greatest musicians
Speaker 1: and songwriters of all time. You know, listen to this story.
Speaker 1: This is quite amazing. I took a trip on the
Speaker 1: Amazon and we stopped in this village. It didn't even
Speaker 1: have any roads, and there's a girl who's sitting in
Speaker 1: there and she's practicing a nylon string guitar. So I
Speaker 1: listened for a while, and then we say to her
Speaker 1: and I said, I know a South American song, and
Speaker 1: I play Dud Daddy dudd but and she says, I
Speaker 1: know an American song. I say, really yeah. He goes,
Speaker 1: this is Malcolm Gladwell. That's Paul Simon talking to me
Speaker 1: and my friend and colleague Bruce Headlam. A moment I
Speaker 1: never believed could happen. I've been a fan of my life.
Speaker 1: The very first pop music I ever remember hearing was
Speaker 1: Simon and Garfuncle. It was nineteen seventy I was seven,
Speaker 1: and now fifty years later, here he was having lunch
Speaker 1: with me. I asked him, what do you think of
Speaker 1: sitting down and having an extended conversation about your career?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna stand I'm gonna stand up.
Speaker 1: He liked the idea. I think this is going to
Speaker 1: be a contest. Let's just check to retort. I enlisted
Speaker 1: my oldest friend, Bruce had them to help with the interviewing,
Speaker 1: because Bruce knows a lot more about music than I do.
Speaker 1: But what do I think? I think the second one
Speaker 1: is the Martin and the first one is your favorite guitarist, Gurian.
Speaker 1: We met nine times. We'd listen to music and Paul
Speaker 1: would play and tell stories. Each conversation lasted four, sometimes
Speaker 1: five hours. Missus Robinson was a little snatch of blues
Speaker 1: singing talking. That's a lick. That's not too different from
Speaker 1: arguing teaching to either girl with the damn on ring.
Speaker 1: So we took all these conversations and wove them into
Speaker 1: something entirely new. It's part memoir, part biography, part investigation
Speaker 1: into the heart of creativity. I have no anxiety about
Speaker 1: running out of ideas. You don't have that at all. No,
Speaker 1: I think another idea, you want another idea, Okay, here's another,
Speaker 1: here's another idea. In our time with him, Paul talked
Speaker 1: about doo wop and queens and his dad, and a
Speaker 1: million other things. I thought that the idea of Earth
Speaker 1: Angel was so lyrically spectacular. I can remember trying to
Speaker 1: explain it to my father, do you get it? And
Speaker 1: Earth Angel? What he thinks of all the different cover
Speaker 1: versions of his songs about the countless people he's collaborated
Speaker 1: with over the years. I learned early on that you
Speaker 1: can ask musicians to write in somebody else's handwriting. And
Speaker 1: about the day he hung it all up after I
Speaker 1: finished the album Stranger to Stranger and was like literally
Speaker 1: a click that said I'm done, But you weren't done. No,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. This is Paul Simon as you've never heard
Speaker 1: him before, the stories and songs behind an unbelievable life
Speaker 1: in music. Pull up your chair and listen. In lip
Speaker 1: Sliding Away, there's still the big mystery of why this happens,
Speaker 1: and it's just a great mystery. I love it. I
Speaker 1: love that mystery. Shong memorial Slip Sliding Away. You can
Speaker 1: buy Miracle and Wonder at Miracle audiobook dot Com, Audible
Speaker 1: and everywhere audiobooks are sold. Hometown. You wore his passion
Speaker 1: for