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Edie Brickell
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SXSW 2019 Adds Third Wave Of Artists, Including Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Yung Lean, Priests & More
The 33rd annual event, which also announced Molly Burch, Bush Tetras, Angie McMahon and more artists, will take place Mar. 11 through Mar. 17 in downtown Austin, Texas
GRAMMYs/Jan 10, 2019 - 01:56 am
On Jan. 9, the SXSW Music Festival added a third wave of showcasing artists, including Angie McMahon, Bush Tetras, Charlotte OC, Austin's very own Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, and more. Now on its 33rd year, the Austin, Texas fest will run from March 11–17, 2019. Brickell famously won the Best American Roots Song GRAMMY in 2013 for "Love Has Come For You."
300+ Showcasing Artists were just added to the #SXSW 2019 lineup! Check out the full announcement here. https://t.co/jgGVp3akVM
— SXSW (@sxsw) January 9, 2019
Additional just-announced names include: Yung Lean, Priests, Georgia, Hilary Woods, J.S. Ondara, Jvcki Wai, Kamaal Williams, Kevin George, KOKOKO!, Molly Burch, My Brightest Diamond, and plenty more. Check out SXSW's website for a full rundown.
SXSW also announced a series of first-time showcase lineups from Spacebomb Records, YEAR0001, Playtime Festival Mongolia, Don't Come to LA, She Shreds, Verve Label Group, and Mahogany, as well as returning showcases from Communion, Gorilla vs. Bear + Luminelle and BBC.
SXSW will also be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Bloodshot Records and hosting a tenth-year anniversary showcase for Sounds from Columbia. Lineup details and venue locations will be released in the coming weeks along with additional artists and showcases.
The beloved Austin music fest announced its second wave of artists, including Mr. Eazi, Jerry Paper and Nadine Shahon on Nov. 28.
Starting on Jan. 17, a weekly compilation of artists will be added to the SXSW schedule each Thursday. Check SXSW's website for more, including hotel and ticketing information.
SXSW Announces First Wave Of Artists For Music Festival In Spring 2019
(L-R) Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney attend the 'This is a Film About The Black Keys' world premiere as part of SXSW 2024 Conference and Festivals on March 11, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Photo: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images
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5 Memorable Moments From SXSW 2024: A Significant Protest, The Black Keys, De Facto, & More
More than 340 new bands played SXSW for the first time in 2024, while many others returned to the annual fest. Read on for some of the most inspiring and exciting moments from SXSW 2024 — from performances by legends to groundbreaking new acts.
GRAMMYs/Mar 18, 2024 - 10:57 pm
The 2024 South By Southwest Festival got off to a dramatic start: approximately 80 artists, speakers, and event sponsors pulled out of the event to protest the sponsorship of the U.S. Army and defense companies and then a hit-and-run traffic incident in a crowded festival area resulted in a fatality and serious injury early Tuesday.
SXSW spokespeople issued statements about both. They were "saddened" by the tragic traffic incident, and reiterated that they are an organization that welcomes diverse viewpoints and therefore saw no issue in allowing the military sponsorships. They also did not criticize anyone who pulled out of the festival to show solidarity with Palestine and protest genocide. Republican Texas Governor Ron Abbott was not as diplomatic.
And yet the music portion of the festival pushed on.
Some of the bands who pulled out of the festival performed "unofficial" shows, and as with previous SXSW festivals, the diversity of music offerings was staggering: artists played genres such as folk, pop, indie rock, psychedelic cumbia, punk, electronic, and Americana, but also offered regional lenses to musical styles — Texas rap, Southern California soul-jazz — and social justice viewpoints like indigenous hardcore. Artists also offered global perspectives on jazz, hip hop, and psychedelic funk.
Read on for TK of the most inspiring and exciting moments from SXSW 2024 – from performances by legends to groundbreaking new acts.
The Black Keys Take Audiences Behind The Scenes (And Back To Their Salad Days)
Music keynote offerings felt slim compared to previous years, but festival goers did get an authentic, revealing glimpse into the world of the Black Keys — there to promote a new documentary film about their band history and to perform two shows.
Drummer Patrick Carney stole the show with humorous, deadpan anecdotes —including that time he slept in the van to guard the $500 they made at a show and woke up in the middle of the night to a crowd of drunk people dressed like Santa Claus in the middle of July — and self-effacing jokes about himself and the group: "The first time we came to SXSW we couldn’t afford to stay in town."
One thing the film makes clear is that two key elements of the Black Keys are simplicity and technology. They kept things simple by being a two-piece band: a few bass players auditioned early on but Carney and Dan Auerbach preferred the sound of drums and guitar. But the key element was Carney’s four-track recorder: he taught himself how to use it, which enabled the band to record themselves in Carney’s basement and fine-tune their nuanced approach to rock music.
"We wanted the kick drum to sound like the speakers were blown," Carney said in an interview.
Carney and guitarist/singer Auerbach later performed a blues-driven sold-out show at Austin’s Mohawk, joined by artists on Auerbach’s Nashville-based record label Easy Eye Sound. There was no banter, just music.
Bootsy Collins Brings The Funk & A Lot Of Flair
Legendary funk bassist, singer, and producer Bootsy Collins — who played with James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic, boasts a long solo career, and collaborated with artists like Deee-Lite, Fatboy Slim, Silk Sonic, Kali Uchis and Tyler, the Creator — hosted high-energy shows with the Ohio group Zapp and his entourage of collaborators and proteges at the 2024 festival.
A long line of people snaked down Austin’s busy Red River Street waiting to get into the packed Mohawk club for a March 15 show, which featured guest artists Henry Invisible, Tony “Young James Brown” Wilson, and FANTAAZMA. A few fans wore big hats and star-shaped sunglasses to emulate Collins’ distinct look.
Collins, who announced in 2019 he wouldn’t play bass in live performance anymore, was in town to promote his anti-violence initiative, "Funk Not Fight," and a new song and album of the same name. He also promoted his Bootzilla Productions company and Funk University, which aims to mentor younger creatives like Hamburg-based FANTAAZMA, who joined Collins for a SXSW Studio interview with TikTok creator Juju Green.
“At some point James Brown saw something in me, you know, and grabbed us in, and I’ll never forget that, and so that’s what I try to do,” Collins said about his efforts to help mentor younger artists.
Omar Rodríguez-López & Cedric Bixler-Zavala Get Weird
What a journey these two have had: they met as teens in the hardcore scene in El Paso, Texas, formed two influential alternative rock bands — At The Drive-In and The Mars Volta — and one obscure dub project — De Facto — that earned them rock and roll acclaim from the music press and respect from musical peers in bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird, a new documentary about the creative partnership between Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala, premiered at the 2024 festival. The film illuminates the duo’s struggles with bandmates, addiction, racism, Scientology, and their ups and downs in the music industry.
Rodríguez-López recorded loads of footage over the years of them on the road, in recording studios, and in live performance. Those intimate, up-close moments used in the film reveal a partnership that begins in solidarity, drifts apart, and comes back together stronger than when they started. It’s essentially a film about friendship.
The two appeared briefly onstage before the film’s screening, alongside director Nicolas Jack Davies, but said nothing. For the first time in 21 years, the two performed at this year’s SXSW festival as De Facto, their lesser-known reggae-influenced side project, to promote the new film.
Cumbia Is The Real Soundtrack To SXSW 2024
Cumbia in 2024 is conscious party music, still closely linked to its Colombian origins but expanded and modernized by elements of psychedelia and the young players from across the country and the world interpreting the genre.
Cumbia could be heard throughout the festival, in particular at a heavily attended party March 12 at Hotel Vegas in Austin, which featured more than 10 bands on four stages. A few fans could be seen wearing T-shirts with the phrase “Cumbia is the new punk,” the title of a song by Mexican cumbia fusion group Son Rompe Pera.
Bands mostly from Texas — including the “barrio big band” Bombasta and Latin psych bands like Combo Cósmico and Money Chicha — and the rock-influenced Denver band Ritmo Cascabel played dance music driven by hand percussion, heavy bass lines and guitars drenched in reverb.
Earlier this year, Billboard predicted that cumbia music in all its entirety and subgenres — chicha, sonidera, norteña, villera — would see a massive growth in 2024, citing higher-profile artist collaborations and social media viral hits.
Classical Music Unveils Its Changing Profile
Classical music is most often associated with beautiful concert halls and polite, well-dressed audiences who sit quietly as music is being played. This was not the case for Vulva Voce, an all-female Manchester-based string quartet that played their unique blend of modern classical music at various SXSW stages this year.
Band members wore one-piece jumpsuit coveralls with Doc Martin boots and performed mostly original, high-energy, uptempo compositions to loud crowds at dive bars throughout Austin. They shredded strings and swayed and bounced onstage as if it were a rock show, and said they loved every minute of it. Vulva Voce also performed live with Ash, a Northern Irish rock band whose career in music spans 30 years.
Vulva Voce’s modern approach to classical music comes at a good time. Mid-week, a group of classical music artist managers, lawyers and classical music label executives spoke about classical music’s revival in gaming and soundtracks.
Traditional classical music performance continues to struggle with attendance, but the genre has gained traction on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and has seen a surge in interest in film scores, Netflix soundtracks, video games, and sports broadcasts.
More than 340 new bands played SXSW for the first time this year. Each year, SXSW awards three emerging artists The Grulke Prize, in honor of festival Creative Director Brent Grulke, who passed away in 2012. Sabrina Teitelbaum, who performs as Blondshell, won for developing U.S. act, the South Korean alternative K-pop band Balming Tiger won for developing non-U.S. act, and British psychedelic pop band the Zombies won the career act award
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A crowd of Coachella festival goers on April 24, 2022 in Indio, California.
Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Coachella
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Music Festivals 2024 Guide: Lineups & Dates For Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonnaroo & Much More
Festival season is officially upon us, and 2024 is jam-packed with events to remember. Here's a breakdown of the biggest music festivals happening near you, spanning every genre and vibe.
GRAMMYs/Mar 12, 2024 - 09:56 pm
Editor’s note: This article was updated on March 19 to reflect Lollapalooza’s announced lineup.
Down in Austin, South by Southwest has returned — and it's a harbinger of so much to come. SXSW 2024 is the unofficial start of festival season, which kicks off in earnest with Coachella on April 12 in California.
If you're not west of the Mississippi, fear not. Spring, summer and beyond will bring a plethora of can't-miss music bashes, all over the country.
Obviously, it's impossible to cover them all in one post. But GRAMMY.com can provide a cross section, demonstrative of the sheer range of genres at play. So let this list spur you to find all the festivals near you!
Check it out below — and we'll see you stagefront, under the sun! (This list will be continually updated once more info comes out.)
Rolling Loud
Inglewood, California (Mar. 14–17)
All rap fans know Rolling Loud as the summit of hyped — as Billboard once declared, they're "the be-all of hip-hop." The lineup for Miami hasn't been announced yet, but Nicki Minaj, Post Malone and Lil Uzi Vert are confirmed to rock the mic.
Tortuga Music Festival
Fort Lauderdale, Florida (Apr. 5–7)
From incredible, cross-genre tunes to important ocean conservation work, Tortuga Music Festival has got it all! This year, don’t miss artists like Lainey Wilson, Hardy, Jason Aldean, and many more.
Coachella
Indio, California (Apr. 12–13 & Apr. 20–21)
Coachella is arguably the mother of them all — and it's coming right up! (Exactly a month from now, at press time.)
Coachella 2024 offers two major reunions, in No Doubt and Sublime — for the latter, Jakob Nowell, son of Bradley, has taken the helm — and attention-grabbing headliners in Lana Del Rey; Tyler, the Creator; and Doja Cat.
Ultra Music Festival
Miami, Florida (Mar. 22–24)
This preeminent haven for electronic music is back, with the cream of the crop from the DJ world — everyone from David Guetta to Elderbrook and beyond will be bringing the heat!
Stagecoach
Indio, California (Apr. 26–28)
Of course, Coachella is a multi-genre festival. But if country is specifically your cup of tea — well, there's another reason to bomb out to the desert.
A week after Coachella's second weekend, Stagecoach will throw down with headliners Eric Church, Miranda Lambert and Morgan Wallen. The rest of the lineup is highly rangey, with a country essence: Jelly Roll, Post Malone, Willie Nelson, and many more will grace the stage.
Breakaway Music Festival
Nationwide (April-October)
Pop, dance, EDM — Breakaway Music Festival has got it all. And it’s probably coming to a city near you; it hits the Midwest, the South and the West Coast.
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
New Orleans, Louisiana (Apr. 25–May 5)
A massive swath of music contains jazz, and NOLA Jazz Fest underlines this reality every year. The Rolling Stones? Neil Young and Crazy Horse? Doo-wop is baked into them. So on and so forth.
Outside of dyed-in-the-wool jazzers like Samara Joy, Nicholas Payton and Jon Batiste, this year's two-weekend lineup will also feature Foo Fighters, the Revivalists, Queen Latifah, and other greats — as well as Mardi Gras Indians "Big Chief" Monk Boudreaux and the Golden Eagles, and a slew of local talent.
Head In The Clouds
Queens New York (May 11–12)
As spring drifts into the summer, don't miss Head in the Clouds if you're in the Northeast; it's chock full of Asian American music and heritage, across a multitude of genres, just in time for AAPI Heritage Month.
Held at Queens' Forest Hills Stadium, Head In The Clouds features (G)I-DLE to Balming Tiger to Spence Lee and others.
Lightning in a Bottle
Buena Vista Lake, California (May 22-27)
Central Valley, represent! The California region is proud to announce the lineup for the electronic-focused festival Lightning in a Bottle, with special performances by Skrillex, James Blake and many more. Head over here for the lineup.
BottleRock Napa Valley
Napa, California (May 24–26)
This three-day music, wine, food, and brew fest in the heart of wine country will feature headliners Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam and Ed Sheeran, rounded out by giants like St. Vincent, Queens of the Stone Age, Norah Jones, and many more.
Outlaw Music Festival
Nationwide (June-September 2024)
With the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour in the rearview, Bob Dylan is rolling around the Willie Nelson & Family, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, and Celisse for what will be an unforgettable, legend-stuffed night of music for all.
SummerStage
New York City (June-August 2024)
New York’s favorite outdoor concert series has come roaring back! Don’t miss performances by Kim Gordon, Sun Ra Arkestra, Snail Mail, and many more — info and full lineup here.
Bonnaroo
Manchester, Tennessee (June 13–16)
This world-renowned fest outside of Nashville boasts an incredibly vibey lineup for 2024; if you'd like to party to the sounds of Post Malone, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fred Again.., and dozens more, make a beeline down south this June.
Glastonbury
Somerset, England (June 26–30)
No, it’s not in the United States, but it’s momentous enough to mention anyway. This year, Dua Lipa, Coldplay, SZA, and so many more will perform at the epic Brit blowout.
Essence Festival 2024
New Orleans, Louisiana (July 4–7)
Essence Festival is turning 30! This bastion of Black music, culture and identity will ring in three decades with what's sure to be an outstanding lineup of artists.
Pitchfork Music Festival
Chicago, Illinois (July 19–21)
Artists as varied as Black Pumas, 100 Gecs, Alanis Morrissette, and Brittany Howard will headline the biggest day for the massively influential music site’s in-house fest.
Lollapalooza
Grant Park, Chicago (Aug. 1–4)
The lineup for Lollapalooza has been announced! SZA; Tyler, the Creator; Blink-182, the Killers, Skrillex, and more will headline. Check out the full lineup below.
Hinterland Music Festival
St. Charles, Iowa (Aug. 4-6)
Hinterland won’t just feature some serious indie heavyweights, like Vampire Weekend, Noah Kahan and Orville Peck; it features curiosity-piquing arts and crafts vendors and spectacular camping.
Outside Lands
San Francisco, California (Aug. 9–11)
Ditto the Bay Area favorite — but we do know it's happening from August 9 to 11. Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, Megan Thee Stallion and other mighty artists performed last year. The full lineup has been announced — visit here for the scoop.
North Coast Music Festival
Chicago, Illinois (Aug. 30–Sept. 1)
Calling all EDM fans: North Coast is bringing Above & Beyond, Subtronics, Sullivan King, and many more to the Windy City in 2024.
Austin City Limits
Austin, Texas (Oct. 4–8, & Oct. 11–13)
No lineup yet for the longest-running music series in TV history — but you can sign up to be the first to know about it.
Aftershock Fest
Real rockers only: Aftershock Festival has been rolling for more than a decade, and its momentum is only building. Topping the bill in 2024 are Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Slipknot, a reunited Slayer… and that's just for starters.
Golden Sky
Sacramento, California (Oct.18–20)
Country music and beer are two of America's pastimes, and Golden Sky will feature the best of both. Come for Keith Urban, Thomas Rhett, Luke Bryan, and so many more, and stay for the brews!
When We Were Young
Las Vegas, Nevada (Oct.19–20)
It's always momentous when the emo kids of yesteryear come back out to play — and if you can believe it, it's almost time for another When We Were Young.
My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Coheed and Cambria, and many more will be there for another helping of Myspace-era sounds — and long-dormant emotions. And they'll be playing the full albums you know and love — just check the poster!
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Kendrick Lamar
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
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GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.
GRAMMYs/Oct 13, 2023 - 06:01 pm
Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.
A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.
This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system.
"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."
Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!
He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.
"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.
"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."
To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood."
Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.
Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes.
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Paul Simon performing at "A GRAMMY Salute To The Songs Of Paul Simon" in 2022
Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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5 Takeaways From Paul Simon's New Album 'Seven Psalms': A Plethora Of Spirituality, Humor & Devotion
An all-acoustic song cycle meant to be listened to from front to back, 'Seven Psalms' contains many of Paul Simon's poetic and musical dimensions in microcosm.
GRAMMYs/May 19, 2023 - 01:46 pm
A psalm is a sacred song or hymn — especially one among King David's famous compendium in the Bible. Devotional music is obviously still around in different forms, but the ancient word is still on musician's tongues. Last year, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis released an album called Seven Psalms. And Paul Simon just revealed seven of his own.
Also called Seven Psalms, Simon's new album is out May 19, and it's a stunner. A 33-minute, all-acoustic, seven-song cycle meant to be listened to as one contiguous whole, it's one of the most intimate works the 16-time GRAMMY winner has ever crafted. That's saying something, given he put himself on the map with the pindrop "The Sound of Silence" nearly 60 years ago.
Seven Psalms is a work of heavy-duty spirituality; while it doesn't necessarily have a "confessional" nature, the listener will absorb reams of information about the state of Simon's artistry and psychology.
As you absorb this potent work from front to back, read on for a few things Seven Psalms reveals about Simon.
A Higher Power Is On His Mind
"The Lord is my engineer/ The Lord is the earth I ride on/ The Lord is the face in the atmosphere/The path I slip and I slide on," Simon sings in opening movement "The Lord" — a verse that becomes a motif throughout Seven Psalms.
But Simon isn't evangelical on the album; far be it from him to take a myopic view of anything in song. "Slip" and "slide" are the operative words here; Simon goes on to cast God as "the Covid virus," "the ocean rising," "a terrible, swift sword," "a puff of smoke" and "my personal joke."
Thus, the duality of religious belief permeates Seven Psalms — just as it did in "Questions for the Angels," "Old" and any number of other awe-inspiring songs about faith in his past.
"Dip your hand in heaven's waters," Simon sings in "Your Forgiveness," fully aware of the multitude of shades that concept encompasses.
His Guitar Skills Remain Undimmed
Occasionally, Simon barely touches his acoustic guitar during concerts, especially when his band is choogling away behind him. But he remains one of the greatest of his generation, and Seven Psalms displays that practically every second.
Simon played most of the instruments on Seven Psalms, including various bells and gongs, as well as far-flung instruments like gamelan and gobichand. But, naturally, it's the greatest treat to hear him stretch out on the acoustic guitar.
Harmonically, melodically and rhythmically, Simon's grace and facility on his instrument is second to none on Seven Psalms — and that's before he even gets to the words.
He's Still Very Funny
As psychologically and spiritually freighted as Simon's music can be, it's hard to remember a single song where he sounds ponderous. His razor-sharp sense of humor is a big part of that.
Simon’s one-liner game has always been strong; to hear "You Can Call Me Al" is to chuckle at least a little bit at the "roly-poly little bat-faced girl" line. (Ditto the opening line of "Kodachrome," which almost singlehandedly forged this author's opinion of the K-12 system.)
Third movement "My Professional Opinion" carries the lion's share of Seven Psalms' humor, from the opening verse: "Good morning Mr. Indignation/ Looks like you haven't slept all night/ In my professional opinion/ Go back to bed and turn off your light."
From there, Simon — or his character — continues to dispense unsolicited advice on everything — including the barnyard body politik. "I heard two cows in a conversation/ One called the other one a name," he sings. "In my professional opinion/ All cows in the country must bear the blame."
At the conclusion of "My Professional Opinion," Simon gets down to brass tacks and evokes Christ. "All that really matters/ Is the one who became us." (Sure.) "Anointed and gamed us." (Wait, gamed us?) "With his opinions." (Ba-dum-tsh.)
Edie Brickell Remains Indispensable To His Art
Simon's wife, Edie Brickell, is a GRAMMY winner in her own right who rose to prominence in the 1980s with her band, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. The couple met in 1988 on the set of "Saturday Night Live" and married in 1992.
Since then, Brickell appeared on Simon's fantastic 2011 album So Beautiful or So What; his song "In the Garden of Edie," from 2016's Stranger to Stranger, is a tribute to her. She's also appeared onstage with him; during lockdown, they posted a video of themselves performing a luminous duet of the Everly Brothers' "I Wonder if I Care As Much."
During closing tracks "The Sacred Harp" and "Wait," Brickell appears and intertwines her voice with her husband's, right up to the final line: "Amen."
Simon May Not Tour Anymore, But He Remains A Force
Back in 2018, Simon announced his retirement. Sort of. Citing mental exhaustion, he booked one final tour — but didn't rule out occasional performances.
"I don't intend for it to be my last performance," he told CNN of the hometown show — in Queens — that wrapped up his farewell tour. "I'd like to do it for my own pleasure, in concert halls that have prestige sound and with perhaps different musicians that I admire, and play a repertoire that is different from what I've been playing." (Getting finicky about the details of concerts that haven't even been booked — classic Simon.)
Simon's still getting out there and playing — including at the "Homeward Bound: A GRAMMY Salute To Paul Simon" tribute last year. But more than that, the 81-year-old is still actively evolving and challenging himself.
"All of life's abundance in a drop of condensation," Simon sings midway through Seven Psalms, in "Your Forgiveness." That sums up Simon's art in microcosm: a three-minute song can leave you commensurately awestruck, puzzled, heartsick and laughing out loud.
As the craft of songwriting goes, that's just as high as you can climb — and on Seven Psalms, Simon waves to us from the summit.
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