The story of the making and legacy of Graceland, Paul Simon’s still-beloved, career-topping 1986 album, drawn from extensive research and exclusive interviews with nearly 100 participants and witnesses: musicians, producers, engineers, record executives and journalists from Africa, the US, and Europe.
What a welcome surprise ... Has only made me appreciate the album’s intricacies and paradoxes all the more ... Kahn lets his historical actors speak for themselves as often as possible, collecting a remarkably wide array of voices for so short a book.
Mr. Kahn, a music historian who has written books on John Coltrane and Miles Davis, was a member of the 'Graceland' tour production team; here he connects the making of the album to politics, the music industry and the individuals involved like no other book of its kind.
The research that went into the book is peerless, done over decades. Kahn displays a musical sensibility that holds anyone with musical knowledge enthralled throughout ... Kahn achieves an admirably balanced equilibrium between the elements of the story ... It is a life-affirming story that will appeal to a broad audience and have them replaying their favorite tracks. Against considerable odds, Days of Miracle and Wonder is a joyous, triumphant book.
