PAUL SIMON HEARTS AND BONES PROFESSIONAL

None of which is bad or dishonest-it suggests a new grace and flexibility for the mass-pop mode, and invests small subjects and emotions with an almost luminous wit and awareness. The lyrics celebrate domestic satisfactions and seem to find political ambiguities more curious than ominous. The vocals are softer, smoothed over with borrowed or double-tracked harmonies, and the pep shots from more specialized styles (by the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Onward Brass Band) less speedy. Quite consciously-why do you think the new single is so equivocal about the phony hues Kodachrome lays on reality?-Simon sacrifices the manic-depressive range of his solo debut in search of an equivalent for S&G's all-encompassing homiletic pleasantness. William Carlos Williams after the repression: 'Peace Like a River.' A+ The self-production is economical and lively, with the guitars of Jerry Hahn and Stefan Grossman and Airto Moreira's percussion especially inspired.

PAUL SIMON HEARTS AND BONES PROFESSIONAL

And the words! This is a professional tour of Manhattan for youth culture grads, complete with Bella Abzug, hard rain, and people who steal your chow fong. I hope Art Garfunkel is gone for good-he always seemed so vestigial, but it's obvious now that two-part harmony crippled Simon's naturally agile singing and composing. I've been saying nasty things about Simon since 1967, but this is the only thing in the universe to make me positively happy in the first two weeks of February 1972.

The Concert in the Park-August 15th, 1991.Negotiations and Love Songs 1971-1986 B.Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin' C+.

Paul simon hearts and bones