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Paul Simon is Broadway bound.

A Unabomber Victim
Speaks Out

GEORGE VARGA
Special to The Jewish News

A

fter exploring the music
of Africa and Brazil with
his landmark Graceland
and The Rhythm of the
Saints albums, Paul Simon has
come full circle.
With The Capeman, his long-
awaited Broadway musical sched-
uled to open Jan. 29, and its
accompanying album, Songs From
the Capeman, the Grammy Award-
winning .singer/songwriter has
returned ho-me to New York City
and to the doo-wop and Latin-pop
styles of his youth.

"That's how I see it," Simon said
from Manhattan, where The Cape-
man is playing in previews. (The
anticipated Jan. 8. opening was
delayed for three weeks to tweak
the show and provide more „
rehearsal time.) "I began standing
on a corner, singing doo-wop, and
here I am now, writing doo-wop
old sounds that sound new."
But The Capeman entails much
more than doo-wop, the sweet street-
corner R&B vocal harmony music
that enjoyed its greatest pop-
ularity when Simon, 56,
was a teen-ager in the
1950s.

Easily the most ambitious under-
taking of his career — and the most
controversial — The Capeman will
have been more than five years in the
making when the show opens its offi-
cial Broadway run later this month at
Manhattan's Marquis Theatre.
Directed by acclaimed choreog-
rapher Mark Morris, the multimil-
lion-dollar musical boasts a cast

CAPEMAN on page 70