It was early spring and Vaughn had called to let me know Paul Simon was on his way. When Paul arrived we greeted and proceeded down the hallway to the atelier we call “the kitchen”.


I had heard Paul was working on a new album. So, I asked Paul how it was going with the new album. He stopped dead in his stride and with a gleam in his eyes, like a child wanting to show off his new bike, he answered: "you wanna hear it." I, of course, replied YES and he went down to the car and pulled the tracks.


When he came back up he handed me the CD and I slipped it into our player. He requested we turn it up. The first track was "getting ready for Christmas day" it starts with this rocking beat ...

So Paul starts rocking his torso back and forth to the beat. I give him some space and moved over to the steaming table to block his hat.

There's this dub he mixed in with a Southern Baptist, the Reverend Gates, it's a sermon from the '40s. The Reverend Gates has this deep bellowing voice and as it is queued in, Paul starts dropping in some beats. It was outta mind man.


So there we are, Me, Paul, Cathy, Brandon, and Rute all in the kitchen, all rocking to the beats, steam pumping, felt 's bouncing, the tracker tacking. All in unison. We played all the tracks, with all of us movin' and groovin'. Paul seemed to enjoy and appreciate it so much that when it was all done he said "let's play it again"... Paul spent a good hour in the kitchen, and when he finally left, we shook our heads in amazement and laughed.