Fact #117052

Paul Simon : Mother and Child Reunion was the first time I went somewhere to record a certain sound. There was a track on the last Simon And Garfunkel album called Why Don't You Write Me that was supposed to be a ska track, but it didn't really come out right. When I was working on my first solo album, everything got more free and loose, because there wasn't a partnership anymore - I didn't have to ask anybody what they thought. So I decided to got to Jamaica with Roy Halee to record a version of this ska tune I had written. And when I got there, they said, ‘No, we don't play ska anymore, we play reggae now.’ So I said, ‘So what does that sound like?’ So that's how that session began down there in that studio that you see in the Jimmy Cliff film The Harder They Come. A lot of the guys on this session ended up in Toots And The Maytals. It was a good band - a lot of ganja smoked. The Mother and Child Reunion idea came from a chicken and egg dish in a Chinese restaurant.