Paul Simon was the first songwriter I ever heard who made me want to be a songwriter. I just loved what he did with lyrics and chords to express feeling and opinion, and I’m still an enormous fan. Of all the wonderful albums he has recorded, to me this one seems to marry his intellect with music in an irresistible way. There’s some wonderful playing, with much of the album recorded down in Muscle Shoals Alabama and featuring some of the grooviest, most wonderful players of the time. And it’s got some of the best songs he ever wrote on it: ‘Take Me To The Mardi Gras’, ‘Kodachrome’, ‘Loves Me Like a Rock’, ‘Something So Right’ and the masterpiece ‘American Tune’, all of it loaded with warmth, soul and intellect.