At Benefit concert, Brickell and Simon perform together with wit and soul :
Edie Brickell and husband Paul Simon had never performed together in public before. But there they were Saturday night at Fair Park: the tall, willowy brunette from Oak Cliff and the songwriting legend from New York City, sharing the Music Hall stage.
Ms. Brickell talked about freezing her butt off for 16 New York winters and how she so missed the Texas heat.
´Yeah,´ said Mr. Simon. ´It´s great - if you´re a pizza.´
Edie talked about wanting Paul to be nicer when Mom comes up for a visit, to which he replied, ´There´s only so much Wheel of Fortune a man can watch.´
And then they launched into a perfect opener for a perfectly special evening, the Conway Twitty-Loretta Lynn classic, ´You´re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.´ A wry choice for a couple who share young children, but what a great one.
Mr. Simon seemed to love giving one lyric its own inflection when he sang, ´That´s the reason I ain´t got no hair to comb.´
Humor was good, since the reason for the show could not have been more serious. Ms. Brickell was trying to raise money for the medical care of childhood friend Robert C. Meadows, 43, a Dallas actor who suffered severe brain injuries last October after being attacked during a robbery in a parking lot near Bachman Lake.
His assailants, who remain at large, have left Mr. Meadows unable to walk or communicate and in need of more than $1.5 million in medical care and rehabilitation.
So Ms. Brickell enlisted her storied husband to help her, and what a choice it was. He delivered big-time, giving the night its most stirring moment by singing ´Bridge Over Troubled Water.´
But he also shared ´Mrs. Robinson,´ ´Slip Slidin´ Away,´ ´Me and Julio Down by the School Yard,´ ´The Boxer´ and ´Wartime Prayers,´ a song from his dazzling new album, Surprise, which fits the 9/11 era as well as any.
He also seemed to relish the backing of the amazing New Bohemians, who, with Ms. Brickell´s silky voice leading them, graced the crowd with 10 terrific songs. Her ballad ´10,000 Angels´ carried with it an eloquence that defined the emotion of the show as well as any moment could have.
Any complaints? Only one. It could have gone on till morning. For most, hearing Ms. Brickell sing ´Buffalo Ghost´ and ´What I Am´ - and hearing her homies go wild over that one - left, well, just about everybody feeling groovy.
And to have capped it off with the incomparable Paul Simon singing such a timeless treasure as ´Mrs. Robinson,´ which, incredibly, was written for a movie released almost 40 years ago (The Graduate, 1967) left us with only one conclusion:
How could ´Mrs. Robinson´ not have been nominated for an Oscar? In 1967, the Academy Award for Best Song went to ´Talk to the Animals´ from Doctor Dolittle. Obviously, in Hollywood, there´s no accounting for taste.
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