‘We have been talking more and more, because we make these holiday MP3s to send out instead of Christmas cards. We got this idea a few years back and after having done that and hearing the sound, we thought it might be a good idea to do something like a [duets] record’, she declared to Spinner.
She indeed did the harmony vocals on ‘Getting ready for Christmas day’, the song that Paul Simon gave for free around the holidays.
Edie Brickell was the singer of the band Edie Brickell & New Bohemians in the mid 80’s, but she left the band and then married Simon in 1992, after meeting him on the set of Saturday Night Live. She has a solo career with two releases, and reunited with the New Bohemians to record an album in 2006. Beside this, she has been busy raising her children, preparing her third solo album, and even forming the band The Heavy Circles, in 2007, with her stepson Harper… everything seem to stay in the family!
Regarding the duet album, she continued:
‘I’d like to make them very, very simple songs that invite you to sing with them, as opposed to something elaborate or odd compositions — an old-fashion record, that sits like a quilt.’
‘Paul can just harmonize with everybody, his voice sounds so gorgeous, he makes everybody sound good.’
That would be the first collaboration between the two musicians, because she said never asking advice from her husband for her own music:
‘I’m extremely private about all that, he hasn’t heard either of these [new] records. It’s an incredibly private expression and I’ve always been that way, from the beginning. In the past, I’d say it would be like asking him to salt my food to his taste.’