“Late In The Evening” by Paul Simon

"Late in the Evening" led off One-Trick Pony, Paul Simon's fifth solo album, in 1980, and it was also his first single for Warner Bros. It hit number six on the Billboard Hot 100, and it's easy to hear why: the thing swings like a block party. The engine is Steve Gadd's drumming, a New York take on the Cuban mozambique groove that he played with two pairs of sticks, one in each hand, so it sounds like two drummers going at once. Ralph MacDonald's percussion, Tony Levin's bass and the guitars of Eric Gale and Hugh McCracken fill in the rest, and a horn break gets its own spotlight.

Phil Ramone produced it with Simon and mixed it too. When Simon reunited with Art Garfunkel in Central Park in 1981, they played it twice.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.