PAUL Simon lends new perspectives to ten of his personal favourites from his solo body of work on his September 7 album In The Blue Light.

"This album consists of songs that I thought were almost right, or were odd enough to be overlooked the first time around," says the 76-year-old New Jersey musician. "Re-doing arrangements, harmonic structures and lyrics that didn’t make their meaning clear gave me time to clarify in my own head what I wanted to say, or realise what I was thinking and make it more easily understood."

His 14th studio album is co-produced by Simon and Roy Halee, who have worked together since the 1960s and here are joined by stellar musicians on re-workings of less familiar songs from Simon's repertoire.

Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummers Jack DeJohnette and Steve Gadd are among the guest players, while New York chamber ensemble yMusic play on Can’t Run But and René And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War, just as they are each night on Simon’s Homeward Bound – The Farewell Tour, which will conclude at Flushing Meadows Corona Park on September 22.

Simon has selected songs from 1973's There Goes Rhymin' Simon, 1975's Still Crazy After All These Years, 1980's One-Trick Pony, 1983's Hearts And Bones, 1990's The Rhythm Of The Saints, 2000's You're The One and 2011's So Beautiful Or So What for In The Blue Light's new arrangements and collaborations.

"It’s an unusual occurrence for an artist to have the opportunity to revisit earlier works and re-think them; to modify, even completely change parts of the originals," says Simon in the album’s liner notes. "Happily, this opportunity also gave me the gift of playing with an extraordinary group of musicians, most of whom I hadn’t recorded with before. I hope the listener will find these new versions of old songs refreshed, like a new coat of paint on the walls of an old family home."

The full track listing is One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor; Love; Can't Run But; How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns; Pigs, Sheep And Wolves; René And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War; The Teacher; Darling Lorraine; Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy and Questions For The Angels.