Simon & Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel

Performing live in Dublin.
Background information
Origin Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, NY, USA
Genres Folk rock, world music, soft rock
Years active 1957-Present
Labels Columbia
Website www.simonandgarfunkel.com
Members
Paul Simon
Art Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel are an American singer-songwriter duo consisting of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom & Jerry in 1957, and had their first taste of success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl". As Simon & Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, backed by the hit single "The Sound of Silence". Their music was featured in the landmark film The Graduate, propelling them further into the public consciousness.

They are well known for their close vocal harmonies and sometimes unstable relationship. Their last album, Bridge over Troubled Water, was delayed several times due to artistic disagreements. They were among the most popular recording artists of the 1960s; among their biggest hits, in addition to "The Sound of Silence", were "I Am a Rock", "Homeward Bound", "A Hazy Shade of Winter", "Mrs. Robinson", "Bridge over Troubled Water", "The Boxer", "Cecilia", and "Scarborough Fair/Canticle". They have received several Grammys and are inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2007). They have reunited on several occasions since their 1970 breakup, most famously for 1981's The Concert in Central Park, which attracted about 500,000 people.

Contents

History

Early history

Close friends through childhood, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, just blocks away from each other. They met in elementary school in 1953, when they both appeared in the school play Alice in Wonderland (Simon as the White Rabbit, Garfunkel as the Cheshire Cat). They were classmates at Parsons Junior High School and Forest Hills High School, and began performing together in their junior year as Tom and Jerry, with Simon as Jerry Landis (whose last name he borrowed from a girl he had been dating) and Garfunkel as Tom Graph (so called because he was fond of tracking ("graphing") hits on the pop charts). They began writing their own songs in 1955, and made their first professional recording, "Hey, Schoolgirl", for Sid Prosen of Big Records in 1957. Released on 45 rpm and 78 rpm vinyl records, with the flip-side song "Dancin' Wild", the recording sold 100,000 copies, hitting #49 on the Billboard Magazine charts. Both Simon and Garfunkel have acknowledged the tremendous impact of The Everly Brothers on their style, and many of their early songs (including "Hey, Schoolgirl") bear the mark of this influence.

They later performed their hit on American Bandstand, right after Jerry Lee Lewis performed "Great Balls of Fire".

Subsequent efforts in 1958 did not reach near their initial success, and after high school the duo went to separate colleges, with Simon enrolling at Queens College and Garfunkel at Columbia University. While enrolled in college, they both joined their campus chapters of the Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi.

In 1963, they found prominence as part of the Greenwich Village folk music scene. Simon, who had finished college but dropped out of Brooklyn Law School, had—like Garfunkel—developed an interest in the folk scene. Simon showed Garfunkel a few songs that he had written in the folk style: "Sparrow", "Bleecker Street", and "He Was My Brother"—which was later dedicated to Andrew Goodman, a friend of both Simon and Garfunkel and a classmate of Simon's at Queens College, who was one of three civil rights workers murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, on June 21, 1964.

These three efforts were among five original songs by Simon included on their first album for Columbia Records, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which initially flopped upon its release on October 19, 1964.

First breakup

Shortly after finishing recording, the duo split and Simon moved to the United Kingdom, where he performed at Les Cousins and The Troubadour in London and toured provincial folk clubs. While in England, he recorded his solo The Paul Simon Songbook in 1965. Recorded on three different dates in June and July at Levy's Studio, London, the album was released as an LP but then deleted about 1979 at Simon's request, and re-released on CD with bonus tracks in 2004.[1] During this period in London he also collaborated on a number of songs with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers, including "I Wish You Could Be Here", "Cloudy", and "Red Rubber Ball", which would be a U.S. #1 hit for The Cyrkle in 1966.

While Simon was in England that summer of 1965, radio stations around Cocoa Beach and Gainesville, Florida, began to receive requests for a song from the album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. called "The Sound of Silence". The song also began to receive radio airplay in Boston. Seizing the chance, the duo's U.S. producer, Tom Wilson, inspired by The Byrds' hugely popular electric versions of Bob Dylan songs, used Dylan's studio band (who had collaborated with him on his landmark hit Like a Rolling Stone that year) to dub electric guitars, bass and drums onto the original "Sound of Silence" track, and released it as a single, backed with, "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'".[2] The dubbing turned folk into folk rock, the debut of a new genre for the Top 40, much to Simon's surprise. (A few months earlier they briefly reunited and experimented with a more contemporary sound and recorded a couple of songs including "Groovy Thing".)

In September 1965, Simon first learned that it had entered the pop charts while he was about to go on stage in a Danish folk club. The song hit #1 on the pop charts by New Year's Day, 1966.

Reformation and success

A red vinyl promotional copy of Simon & Garfunkel's single "I Am a Rock", from 1966.

Simon immediately returned to the United States and the duo re-formed for the second time to record more tracks in a similar style, though neither approved of what Wilson had done with The Sound of Silence. The result was a sequence of folk rock records which have endured as well as any in the genre. On January 17, 1966, the duo released the album Sounds of Silence, which—helped by the title track's success—hit #21, while Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. was re-released and reached #30. Among the tracks on The Paul Simon Songbook that were rerecorded (some with electric backing) for Sounds of Silence were "I Am a Rock" (which as a single reached U.S. #3 in the summer of 1966), "Leaves That Are Green", "April Come She Will", "A Most Peculiar Man", and "Kathy's Song".

Further hit singles came, including "Scarborough Fair/Canticle", based on a traditional English ballad with an arrangement by Martin Carthy, and "Homeward Bound" (later U.S. #5), about life on the road while Simon was touring in England in 1965. The song is reputed to have been written when Simon was stranded overnight on a platform at Widnes Central railway station after mis-reading the timetable. A plaque commemorates this event at the station.

More tracks from The Paul Simon Songbook were included with recent compositions on their October 10, 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, which refined the folk rock sound hastily released on Sound of Silence. "Cloudy", co-written earlier with Bruce Woodley, was included on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. However, a Woodley credit was incorrectly omitted. The following year, Woodley's band The Seekers recorded it for their studio album Seen in Green, on which Simon received a credit.

In early 1967, Pickwick Records, which had a reputation as a low-quality label, decided that it would capitalize on the duo's newfound fame by releasing an album titled The Hit Sounds of Simon and Garfunkel. This album consisted of ten tracks recorded from the late 1950s and early 1960s while the duo still called themselves Tom & Jerry, including their hit "Hey, Schoolgirl", and its B-side, "Dancin' Wild". Simon and Garfunkel then sued Pickwick because the company was presenting the music as recently-recorded material, not as songs written and released over five years earlier. Soon afterwards, Pickwick withdrew The Hit Sounds of Simon and Garfunkel from the market. On June 16, 1967, the duo performed at the Monterey Pop Festival.

That same year, Simon and Garfunkel contributed heavily to the soundtrack to Mike Nichols' film The Graduate, which was released on January 21, 1968 and instantly rose to #1 as an album. According to a Variety article by Peter Bart in the May 15, 2005 issue, Nichols had become obsessed with Simon and Garfunkel's music while shooting the film. Larry Turman, his producer, made a deal for Simon to write three new songs for the movie. By the time they were nearly finished editing the film, Simon had only written one new song. Nichols begged him for more but Simon, who was touring constantly, told him he didn't have the time. He did play him a few notes of a new song he had been working on; "It's not for the movie... it's a song about times past—about Mrs. Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff." Nichols advised Simon, "It's now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt."[3]

As their albums became progressively more adventurous, The Graduate Original Soundtrack was immediately followed in March 1968 at the top of the charts by Bookends, which dealt with increasingly complex themes of old age and loss. It features the top 25 hit singles "A Hazy Shade of Winter", "Fakin' It", "At the Zoo", "America" and a full version of "Mrs. Robinson", the classic #1 single from The Graduate soundtrack. Simon and Garfunkel returned to England in the Fall of 1968 and did a concert appearance at Kraft Hall which was broadcast on the BBC, and also featured Paul's brother Ed sitting in on a performance of the instrumental "Anji".[4]

At the March 1969 Grammy Awards, "Mrs. Robinson" was named Record of the Year, while Simon was also honored with the Grammy for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.

Second breakup

By 1969, the duo's success began to take its toll. Garfunkel had begun to pursue a career in acting and was featured in the role of Nately in Nichols's film adaptation of the novel Catch-22. Garfunkel's filming leave conflicted with and subsequently delayed the recording of the duo's next album. The part in the film which had initially been promised to Simon was completely cut from the script.

The duo's deteriorating personal relationship continued into their late 1969 tour, which featured performances at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio on November 11 and Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois on November 8, recordings of which are supposedly widely bootlegged. Video footage of the tour was shown on their controversial November 30 television special Songs of America, which TV sponsors refused to endorse because of its distinct anti-Vietnam War message.

The recording of what would be their final album, Bridge over Troubled Water, was not without tension. The LP was originally supposed to feature twelve tracks, but the duo could not agree on the twelfth track: Simon refused to record a Bach chorale track favored by Garfunkel, while Garfunkel refused to record a song Simon had written called "Cuba Si, Nixon No". No middle ground was reached, so the album was released with only eleven songs.

Bridge over Troubled Water was at last released on January 26, 1970. Its title track, featuring Garfunkel's soaring vocals, was a massive hit and one of the best-selling records of the decade, staying #1 on the charts for six weeks and remaining on the charts for far longer. The album includes three other top-twenty hits: "El Cóndor Pasa" (US #18), "Cecilia" (US #4), and "The Boxer"—which, finished in 1968, hit #7 on the charts the following year—as well as a live recording of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye, Love" from a 1969 tour concert in Ames, Iowa.

At the subsequent March 1971 Grammy Awards, the album and single were named Album and Record Of The Year, respectively, and also won the awards for Best Engineered Record, Best Contemporary Song, Song Of The Year, and Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists. Their 1972 Greatest Hits album has sold over 14 million copies in the U.S. becoming the number one selling album by a duo.

The duo finally split in 1970 to much chagrin but little surprise, and the two men went their separate ways.

Simon continued writing and went on to a very successful solo music career, recording several classic albums, including There Goes Rhymin' Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years, and his most highly celebrated solo album, Graceland, collaborating with the Zulu choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo, among others.

Garfunkel split his time between acting and recording solo and collaboration albums, to mixed reviews. His most critically acclaimed album was the 1977 effort Watermark, almost all of the songs for which were penned by acclaimed songwriter Jimmy Webb.

Subsequent careers

Simon and Garfunkel together in 2009

Simon and Garfunkel's first reunion since their second breakup was at a June 1972 benefit concert at Madison Square Garden for presidential candidate George McGovern. On October 18, 1975 the duo made an appearance on the second ever episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live. They performed "The Boxer", "Scarborough Fair", and "My Little Town". The last song was the only new Simon and Garfunkel recording in five years, appearing on both men's solo albums released in 1975 (Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years and Garfunkel's Breakaway, respectively) and reaching #9 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Simon, along with James Taylor, provided harmony vocals on Garfunkel's cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World", from the 1977 album Watermark; the recording reached #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and #17 on the Hot 100. Simon also contributed backing vocals to "In Cars", a song from Garfunkel's 1981 solo album Scissors Cut.

Simon and Garfunkel reunited for a free concert in New York City's Central Park on September 19, 1981. The concert was attended by over 500,000 people, and a recording of it was subsequently released as a live album, with their cover of "Wake Up Little Susie" released as a single. A video recording was likewise televised by HBO and issued on home video. The success of the Central Park concert prompted the duo to go on a world tour in 1982–1983.

Simon and Garfunkel even completed their first new studio album in more than a decade, provisionally titled Think Too Much and featuring some songs previewed on their recent concert jaunt. However, creative differences (coupled with the record company's negative reaction to the decidedly un-Simon-and-Garfunkel-like album) led Simon to remove Garfunkel's vocal tracks and rework the songs himself. The 1983 Simon solo album Hearts and Bones was the result, and a long period of estrangement for the duo followed.

Their next joint public appearance was in 1990, when the two performed at a ceremony for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Simon and Garfunkel appeared together in 1993 for 21 sold out concerts in New York, with half of the show being Paul Simon solo with a band and the other half Simon and Garfunkel. Later the same year, they did some charity concerts, including the Bridge School Benefit concerts and a benefit for United Way Children's Charities at SkyDome in Toronto.

In July 2002, Columbia Legacy issued a previously unreleased live recording of a Simon and Garfunkel concert, Live from New York City, 1967. It features an almost-complete recording of a performance given by the duo at Philharmonic Hall, at Lincoln Center in New York City on January 22, 1967. The album includes a rendition of "A Church Is Burning", one of the songs that originally appeared on Paul Simon's solo album, The Paul Simon Songbook.

On February 23, 2003, Simon and Garfunkel reunited to perform in public for the first time in a decade, singing "The Sound of Silence" as the opening act of the Grammy Awards. Before the show, the duo was presented with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring their musical contributions over the past four and a half decades. They were introduced by Dustin Hoffman, who made his debut in the film The Graduate, which extensively featured their music.

The good feelings generated by their appearance on the Grammys led to another thaw in their relationship. Soon, Simon and Garfunkel launched a two-month long reunion tour of the United States (and Toronto, Canada), which ran from October 16 and culminating in Tampa on December 21, 2003. Entitled Old Friends, their first tour in over twenty years included forty shows in twenty-eight cities and featured special guests The Everly Brothers. The tour featured in its opening video montage a short series of clips and photos taken during the day leading up to the concert around the venue. They performed "Hey, Schoolgirl", which they said was the first song they had written and recorded together. At the tour concert at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, they performed "Leaves That Are Green" in place of "Song for the Asking", which had been on their set list for the other concerts on this tour, following an announcement that they had not played it in concert since 1967. They also played "Leaves That Are Green" at concerts in Boston after making a similar announcement.

The success of the first Old Friends tour led to an encore in June and July 2004 with over 25 shows, this time also in Europe. In July 2004, they completed the tour with a flourish, with a finale at the Colosseum in Rome before an audience which, according to the Mayor of Rome, exceeded 600,000—even larger than the audience at the famous 1981 Central Park concert.[5][6]

A live CD and DVD from their Old Friends tour was released in late 2004. It featured a "new" studio duo song, "Citizen of the Planet", one of the songs from the rejected 1983 reunion album that did not originally feature Garfunkel's vocal participation.

In 2007, PBS hosted the first Gershwin Awards, at which Paul Simon was honored. Simon introduced Garfunkel (for a cameo appearance) as "my partner in arguments" and the two sang "Bridge over Troubled Water" together.

Columbia/Legacy announced the September 18, 2007 release of Live 1969, which was said to feature recently discovered masters recorded on their 1969 tour. The album is now available through Starbucks. Most of the arrangements remain virtually unchanged. That tour was their last for over a decade, immediately preceding the release of the 1970 album Bridge over Troubled Water. The tour was recorded preparing for a subsequent live album, but the release of the live album did not happen, until now, as reported in Billboard.[7]

On February 13, 2009, Simon and his band re-opened New York's legendary Beacon Theatre, which had been closed for seven months for a renovation. As an encore, Simon brought out "[his] old friend" Art Garfunkel. They sang 3 songs: "Sound of Silence", "The Boxer", and "Old Friends".

On April 2, 2009, the duo announced a tour of Australia, New Zealand and Japan for June/July 2009.[8] On October 29–30, they participated together in the 25th anniversary of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden. Other artists on the bill included Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, U2, Metallica, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.[9].

In March 2010, Simon & Garfunkel announced a 13-date spring tour, to kick off in April with a performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Most performances were scheduled for Canada, with four shows in the upper Midwest of the U.S. According to a press release, the set list would focus on their classic catalog, as well as songs from each of their solo careers.[10] On June 17, 2010, Simon & Garfunkel canceled the tour, earlier rescheduled for July 2010, now postponed indefinitely as Garfunkel continues to recover from a vocal cord paresis.[11] According to his doctors, Art is expected to make a full recovery. This condition (paresis) inhibits the duo from performing shows at the highest possible level and it is for that reason and out of respect for their fans that Paul and Art decided to put the tour on hold.[12][13]

Discography

Studio albums

Singles with Billboard Hot 100 positions

Awards

References

  1. ↑ Paul Simon Songbook on Amazon.com confirming re-release date
  2. ↑ "The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Sounds of Silence". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6596001/the_sounds_of_silence. Retrieved 2009-12-11. 
  3. ↑ Mrs. Robinson by Simon And Garfunkel Songfacts
  4. ↑ Simon and Garfunkel, The Kraft Hall Concert, BBC 1968 Video of Ed Simon's performance can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21lzfpt8Dg&feature=related
  5. ↑ Simon & Garfunkel Conquer: Art Garfunkel : Rolling Stone
  6. ↑ Paul Simon News on Yahoo! Music
  7. ↑ "Live Album Chronicles 1969 Simon & Garfunkel Tour" by Jonathan Cohen, Billboard Magazine, June 21, 2007
  8. ↑ ""Australia and New Zealand snare the world's only confirmed concerts for Simon & Garfunkel in 2009"". http://www.simonandgarfunkel.com/news.html. 
  9. ↑ ""The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame celebrates its 25th anniversary with two groundbreaking concerts"". http://www.simonandgarfunkel.com/news.html. 
  10. ↑ ""Simon and Garfunkel Confirm Spring North American Tour"". http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/03/08/simon-garfunkel-confirm-spring-north-american-tour/. 
  11. ↑ "Simon & Garfunkel Cancel Summer Tour". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/events/simon-garfunkel-cancel-summer-tour-1004099106.story. Retrieved 2010-06-18. 
  12. ↑ "Simon & Garfunkel postpone tour indefinitely". The Marquee Blog - CNN.com Blogs. CNN. http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/18/simon-garfunkel-postpone-tour-indefinitely-2. Retrieved 18 June 2010. 
  13. ↑ http://www.billboard.com/events/simon-garfunkel-cancel-summer-tour-1004099106.story#/events/simon-garfunkel-cancel-summer-tour-1004099106.story

Further reading

External links

Official

Biographical and discographical

Other

Simon & Garfunkel
Paul Simon · Art Garfunkel
Studio albums
Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. · Sounds of Silence · Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme · Bookends · Bridge over Troubled Water
Live albums
The Concert in Central Park · Live from New York City, 1967 · Old Friends: Live on Stage · Live 1969
Compilation albums
Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits · Collected Works · Old Friends · The Best of Simon and Garfunkel · Tales from New York: The Very Best of Simon & Garfunkel · The Columbia Studio Recordings (1964-1970) · The Essential Simon & Garfunkel
Soundtrack albums
The Graduate
Hit singles
1965: "The Sounds of Silence" · 1966: "Homeward Bound" · "I Am a Rock" · "The Dangling Conversation" · "A Hazy Shade of Winter" · 1967: "At the Zoo" · "Fakin' It" · 1968: "Scarbourough Fair/Canticle" · "Mrs. Robinson" · 1969: "The Boxer" · 1970: "Bridge over Troubled Water" · "Cecilia" · "El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)" · 1972: "America" · "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" · 1975: "My Little Town" · 1982: "Wake Up Little Susie"
Videos
The Concert in Central Park · Old Friends: Live on Stage
Discography
Songs · Albums · Paul Simon solo albums · Paul Simon songs · Art Garfunkel solo albums