It all started in 1957 when a couple of singers dubbed Tom and Jerry copied the Everly Brothers on a forgotten single named “Hey Schoolgirl.”
Six decades later, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have a musical legacy that is as timeless as it is profound. From “The Sounds of Silence” to “Mrs. Robinson” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Simon and Garfunkel remain among the most influential and historic performers in music history.
Art Garfunkel plays The Sharon on Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. He will sing songs from his solo career as well as Simon and Garfunkel standards.
The Simon and Garfunkel partnership – like their ‘60s’ counterparts John Lennon and Paul McCartney – has been filled with creative genius, personal rifts and professional splits.
Even now, with both in their mid 70s, these two – as they did as kids growing up in Queens –- still have their differences, though age has mellowed them, somewhat.
“We’re forced to try and be two guys trying to make the most of what we can add up to,” Garfunkel once told me in an interview when he and Simon were on a reunion tour nearly a decade ago.
Sometimes, Simon and Garfunkel add up to zero. A couple of years ago, Garfunkel lashed out at Simon in a famed interview with an English newspaper, The Telegraph. The bad feeling went back to when they first split up after “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in the early 70s. Here they are singing the song:
https://www.bing.com/search?q=simon+and+garfunkel+bridge+over+troubled&qs=AS&pq=simon+and+garfunkel+bridge+over+&sk=SC1&sc=8-32&cvid=2C59B60E2B7944C48EFE69F92D4065C7&FORM=QBRE&sp=2&ghc=1 Garfunkel described Simon to The Telegraph as a “jerk” and said he created a “monster.”
In his recent autobiography – “What Is It All But Luminous” – Garfunkel writes the duo’s relationship was “shattered” in 1958, when Simon made a record deal without his partner’s knowledge.
And yet – like Lennon and McCartney – there is a real love and affection between Simon and Garfunkel that stretches back to childhood.
“As I entered Parsons Junior High where the tough kids are, Paul Simon became my one and only friend. We saw each other’s uniqueness. We smoked our first cigarettes. We had retreated from all other kids. And we laughed,” Garfunkel writes in his book.
Garfunkel describes his life long relationship with Simon this way:
“a singular love affair… From age eleven to today, a span of sixty-four years, Art and Paul have been at work to entertain, win the respect of, and dazzle one another.”
Their music from the 1960s transcends time. It was written during that turbulent era of war, protest and a baby boom generation coming of age.
“This is the kind of music that helped me get through some hard times,” Villager Robert Vucci, a Vietnam veteran, once told me.
So it was for countless others. Listen to Garfunkel sing on such classics as “April Come She Will,” “For Emily Wherever I May Find Her,” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and you understand how essential he was to songwriter Paul Simon.
Garfunkel had solo hits, including “All I Know,” “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “Since I Don’t Have You,” and “Bright Eyes.” He also made movie appearances in such films as “Catch 22,” and “Carnal Knowledge.”
Times have changed, but Garfunkel at 76 is still on the road performing, as he will be in The Villages.
“Can you believe I’m still doing this?” he said before a recent concert. “Well, I’ll tell you why I am. It’s because singing is an addiction.” He usually sings his own songs and such Simon and Garfunkel standards as “The Boxer,” “Homeward Bound,” “The Sound of Silence,” “Scarborough Fair” and, of course, “Bridge…”
It’s a long way from junior high in Queens but for Art Garfunkel the songs and his old pal still matter. Rock and roll forever changed him and he writes in his book how it happened:
“Alan Freed had taken this subversive music from Cleveland to New York City. He read dedications from teenage lovers before playing “Earth Angel,” “Sincerely.” When he played Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally,” he left the studio mic open enough to hear him pounding a stack of telephone books to the backbeat….
“One night Alan Freed called it “rock ‘n’ roll.” Hip was born for me. Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis. Bobby Freeman asked, “Do you wanna dance, squeeze and hug me all through the night?” and you knew she did….
“I was captured. So was Paul. We followed WINS radio. Paul bought a guitar. We used my father’s wire recorder, then Paul’s Webcor tape machine. Holding rehearsals in our basements, we were little perfectionists….
“We were guitar-based little rockers. Paul had the guitar…We took “woo-bop-a-loo-chi-ba” from Gene Vincent’s “Be-bop-a-lula.” We stole Buddy Holly’s country flavor (“Oh Boy”), the Everlys’ harmony (“Wake Up Little Susie”). Paul took Elvis’s everything (“Mystery Train”). As Paul drove the rhythm, I brought us into a vocal blend…”
So it was in the beginning, as it is now for Art Garfunkel.