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The
most successful folk-rock duo of the 1960s, Paul Simon
and Art Garfunkel crafted a series of memorable hit
albums and singles featuring their choirboy harmonies,
ringing acoustic and electric guitars, and Simon's
acute, finely wrought songwriting. The pair always
inhabited the more polished end of the folk-rock spectrum,
and were sometimes criticized for a certain collegiate
sterility. Many also feel that Simon, as both a singer
and songwriter, didn't truly blossom until he began
his own hugely successful solo career in the 1970s.
But the best of S&G's work can stand among Simon's
best material, and the duo did progress musically
over the course of their five albums, moving from
basic folk-rock productions into Latin rhythms and
gospel-influenced arrangements that foreshadowed Simon's
eclecticism on his solo albums.
Simon and Garfunkel's recording history actually predated
their first mid-'60s hit by almost a decade. Childhood
friends while growing up together in Forest Hills,
NY, they began making records in 1957, performing
(and often writing their own material) in something
of a juvenile Everly Brothers style. Calling themselves
Tom and Jerry, their first single, "Hey Schoolgirl,"
actually made the Top 50, but a series of follow-ups
went nowhere. The duo split up, and Simon continued
to struggle to make it in the music business as a
songwriter and occasional performer, sometimes using
the names of Jerry Landis or Tico & the Triumphs.
By the early '60s, both Simon and Garfunkel were coming
under the influence of folk music. When they reteamed,
it was as a folk duo, though Simon's pop roots would
serve the act well in their material's synthesis of
folk and pop influences. Signing to Columbia, they
recorded an initially unsuccessful acoustic debut
(as Simon and Garfunkel, not Tom and Jerry) in 1964,
Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. They again went their separate
ways, Simon moving to England, where he played the
folk circuit and recorded an obscure solo album.
The Simon & Garfunkel story might have ended there,
except for a brainstorm of their producer, Tom Wilson
(who also produced several of Bob Dylan's early albums).
Folk-rock was taking off in 1965, and Wilson, who
had helped Dylan electrify his sound, took the strongest
track from S&G's debut, "Sounds of Silence,"
and embellished it with electric guitars, bass, and
drums. It got to number one in early 1966, giving
the duo the impetus to reunite and make a serious
go at a recording career, Simon returning from the
U.K. to the U.S. In 1966 and 1967 they were regular
visitors to the pop charts with some of the best folk-rock
of the era, including "Homeward Bound,"
"I Am a Rock," and "A Hazy Shade of
Winter."
Full
Biography and Discography
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