In 1964
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel returned to the studio to record the album Wednesday Morning, 3 AM .
In contrast to the following albums, the composers here were even more diverse, for example there was a cover version of Bob Dylan's song The Times They Are a-Changin' and two traditional songs .
The cover was mostly black, with the title in the upper half and a picture of Simon and Garfunkel in the 5th Avenue Station of the New York subway in the lower half. The entire album was recorded exclusively with acoustic instruments and contained the first published version of the later hit The Sound of Silence (which was initially titled The Sounds of Silence). Although this album sold significantly better than its predecessor, it too failed to achieve a commercial breakthrough.
However, the "distribution of roles" was already established with this album: Paul Simon was responsible for the music, Art Garfunkel for the vocals. His voice gives many of Simon and Garfunkel's songs their unmistakable character.
Paul Simon spent the next few months in England , where he recorded, among other things, the album The Paul Simon Songbook for the BBC in just over an hour. This album also sold only moderately well in Great Britain , but Paul Simon made a name for himself in the English folk scene and was able to charge up to 20 pounds per evening (around 200 euros today). During this time, Simon wrote several songs that were later recorded by Simon and Garfunkel.
The breakthrough
During this time, under the direction of Tom Wilson , who had also produced Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, a revised version of the song The Sounds of Silence was created: The existing acoustic version (with classical guitar and western guitars) was (without the knowledge of Simon and Garfunkel) backed or "electrified" with (twelve-string) electric guitar, electric bass and drums.
This version was released as a single in September 1965, topped the American charts in 1965 and marked the final breakthrough for Simon and Garfunkel.
In December of the same year, the recordings for the album Sounds of Silence took place. This album contains a revised version of The Sounds of Silence and a new version of the song Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, which was already included on the first album - but with minor changes to the lyrics and the melody of Davey Graham's instrumental piece.
This new version is called Somewhere They Can't Find Me.
The album was released in the United States in March 1966. Also included was the track Richard Cory, based on a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson .
The version released in Great Britain also included the song Homeward Bound , which had been released as a single in the USA in May 1966.
Homeward Bound became Simon and Garfunkel's first top ten hit in England.
The highlight of the career
Due to their great success, Simon & Garfunkel went straight back into the studio and in November 1966 the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was released. This line comes from the English traditional Scarborough Fair , which Simon & Garfunkel re-recorded for this album and accompanied by the song Canticle. This in turn was based on the piece already published by Simon on The Paul Simon Songbook entitled The Side of a Hill. The song Scarborough Fair/Canticle, which was created from this synthesis, is considered one of the most important and interesting folk songs ever, not least because of the vocal part.
The second exceptional piece on this album was 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night .
Here, a version of the Christmas song Silent Night recorded by Simon & Garfunkel was mixed with a recording of a news broadcast. Both songs were intended by Simon & Garfunkel as an artistic protest against the Vietnam War that was taking place at the time.
During this time, Simon & Garfunkel gave many concerts, including at various universities across the country.
There are various concert recordings from this period, so-called bootlegs , some of which have very poor sound quality.
However, a 1966 concert at Tufts University in Boston was officially released and some pieces, such as You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies, were only available on this album for a long time until many old recordings were reissued in the late 1990s.
In the spring of 1968, the soundtrack album The Graduate was released for the film of the same name (German title: Die Reifeprüfung ) starring Dustin Hoffman . The title song Mrs. Robinson was the first pop song to be used as film music . Originally, the song Mrs. Robinson had nothing to do with the film's protagonist of the same name. During filming, director Mike Nichols and Paul Simon related the song to the female lead. Mrs. Robinson is still one of Simon & Garfunkel's most popular songs to this day. Other songs on this album were alternative versions of well-known recordings as well as some of the original music by Dave Grusin . Both the song Mrs. Robinson and the entire soundtrack album won a Grammy .
In May 1968, the duo's fourth "official" album was released under the title Bookends . In addition to Mrs. Robinson and the track America, this album also included the track Save the Life of My Child, which in turn incorporated a sequence from the 1966 version of The Sounds of Silence.
With this album, Roy Halee finally joined the band, who was responsible for the duo's releases as a producer in the following years and also worked frequently with Simon later on.
The end of the duo
In 1969, only the single The Boxer was released.
In June 1970, the single El condor pasa was released, which stayed in the German charts for 28 weeks.
At the end of January 1970, the song Bridge over Troubled Water was released, followed a week later by the album of the same name , of which 1.7 million copies were shipped in the USA in the first three weeks.
Shortly after the album's release, Simon & Garfunkel announced their split. The reasons given at the time were that Art Garfunkel wanted to devote more time to his career as an actor - although he initially only made three appearances in the films Catch-22 , Carnal Knowledge and Bad Timing - and that Paul Simon wanted to pursue a different musical style.
The duo received six Grammys for the album, including for “Best Contemporary Song” and “Best Album”.
Later joint projects
1971 to 1980
In June 1972, a best-of album, Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits, was released. The two occasionally appeared together on television shows , and in 1975 a new joint single was released under the title My Little Town, but it remained a one-off single.
In 1978 they recorded another single with singer James Taylor . It was a cover version of the song (What a) Wonderful World by Sam Cooke.
1981 to 1990
The two singers celebrated a very successful reunion on September 19, 1981: As the city council of New York and its mayor Ed Koch were planning to close Central Park for financial reasons, several artists gave benefit concerts. Over 500,000 people attended the Simon & Garfunkel concert, and as the fireworks originally planned for that evening were prohibited, there was a large sea of burning lighters for the final piece, The Sounds of Silence. Paul Simon thanked Ed Koch, among others, for holding the concert, which initially led to a few whistles, but when the irony in Simon's speech was recognized, it turned into great applause.
The recording was released as a double LP. A short world tour followed, which also brought the duo to Germany for a few performances in 1982.
A short time later, Simon & Garfunkel began producing a joint album, but quickly abandoned the project (Paul Simon used the songs on his album Hearts and Bones, but without Art Garfunkel's contributions).
1991 to 2000
In the 1990s, there were occasional joint concerts, which resulted from the duo's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame .
2001 to today
In 2003, Simon and Garfunkel received the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award .
To mark the award, the duo performed at the Grammy Awards and played an acoustic version of their first big hit, The Sound of Silence.
The rehearsals for this performance resulted in plans for a joint tour in order to bid the audience a fitting farewell and to end the Simon and Garfunkel chapter on a conciliatory note.
This Old Friends Tour was initially scheduled to last three months and took place exclusively in the USA from October to December 2003.
Because of the great success, it was decided to continue the tour in 2004.
It lasted from May to July 2004, with half of the concerts taking place in European cities.
The double CD and DVD documenting these concerts also include a bonus new studio recording, Citizen of the Planet. This piece was written by Paul Simon for the 1983 album Hearts and Bones, but was never released.
Garfunkel pushed for a release of the song in 2004, with only him having to sing his part, which was then mixed with Paul Simon's 1984 recording.
After the end of the 2004 tour, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel went on solo tour again.
