Simon & Garfunkel
Use the Booking Entertainment.com agency to book Simon & Garfunkel for your corporate event, private party, fundraiser, college, fair or festival. Submit an Entertainment Request Form and an agent will reply within 24 hours.
Simon and Garfunkel are 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 SandG'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 and 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 and 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 SandG'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."
Simon and Garfunkel's early albums were erratic, but they steadily improved as
Simon sharpened his songwriting, and as the duo became more comfortable and
adventurous in the studio. Their execution was so clean and tasteful that it
cost them some hipness points during the psychedelic era, which was a bit silly.
They were far from the raunchiest thing going, but managed to pull off the nifty
feat of appealing to varying segments of the pop and rock audience — and various
age groups, not just limited to adolescents — without compromising their music.
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (late 1966) was their first really consistent
album; Bookends (1968), which actually blended previously released singles with
some new material, reflected their growing maturity. One of its songs, "Mrs.
Robinson," became one of the biggest singles of the late '60s after it was
prominently featured in one of the best films of the period, The Graduate (which
also had other Simon and Garfunkel songs on the soundtrack).
It was unsurprising, in retrospect, that Simon and Garfunkel’s partnership began
to weaken in the late '60s. They had known each other most of their lives, and
been performing together for over a decade. Simon began to feel constrained by
the limits of working with the same collaborator; Garfunkel, who wrote virtually
none of the material, felt overshadowed by the songwriting talents of Simon,
though Garfunkel's high tenor was crucial to their appeal. They started to
record some of their contributions separately in the studio, and barely played
live at all in 1969, as Garfunkel began to pursue an acting career.
Simon and Garfunkel’s final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, was an
enormous hit, topping the charts for ten weeks, and containing four hit singles
(the title track, "The Boxer," "Cecilia," and "El Condor Pasa"). It was
certainly their most musically ambitious, with "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" and
"The Boxer" employing thundering drums and tasteful orchestration, and "Cecilia"
marking one of Simon's first forays into South American rhythms. It also caught
the confused, reflective tenor of the times better than almost any other popular
release of 1970.
That would be Simon and Garfunkel’s last album of new material. Although they
didn't necessarily intend to break up at the time, the break from recording
eventually became permanent; as Simon began a solo career that brought him as
much success as the SandG outings, and Garfunkel pursued simultaneous acting and
recording careers. They did reunite in 1975 for a Top Ten single, "My Little
Town," and periodically performed together since without ever coming close to
generating albums of new material. A 1981 concert in New York's Central Park
attracted half a million fans, and was commemorated with a live album; Simon and
Garfunkel also toured in the early '80s, but a planned studio album was canceled
due to artistic differences.
Simon and Garfunkel are legends in the new millenium. In July 2002, Columbia
Legacy issued a previously unreleased live recording of a Simon and Garfunkel
concert, Live In New York City, 1967. It features an almost-complete recording
of a performance given by the duo at Philharmonic Hall, the Lincoln Center in
New York City on January 22, 1967.
Simon and Garfunkel would reunite to perform together again – in front of an
audience! On February 23, 2003, Simon and Garfunkel reunited to perform in
public for the first time since 1993, 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.
Simon and Garfunkel were feeling like old friends. 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 to 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 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 news media reports, was probably even larger than the
audience at the famous Central Park concert.
Simon and Garfunkel go together like milk and coffe, sugar and spice and all
things nice. 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, ironically the
only song from the rejected 1983 reunion album that did not originally feature
Garfunkel's vocal participation.
1-800-4ENTERTAINMENT
Phone: (212) 645-0555 Fax: (212) 645-0333275 Madison Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016
© 1996-2008 BookingEntertainment.com All Rights Reserved.
Pop Artist(s) & Popular Musicians | Country Music Artist(s) | Disco | R&B / Soul Artist(s)
Blues / Jazz Artist(s) & Bands | Corporate Entertainment | Private Parties | Fundraising Events