Simon & Garfunkel: the Harmony Game

Details: Written by Bob Tallent; Parent Category: Entertainment-Arts-Other News; Category: Music . . . . .; Created: 12 November 2011; Last Updated: 05 January 2016

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Bob Tallent

Wednesday 9^th November 2011

I refuse to put a name on this photo. If you dont know them, get a life!Last night I got a text message from my brother-in-law, thanks Joseph, telling me to make sure I watch the programme on BBC1 at 11.30. Joe knows that I’m a Simon & Garfunkel fan- a huge fan. It was one of the best pieces of television I’ve seen for a long time. The programme was called “Simon & Garfunkel: the Harmony Game” which told the story behind Simon and Garfunkel's last studio album - "Bridge Over Troubled Water". This 1970 album is shrouded in rock n' roll mythology with legendary tales of inspiration, innovation and separation. The single, Bridge.., was released in January 1970 and the album in February. I was 16 then.

Both the single and the album hit the top of the charts in both the US and the UK. In fact, the album remained on the best selling charts for 85 weeks in the US and an unbelievable 285 weeks in the UK – that’s 5½ years. I’ll say it again - 5½ years. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" also had the distinction of being the first single to top the British and American charts simultaneously. Although "Bridge..." has since been recorded over 300 times by many fine singers, it is Art Garfunkel's rendition that, to this day, is still the definitive recording. Art's vocals on this song are extraordinary. Many years after its release, Paul said that Art's rendition is still the best.

Paul and Art, now in their 70’s, reflect back on the last 40 years and share their own thoughts with us in their own words. Their producer and sound engineer, Roy Halee, explained how he found and created the sound. It was amazing, allowing for the fact that it was 40 years ago. He explained how he'd nearly given a security guard a heart attack when recording the drum track for "The Boxer" in the entrance lobby at Columbia Records. Paul was still apparently a little in awe of what they'd done. "A shocking moment in my song-writing career," he said of the day when the melody for "Bridge Over Troubled Water" came to him. "I remember thinking, 'This is considerably better than I normally write'." To his credit, the Columbia boss at the time saw that this slow, almost hymn-like song was something special and backed it hard as the first single release.

The technical details are fascinating: how the closeness of their harmony was augmented with synchronous overdubbing of their voices, single tracking and then tracks for each voice; the use of echo, and of corridors in the Columbia building to find just the right spot for that thumping drum on “The Boxer”; Roy would go around clapping his hands to find the right spot for the drums: moving recording studios to cathedrals for the right sound; the laying down of the backing track of “Cecilia” at a presumably rather boozy boys’ night in; the development of the defining piano score on “Bridge…” by the wonderful Larry Knechtel and the now famous story of that almost-missed last verse, with Garfunkel and Halee insisting Simon write it because they knew, just knew, it was meant to be. Most of all, though, there’s a sense of two young men inspiring other young men around them to the very top of their game to produce perfection.

Paul said, "I'm delighted that I didn't have to write a follow-up, which I think would have been hard on both of us." Paul was not particularly interested in touring, saying, "I didn't want to go on tour. I didn't want to sing 'Scarborough Fair' again. I didn't want to sing all of those Simon & Garfunkel songs every night."

Paul was concerned that Art's movie career was overshadowing the duo's work. Art countered, "it was no more than a diversion for me, an opportunity that came along. To call it a change in career or a conscious new direction on my behalf is completely false and incorrect." Art also felt that "Art Garfunkel" as a successful movie actor could only help the image of Simon & Garfunkel as a talented duo.

But finally, it probably came down to this: Paul and Art had different tastes in music. Paul said, "I wouldn't say my ideas were bigger than Simon & Garfunkel, but I would say that my ideas were different from Simon & Garfunkel. And I didn't want to go in that direction of a duo."

Art felt differently, he told Victoria Kingston, in her book ‘Simon & Garfunkel: The Definitive Biography’, "Personally, I would have gone on to make an album that was much better than Bridge, simply because I don't think there was anything restrictive about our format. I didn't feel we had to fit into any set pattern." Art continued, "We both felt that the amount of fun we got out of being Simon & Garfunkel was getting to the crucial point where it was not really worth the effort." Paul later said, "During the making of 'Bridge', there were lots of times when it just wasn't fun to work together."

I refuse to put a name on this photo.Over the years Bridge. . . has sold over 25 million albums. Some people think there are only a handful of good tracks on the album. I’ve been listening to them for 40 years and I think every one of them is brilliant. I’ve been trying to teach myself guitar and the songs I love are by S&G. I’m trying to teach myself the Paul Simon version of Anji by Davey Graham.

There's nothing that brings out your talent like hit albums," said Art Garfunkel at the beginning of the film. For a second, this seemed horse before cart. How could an album that didn't yet exist summon up the talent that brought it into existence? But then it clicked. Garfunkel was talking about all the albums that preceded it. At the time they started work, Paul Simon recalled, four out of the five top albums in the American charts were theirs. The secret of Bridge… it seems, was the secret of many creative triumphs: complete self-assurance. As Garfunkel put it, "There's a certain freedom you get when you're sitting on top of the world." He said he instantly knew “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was a monster song, the best he’d written. He must have memories of its creation.

During the “Songs of America”, AT&T sponsored the show and an executive raged at "the humanistic approach" of the film his company had sponsored, explaining that sequences about black poverty were bound to offend their Southern affiliates. He was right: one million people had switched off by the first commercial break and the show was beaten in the ratings by a Peggy Fleming ice-skating special. Tellingly, Paul Simon seemed as proud of that fact as he was about the songs he'd written.

Paul Simon is, in my mind, the greatest songwriter of the modern era, reinventing himself over and over again, and, unlike Madonna, in a good way. Not only that, he has embraced politics in the most subtle of manners: never bombastic, never sensational, he has also never sold out, never become the corporate tax dodging entrepreneur so many of the more strident names of that decade (and even today) have become. And yet, with one album called “Graceland”, he can quite legitimately be counted as one of the architects of the downfall of apartheid – not that he would ever, ever make such a claim on his own behalf.

“Only Living Boy in New York” – explained in the programme as Paul’s goodbye to Art (“Tom”) as he flew to Mexico to film “Catch-22″, which was the beginning of the end of their collaboration. Like Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”, it tells the story of musicians whose personal relationship is going pear-shaped. That transcendent choral refrain at the end of the track, washing away to a single plaintive guitar, gives me goosebumps every time. And “Song for the Asking” is the most gentle, poignant conclusion to a record you could ever imagine. And then there’s “Bridge…” itself, one of the most exceptional – and daringly different – songs ever written.

At the subsequent Grammy Awards in March 1971, the album and single were named Album of the Year and Record of the Year, and also won the awards for Best Engineered Record, Best Contemporary Song, Song of the Year, and Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists. The album will live on.

Although the duo split in the wake of the album’s release and their relationship is a matter for themselves, understanding the dynamic between Simon and Garfunkel which led to creating their music is always going to be of interest. This careful, sanctioned documentary was more about the nuts and bolts of the album, its individual songs and their public life, including on the 1969 TV special Songs of America. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have gone their separate ways to do what they both do, separately.

They’ve made up and split a few times over the years and had long stretches of non-communication less-tenacious squabblers like CSN&Y and the Eagles can only dream of. In 2003, they got together for the “Old Friends: The 2003 Concert Tour,” unofficially dubbed “The Grumpy Old Men Tour” by a press happy to have an outlet for old rocker jokes left unused from the last Stones outing.

Every Christmas, on St Stephen’s Day, after the big dinner when everyone is gone home at around 2 in the morning, I sit in the dining room, happy with having my family around, turn on the large projector, give it good sound and put on the “Old Friends” DVD. I’ve been doing that for about 7 years and invariably, I fall asleep in the middle of it, knackered after a long day because I do the cooking. My kids, when they lived in the house, used to come in to me when they were coming from the clubs, and wake me up. Now, . . . well now, I wake up when I wake up.

I must be getting old!!

PS:

It’s a sign of their popularity when you see Garfunkel being spell checked in my dictionary.

Just to round off the article here are the songs from the album and YouTube videos

Side 1
Play them full screen and highest volume. I challenge you not to play at least one of these!!

1. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" – 4:52

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(on this rehearsal, you can see Paul’s younger brother Eddie wandering around – looks like his twin)

2. "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" (Daniel Alomía Robles, English lyrics by Paul Simon, arranged by Jorge Milchberg) – 3:06