Simon & Garfunkel

by Spencer Leigh

  This was followed by the B-side of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’. Simon is taking a familiar expression and making a good song out of it. It is the story of a salesman who is hustled from state to state. It’s a great song about life on the road with the chorus stating what a relief it is to be home. Among the covers, there is an unexpected big band treatment from Buddy Rich with horns blaring out.

  The first side ends with the gentle bossa nova ‘So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright’, and Paul would later be entranced by the music of Brazil. It is a strange song as much about the famous architect as ‘Mrs Robinson’ was about a baseball player, but Simon does have this knack of finding the right name or phrase to put in a lyric.

  Actually, Garfunkel had suggested that Frank Lloyd Wright would be a good subject. Difficulties arose when he was asked to sing it. Paul Simon told Penny Valentine of Sounds, ‘“So Long” was a source of intense battles, and I eventually left the studio and walked out because Artie wouldn’t do it the way I wanted and he insisted on doing it his way. I insisted on doing it straight, and that was it. I mean, my choice was either to roll right over him and say, “Absolutely not. If you’re not going to do it this way, then you are not going to do it at all”… and I couldn’t say that, or to walk right out of the studio, which I did. I said, “Okay. I wash my hands of this whole thing. Do it any way you want.”’

  In the fadeout ending of that song where Art is singing ‘So long, so long’, Paul and Roy Halee add a ‘So long already, Artie’. It was a telling joke that was soon to come true.

  Ignore the fact that the song is called ‘So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright’. It is really about the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel. You can say the same of ‘Why Don’t You Write Me’, ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ and ‘Song for the Asking’. Simon was obsessed about the partnership falling apart. His main collaborator on the album had been the patient and cooperative Roy Halee.

  We turn the record over for ‘The Boxer’ and ‘Baby Driver’, and then there is a trilogy comprising ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’, ‘Why Don’t You Write Me’ and ‘Bye Bye Love’. The first word of ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ refers back to Art’s days as Tom Graph and is about Art making Catch-22 in Rome. The track is mostly sung by Paul but they sang ‘aaahs’ over and over together using an echo chamber and mixed the compressed results down for the record. Bob Dylan visited them in the studio while they were doing this and such technicalities were alien to him.

  In 1970 Bob Dylan recorded ‘The Boxer’ for his own album, Self Portrait, and possibly the song was about him and his problems with Columbia. He changed one word: ‘Every glove that’s laid him down’ became ‘Every blow that’s laid him down’. Dylan scholar Michael Gray says, ‘We actually see the boxer better. We comprehend that outside the ring as well as inside it, his life is a series of defeats.’ Dylan didn’t record any more of Simon’s songs, although he did sing ‘Homeward Bound’ and ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’ in concert for a few gigs in the early 90s. Dylan recorded his own song about a boxer, ‘Hurricane’, in 1975

  Simon normally took care to have original song titles but ‘Why Don’t You Write Me’ revived the title of a doo-wop song he would have known from the Jacks. Simon’s song works well enough but it is unimaginative by his standards. He told Sounds, ‘I wasn’t satisfied with it and I did it two or three times but I never liked it at all. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I’d recorded it in the wrong place. I should have recorded it in Kingston, Jamaica.’ Simon wasn’t to repeat this mistake as he went to Jamaica for ‘Mother and Child Reunion’ on his next album. Although fine in its own right, ‘Cecilia’ could have been recorded with a reggae beat.

  With the talent and versatility of his studio musicians, you might suppose that it would have been easy for him to record songs any way he wanted, but he would disagree. He told Disc, ‘Certain musicians will be perfect for certain things. But they could still be fine musicians and yet not be able to play something else. I mean, I can sing a certain kind of song very well, but if you booked me to sing “In the Midnight Hour”, I wouldn’t be the right guy.’

  Simon and Garfunkel are naturals when it comes to the Everly Brothers’ songbook and proved it when they revived the Everlys’ first hit, ‘Bye Bye Love’. Recorded in concert, it retained the drive and urgency of the original but their harmonies are somewhat lost amidst the handclapping. It comes over as a novelty and even more so when you learn the background story.

  Simon told Rolling Stone, ‘“Bye Bye Love” was recorded in Ames, Iowa, mostly because of our fascination with handclapping. We went out and we said, “Now listen. You have to handclap on the rhythm; you can’t fall behind like every other audience because we want the sound of 8,000 people handclapping. It’s going to be a great backbeat.” And it was. We did it twice. We sang and said, “No, too ragged, we’ve got to do it again.” And that’s why.’

  You can’t blame them for leaving the sound of 8,000 people applauding on the album, and that applause neatly segues into the final track, ‘Song for the Asking’. The song creeps in on us and in a way, that’s appropriate as the lyric all but apologises for being there. Simon keeps its length down although he could have spun it out with repetition. It is good listening and Simon whispers the lyric, and there is much more of Simon than Garfunkel on the album.

  Despite his reservations, Simon thought it their best album, telling Rolling Stone, ‘I certainly don’t know why it should have been so much bigger than the others. I didn’t know when I made it that it was going to be that much bigger. I guess it has a very broad appeal. That’s the only reason I can think of. A lot of people who may never have bought albums before or never heard of Simon and Garfunkel got into it. We didn’t even know if “Bridge” was going to be a big single. We talked about it and I said I thought it might be a little bit too long.’

  Each album had done better than the previous one but Bridge Over Troubled Water surpassed expectations, having astonishing sales in Europe. The total sales are now over 25 million and it regularly features on lists of the best albums of all time.

  CHAPTER 8

  Everything Put Together Falls Apart

  Although Simon and Garfunkel did not plan any more records together, they worked in concert whenever Garfunkel was available. Simon enjoyed performing. ‘There’s pleasure in doing a good show,’ he told Record Mirror in 1971. ‘If you do a good performance and everything is right and people like it, then you feel you’re part of the whole rhythm of the evening. You’re a part of the audience and the audience is a part of you and we’ve all entertained ourselves. That’s great. The drag of performing is when you do it too often.’

  But performing was taking its toll and it was clear that they would soon stop appearing together. Simon told the New Musical Express in 1971, ‘I was not so much bored with performing as bored with what I was doing. We were singing the required Simon & Garfunkel hits which realistically we had to do. We couldn’t say, “We won’t sing ‘Bridge’ again” as people want to hear it and if we’re going out on stage, we’ve got to do it.’

  Paul Simon discussed his problem with fellow artists. ‘I was talking to Dylan about going out on the road. It gets boring to me because they want to hear “The Sound of Silence”. He said, “Well, I’d like to see you and if I came to see you, I’d want you to see you sing ‘The Sound of Silence’ and ‘Scarborough Fair’.”’ As Dylan rarely played his hits as they had been recorded, there was some hypocrisy in what he was saying, but no doubt it was delivered with his knowing half-smile.

  Possibly Art’s presence amounted to more than just turning up to sing the songs. Wally Whyton certainly thought so: ‘Art’s part of the set-up is much stronger than most people realise. Art is an arranger. He has an arranger’s mind and he knows how to get the best out of Paul’s material. Without Art’s influence, Simon might not be the star he is today.’ Interesting thoughts, but hardly backed up by the album credits.


  Simon said that such thoughts were nonsense. ‘Anyone who knows anything would know that this was a fabrication,’ he told Rolling Stone in 1972. ‘How can one guy write the songs and another guy do the arranging. Musically, it was not a creative team. Art is a singer and I am a writer, musician and singer. We didn’t work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.’

  Garfunkel had by far the more distinctive name. To be known by your surname implies a certain gravitas and status (Beethoven, Mozart, Gershwin, Lennon, Dylan, Springsteen) but that could never happen with Simon. Undoubtedly Garfunkel possessed the easier name for promoting new product, and the question was, would Paul Simon continue to be the star he was without Garfunkel? We had to wait for the answer as Paul pursued other interests.

  Paul Simon’s friend, David Oppenheim, was now in charge of arts education at New York University and he posted a notice in January 1970: ‘Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel has offered to teach a course in how to write and record a popular song. Only those who are already writing and have music and lyrics to show Mr Simon should apply.’ The course would run on Tuesday evenings from February to May.

  Sixty-nine students applied and Simon held auditions for his pupils. Ron Maxwell and Joe Turrin, who had written a rock opera, Barricades, auditioned and were surprised that Simon couldn’t read music. In turn, Simon thought they were too advanced for his class.

  Eighteen-year-old Maggie Roche and her younger sister Terre were working clubs in Greenwich Village and knew Dave Van Ronk. His wife Terri told them of Simon’s classes. They attended an audition and saw Simon arriving on his own. He heard their songs and said that they could join and not even pay. He told them that they had enough talent to win local contests but that they were not ready professionally.

  There were fifteen students in Simon’s class and he was always casually dressed in baseball cap and jeans. It was a two way street: one student told Simon of a new folk singer he had seen, James Taylor, who was sensational. Simon checked him out and agreed. He told one student, Melissa Manchester, that she had been listening to too much Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell. He advised, ‘Say what you have to say as simply as possible and then leave before they have a chance to figure you out.’

  Although Simon couldn’t read music, he explained the circle of fifths to them and told them about working in thirds for harmonies like the Everly Brothers. He said that nails had to be a certain length for fingerpicking.

  He would tell the wannabe songwriters of the pitfalls in making records and how to correct them. He explained, ‘That’s what happened to most of the San Franciscan groups in the early days. Fine live groups but they didn’t know anything about the recording studio and they couldn’t figure out why their records were bad. They had to learn the whole thing and they had to learn it while they were making their albums.’

  Simon took the best of the students’ songs and then recorded them at Columbia’s studios. The course was very successful – well, the Roches and Melissa Manchester came from it. Simon enjoyed it very much, saying, ‘I like talking about songwriting.’

  Simon brought in Isaac Stern and Al Kooper as guest speakers but not Art Garfunkel, who was on a long holiday with Linda Grossman. They went to Tangier, Gibraltar and London, often hitchhiking. They rented a house in Oban, Argyllshire. He posed with sheep for the Oban Times and said he loved stone walls, green hills, long rambling walks and chatting with strangers.

  While Simon was teaching and Garfunkel was travelling, the album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, was released. What group today would be permitted to do that? Nevertheless, the album sold a million copies within a week. Some concert dates were planned including five European dates in London, Copenhagen, Paris, Amsterdam and another in London over a fortnight. Except for Larry Knechtel, there would be no other musicians, but it would be a semi-holiday as they would have Linda and Peggy, two girls from Tennessee, with them. Garfunkel insisted that they stayed at the Amsterdam Hilton like John and Yoko.

  Simon and Garfunkel returned to the Royal Albert Hall in April 1970. The demand for tickets was enormous and some had been touted at fifty pounds. They sang their hits but Simon noticed a difference. ‘It wasn’t like the audience of old friends who had been at the Royal Albert Hall before. They just seemed to be people who wanted to see a chart-topping act.’

  Reviewing the concert for The Times, Miles Kington wrote, ‘My one criticism on Saturday was that they badly mismanaged their encores; there is no sight more depressing than squads of dumpy girls half-heartedly invading a stage.’

  The concerts went well: they even managed ‘Fakin’ It’ with just a guitar. At the Royal Albert Hall, they sang two songs from Songs Our Daddy Taught Us – ‘Lightning Express’ and ‘That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine’. Miles Kington wrote, ‘Some hate Simon and Garfunkel because their music has no guts, because it is a middle class look at life, because it slips too easily from idiom to idiom.’

  Miles Kingston considered their music gutless, but Garfunkel had made a film which broke social boundaries. With a title like Carnal Knowledge, the film had to be a send-up and it was. Mike Nichols was again directing and he worked from a brilliant funny/sad script from the cartoonist Jules Feiffer, the original title being True Confessions. Arthur (not ‘Art’, and he was similarly listed for the Bridge album) played someone with romantic ideals and he helped select the music for the film.

  We start in the mid-1940s with two college students, the brash Jonathan (Jack Nicholson, and like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, looking too old) and the mild-mannered Sandy (Arthur Garfunkel) who are both determined to get laid. They make it with the same girl, Susan (Candice Bergen), and there is one splendid moment where Art introduces the condom to the big screen. Sandy marries Susan while Jonathan continues in his quest to find the Great Ball-buster of All Time. He finds her in the well-proportioned Bobbie (Ann-Margret) while Sandy has switched to Cindy (Cynthia O’Neal). As Cindy and Bobbie move away, Sandy and Jonathan become disillusioned and the film becomes serious. In a pitiful epilogue, Sandy grows long hair, acquires a hippy girlfriend and says, ‘I’ve found out who I am’, while Jonathan visits hookers for sexual excitement. Art had good notices, although John Weightman in Encounter, describing him as ‘ugly and sensitive’, was more hurtful than any criticism of his acting.

  Jonathan and Sandy are two friends who are tough on each other, so shades of Simon & Garfunkel there. In reality, Garfunkel got on well with Jack Nicholson and they hosted a stoned viewing of Lawrence of Arabia in Vancouver. Art took the cast to a show featuring Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs and James Taylor.

  Carnal Knowledge was a far cry from anything Art had done before and it wasn’t long before a reporter – Lon Goddard of Record Mirror – wanted to know if Simon had seen Garfunkel’s movies. He replied, ‘Sure, I went with Artie. Catch-22 was a big disappointment for me but he was fine in his role. Carnal Knowledge is a good film – not a great one, but a good one and again Artie did very well.’

  Writers looking back on the early 70s sometimes wonder why the Beatles split up: why couldn’t they have done their own things for a couple of years and then met up again? The answer is that no one had thought of a temporary break at that time, but that is what Simon and Garfunkel did. They had not ruled out working together, and Simon said, ‘We’re still good friends. We just have different interests, that’s all. There was never anything legal binding us… I don’t think that Artie wants a full-time career in acting. I think he’ll take parts that come along if they’re good, but he’ll keep singing.’

  Although Art was a good actor, there were plenty of actors around and yet there were few singers with a voice as distinctive as his. There was no reason why he shouldn’t operate in both fields – after all, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Elvis Presley had done that for years, and Kris Kristofferson was writing songs, recording albums and making films as though he had accepted some frenzied deadline.

  In July they recorded a couple of other songs from th
at Everlys’ album, ‘Barbara Allen’ and ‘Roving Gambler’, in New York. Simon sang lead on a Scottish ballad, ‘Rose of Aberdeen’. It’s lovely, but this was made for their own entertainment rather than some specific purpose. As Simon once said, ‘I could sing these songs forever.’

  But maybe not with Garfunkel. On 17 July 1970 Simon and Garfunkel played two shows at Forest Hills open-air stadium for a total audience of 28,000. They were paid $50,000 for their day’s work. They included the Bronx doo-wop hit ‘A Teenager in Love’, made famous by Dion and the Belmonts, and they combined ‘Cecilia’ with ‘Bye Bye Love’. They closed with ‘Old Friends’ and they agreed that this would be their final show, although they didn’t tell the audience or Mort Lewis. Just a few miles away at Downing Stadium on Randall’s Island, there was a huge New York Pop festival with Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk Railroad, Steppenwolf, John Sebastian and Jethro Tull.

  On 6 August 1970, Peter Yarrow of the then-splintering Peter, Paul & Mary had organised a show to raise money for the anti-war movement. The Summer Festival for Peace was at Shea Stadium with Creedence Clearwater Revival, Miles Davis, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Paul Simon solo. It was the first time that music stars had got together for a large-scale political event. Garfunkel didn’t want to do it and Simon did it solo without consulting Lewis. Only 15,000 turned up, a huge audience but less than 30% capacity.

  Their TV special notwithstanding, Simon was viewed as safe and old-fashioned. They started booing when Simon sang ‘Scarborough Fair’. Ellen Willis said in The New Yorker, ‘I hate most of his lyrics; his alienation, like the word itself, is an old-fashioned sentimental liberal bore.’