Fire and Rain

by David Browne

  Davis’ first impulse was to argue. It was almost impossible to imagine the two men apart (they, not CSNY, were “the American Beatles,” in Davis’ words) or to imagine where Simon would go as a solo artist. Garfunkel’s voice was such an integral part of the duo’s sound and identity. But he knew Simon too well to take such an argumentative approach, so he merely listened to Simon’s reasons. “He didn’t want a partner,” Davis said. “Artie was a very articulate partner, but that process had worn thin with Paul. He wanted to chart his own career without having to defer to another person.”

  Davis wasn’t happy, especially now that some of his label’s biggest acts were on rocky ground. (In June, Dylan had released Self-Portrait, a self-destructive double LP weighed down with soggy cover versions, including Simon’s “The Boxer.”) Now Simon and Garfunkel looked to be history as well. “If you have kids, and they’re getting a divorce, you don’t applaud and say, ‘Great!’” Davis said. “Divorce isn’t happy news.” Davis tried, instead, to gently discourage him. Would Simon sell as many records on his own as the duo? Maybe, maybe not. Simon flinched but didn’t say much. By the end of the conversation, Davis sensed he couldn’t alter Simon’s decision. All he could do was hope the break was temporary.

  By then, Garfunkel was gone again. In September, Mike Nichols’ screen adaptation of the Jules Feiffer play True Confessions, now retitled Carnal Knowledge, began filming in Vancouver, then later in Massachusetts and Manhattan. Feiffer’s biting, razor-sharp-tongued script followed the sexual adventures of two close friends from their saddle-shoed college years in the ’40s through facial hair and middle age in the ’70s. If Catch-22 was a seriocomic look at war, Carnal Knowledge would be a bleak depiction of male-female relationships in the new, sexually open era of the ’70s—which, in the film, would be depicted as a soul-depleting morass of lust, infidelity, communication breakdowns, and sexual frustration.

  As with Catch-22, Garfunkel would be taking his place alongside established actors: Jack Nicholson, fresh off Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, and sex-kitten pinup Ann-Margret. But there was one crucial, defining difference from the previous film. No longer just a member of an ensemble, Garfunkel would now be a costar, playing Sandy next to Nicholson’s Jonathan. Thanks to Nichols’ casting, he was no longer an aspiring actor; Carnal Knowledge would announce to the world that Art Garfunkel was a marquee name.

  In Simon and Garfunkel circles, the timing raised many an eyebrow. Catch-22 had been a difficult experience, especially for Simon. Before filming began, screenwriter Buck Henry, feeling the script had too many characters, eliminated several parts, including a small role written for Simon. Simon wasn’t happy, especially once he learned that Garfunkel’s part remained. To many close to them, Simon being cut from the film— combined with the way it ate up so much of Garfunkel’s time throughout 1969—was one of the principal reasons for their rift. In casting Garfunkel in another film so quickly after Catch-22, was Nichols, perhaps unintentionally, helping drive a wedge between the two? Some in their circle wondered—even, it turned out, Simon himself. “There was sort of vaguely the presence of Mike Nichols around, which was disconcerting to me,” he admitted to the New York Times, albeit two years later.

  “I never brought it up with either of them,” said their mutual friend Charles Grodin. “But if it was me, and my partner went off to do a movie, I wouldn’t appreciate it. ‘We’re a team and we’re doing great.’ But that’s me.”

  The net result was clear enough: With Nichols’ support, Garfunkel would finally be on Simon’s level. Filming Carnal Knowledge in Canada (for its scenes set on a campus in the ’40s), Garfunkel again found himself in heady, non-rock-and-roll company. While shooting at Victoria College, the cast, particularly Nicholson and Garfunkel, became pals when they shared a house. Nichols asked the cast to refrain from smoking pot, which they did—except for the night when Garfunkel, Nicholson, co-star Candice Bergen, and others got high and watched Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, mocking the decade-old desert classic with stoned giggles. Feiffer took Garfunkel and Nicholson to a party on the nearby set of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, where Garfunkel wound up in the same room as Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Robert Altman.

  Sandy’s pensive, understated personality proved a perfect match for Garfunkel’s own. (“Artie was just playing himself,” recalled a friend of the time.) Sandy, who winds up a doctor, was another variation of the soft-spoken, pure-of-heart Nately he’d played in Catch-22—and, by association, the winsome characters Garfunkel embodied in Simon’s songs. To Garfunkel, the combination of Jonathan and Sandy felt familiar, as if Nichols and Feiffer had based the two characters on the idea of a longtime friendship like his and Simon’s. Much like Simon and Garfunkel over the years, Jonathan and Sandy were close but competitive, chummy but hard on each other. Early in the film, Nicholson’s Jonathan, a rapacious, sexually driven rogue, sleeps with Susan (Bergen), the modelbeautiful girl of Sandy’s dreams. As New York Times critic Vincent Canby would comment, “It is, in effect, a series of slightly mad dialogues between two people . . . that almost always lead to new plateaus of psychic misunderstanding and emotional hurt.” Those words also summed up Simon and Garfunkel in 1970.

  Among those who knew Simon and Garfunkel, the breakup shouldn’t have been news; even their lifestyles pointed to separate paths. Garfunkel loved nothing more than traveling, exploring, and spending time with his new Hollywood contingent. Settling down wasn’t anywhere near the agenda. Simon was friends with some of the same people; like Garfunkel, he spent more time with writers, directors, and actors than with fellow musicians or pop stars. But thanks to his new marriage, Simon was more homebound. Peggy Harper was smart, witty, and attractive but, as Lewis had discovered during their brief marriage, averse to social gatherings. As a result, Simon seemed to spend more time with her at their Upper East Side apartment—which would soon give way to a brownstone—and their house in Pennsylvania.

  Another sign of an impending Simon and Garfunkel divorce should have been Simon’s ever-expanding tastes, particularly his fascination with rhythms and world music—a world apart from Garfunkel’s attachment to more opulent, romantic pop. “Cuba Sí, Nixon No,” Simon’s Chuck Berry homage, wasn’t the only song dropped from Bridge Over Troubled Water. Garfunkel had argued for a Bach choral piece Simon rejected; they also took a pass at “Feuilles-O,” a Haitian ode to the powers of marijuana. All three, along with a fourth song, “Groundhog,” were relegated to tape canisters.

  Despite all those forewarnings, though, Clive Davis wasn’t the only one caught way off guard by news of their split. Mort Lewis, their manager, knew well how each got on the other’s nerves, sometimes intentionally. But when they walked offstage at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium that summer, Lewis had no idea it would be their last show. Increasingly, it was obvious what had happened: They’d effectively dissolved during the making of Bridge Over Troubled Water but hadn’t bothered to tell anyone who handled the business of Simon and Garfunkel.

  Now everything, from their strained interactions to the paucity of live concerts during the year, made sense. When he heard the news, Robert Drew, executive producer of their Songs of America special, flashed back to its filming. In meetings, Simon did the majority of the talking; Garfunkel mostly sat and observed. Simon wound up editing the film himself, without his partner. Most strikingly, Drew recalled how the two made subtle jokes between themselves about disbanding. “They obviously had a plan, and the plan was to separate,” he recalled. “But it wasn’t announced and not spoken of in that way.”

  Drew thought the story of their dissolution would make a riveting follow-up film, but they expressed no interest in making it. A planned live album for Columbia, culled from their fall 1969 concerts, was shelved. No press release or public statement about their dissolution would be forthcoming. (Despite his formidable ego, fanfare never appealed to Simon: That fall, he quietly donated $25,000 to the City College of New York, for what became known as its “Mrs. Robins
on Fund” for teachers.) Simon and Garfunkel would recede as gently and nonaggressively as the decade.

  As early as 1957, Simon was painfully aware of show business’ dark side—massive fame followed by devastating, financially strapped obscurity. “Once you’re down, it can be terrible,” the sixteen-year-old Simon admitted to the New York World-Telegram during Tom and Jerry’s “Hey, Schoolgirl” moment. “There’s really nothing worse than someone who has been on the top and then is down.” Thirteen years later, the matter still weighed on him. In the wake of the breakup, Simon knew well that Garfunkel’s voice, blond Afro, and surname were more immediately identifiable to the public than his own. Simon told Lewis he was worried people would confuse him with R&B singer Joe Simon, and Davis’ qualms about Simon without Garfunkel didn’t help matters.

  But the times were shifting in Simon’s favor. As the end of 1970 neared, solidarity began going the way of solipsism. The bands, one iconic ’60s act after another, were crumbling, the scrap heap growing higher with each passing month. The Beatles, CSNY, and Simon and Garfunkel—and, everyone soon learned, Peter, Paul and Mary—were only the most prominent. The Stax duo Sam and Dave, who brought volcanic energy to hits like “Hold On, I’m Comin’” and “Soul Man,” announced their dissolution. The Supremes no longer included Diana Ross, who left in January to start a career of her own. A frustrated Lou Reed split from the Velvet Underground in August. Jefferson Airplane lost their original drummer, Spencer Dryden, in January, and their smooth-voiced co-lead singer, Marty Balin, would be gone by year’s end. The Dave Clark Five, holdovers from the British Invasion, were now history. The Monkees, already down to only two of the four founding members, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones, were also dust after one last illfated attempt to regain past glories with a final single in the spring.

  Enter a new category and genre, one that could have had its own section in a record store—the solo album. A year or two before, the concept was unimaginable. Bands were collectives, united fronts; rarely if ever did a member spin off and make his or her own record on the side. The very thought was an affront to accord. Those who worked on their own, like Dylan, had always done so and were continuing the long-standing tradition of the troubadour.

  By October, the group albums from earlier in the year were fading on the charts: Déjà vu at 24, Bridge Over Troubled Water at 43, Let It Be at 57. In their places were the remnants: albums by Harrison and Stills and Young and McCartney and Starr and, soon, Lennon and Crosby and Nash. Some were statements of individuality, others of frivolity. Either way, the collective message they sent out couldn’t be denied. Be it bands, community, the antiwar movement, none of it could be relied upon anymore. The rise of the solo album embodied the new self-reliance and self-absorption: the I Don’t Need Anyone Else But Myself, Thanks, statement.

  Earlier in the year, Simon and Garfunkel had each grown anxious over the similarities between “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Let It Be.” Now, as the year ended, those songs, along with those on Déjà vu, had more in common than any of them could’ve imagined. The serenity of the music turned out to be merely a cover for the hidden turbulence that lay beneath. The songs meant to comfort fans were often as not a product of recording studio magic than true collaboration. CSNY’s chummy onstage banter, the way each member flattered the other after a song ended, turned out to be as much show business as reality. Even Simon’s supportive words toward Garfunkel’s acting aspirations in “The Only Living Boy in New York” were a camouflage for far more conflicted feelings. Whether it was the music or the country, whatever hadn’t already exploded in the two previous years let loose one last time, like a final blast of steam from a manhole cover. The cover flew into the air, crashed onto the street, and gradually rolled to a stop, and everyone seemed too exhausted to retrieve and replace it.

  In November, Columbia Records laid claim to San Francisco. After having signed a number of local acts, including Joplin and Santana, Davis gave the go-ahead to build the label’s first recording studio in the city, to be run by Roy Halee, Simon and Garfunkel’s coproducer and engineer. Given Halee’s association with the two men, many assumed they’d use the rooms to begin cutting new music. Instead, only one name was penciled in for sessions in December—Paul Simon.

  “There was a thing called the golden age of the Beatles and when that broke up four years ago there was a huge slip-down—the energy level, the commitment disappeared,” Garfunkel said in an unpublished interview years later. “It’s looser now, it’s more personal, it’s scattered, it’s gone in lots of different directions.” Garfunkel began witnessing the transformation for himself. In New York in November, he, along with Dylan, caught the Fillmore East debut of Elton John, the British singer and pianist who’d released his first two American albums that year. The first had established him with “Your Song”; the second, Tumbleweed Connection, was suitably ambitious, an Englishman’s take on American country. John was part introspective balladeer, part Tin Pan Alley showman, and entirely of a different mindset than those who’d come before.

  During the Carnal Knowledge shoot in Vancouver, Garfunkel, Nicholson, and Bergen took a break from filming and swung by a nearby arena for a concert to benefit a new, pro-environment organization. The billed performers were Joni Mitchell and Phil Ochs. The unannounced guest was Mitchell’s boyfriend, whose album was now one of the most played records in the country. The musician whom Garfunkel’s partner hadn’t heard of earlier in the year had left the clubs and cult following—if not his troubles—behind.

  CHAPTER 16

  In Vancouver, British Columbia, the Stowe family had just gathered for dinner when the phone rang. To the amazement of his children, Irving Stowe, the family’s bushy-bearded patriarch, found himself on the line with Joni Mitchell, talking about her friend James.

  With a group of like-minded friends in the area, Stowe, a pacifist, teacher, and convert to Quakerism, was none too thrilled when he’d heard the United States would soon be conducting nuclear tests on Amchitka, a small island off the coast of Alaska. Although the government had detonated hydrogen bombs in the area before, in 1965 and 1969, the third, planned for 1971, promised to be the most brutalizing; the five-megaton bomb threatened to extinguish sea otters, bald eagles, and any other wildlife unfortunate enough to live in the area. To protest the tests, Stowe and his wife, Dorothy, had helped launch the Don’t Make a Wave Committee, and his passion for music (and the Newport Folk Festivals he’d attended) led him to consider organizing a concert to raise money for their actions, which included sailing a boat to the island as a visible act of protest.

  Although Joan Baez passed on an invite to the show due to her schedule (but sent a check for $10,000), she’d suggested Mitchell. Stowe reached out to Elliot Roberts, who phoned back to say Mitchell would do it. By the time Mitchell called Stowe at home two weeks before the concert, the committee had changed its name to Greenpeace. At a meeting, Stowe had flashed a peace sign and another member replied, “Let’s make it a green peace.” The new, more compact moniker stuck.

  “Hello, Joni,” Stowe said, as his family—his wife, daughter, and son—quieted down and eagerly eavesdropped. Stowe cupped his hand over the phone and turned to them. “Joni wants to know if she can bring James Taylor,” he whispered. “Who’s James Taylor?”

  The family members shrugged; they didn’t know either. His fourteen-year-old daughter Barbara thought Mitchell might mean James Brown, but that didn’t seem right. Back on the line, Stowe told Mitchell she could certainly bring her friend, then hung up and told his family not to mention it to anyone. “We don’t know who this is,” he said, “and if he’s no good, it could ruin the whole concert.” Later, the family ventured out to a nearby record store and, to their relief, saw Sweet Baby James in the window. When they asked the clerk how the album was doing, he said, excitedly, “It’s number 10 on the charts!”

  Like a shy kid at a prom dance, “Fire and Rain” had stood on the sidelines all year, waiting for its mom
ent. In the spring, Warner Brothers had hesitated to release the song to radio. With its subdued tone and elliptical lyrics, it wasn’t an odds-on favorite to be a hit. “I thought it was maybe too obscure in its message,” said Taylor’s friend and guitarist Danny Kortchmar. “It was too dark to be a hit.” The label also hesitated when soul singer R. B. Greaves, who’d had a major hit the year before with “Take a Letter, Maria,” a story-song about a black executive in a failing marriage, released a cover of “Fire and Rain.” No one wanted Taylor competing against his own song.

  Yet “Fire and Rain,” a regular part of Taylor’s set on the road, was making inroads with his audiences; its understated vulnerability, uncluttered melody, and easy-to-follow metaphors drew them in. When L.A. pop star Johnny Rivers unveiled another cover of the song in August—this one a lavish production with horns and female backup singers—Warners had no choice but to promote Taylor’s own version. “Finally,” announced an ad in the music press, “the original (and, we think, best) ‘Fire and Rain’ is now a single.” The accompanying photo—Taylor playing a piano in Asher’s living room, a cat hovering nearby—conveyed the singer’s, and song’s, hypersensitive image.

  Since “Sweet Baby James” hadn’t made the charts, expectations were modest; true enough, “Fire and Rain” debuted on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart at number 100. It didn’t stay there long. Far faster than the song’s tempo, stations in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia pounced on it, as did outlets in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Athens, Georgia. During the final days of filming Two-Lane Blacktop, Taylor told director Monte Hellman that people were starting to respond to the song, but his delivery was so muted Hellman didn’t know how big this news was. “Fire and Rain” also found its way onto playlists of stations at Knox College in Illinois, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the State University of New York in Oswego. In one week, it vaulted from 83 to 50 before sneaking into the top 10 the week of October 17. Two weeks after that, it was the third most popular song in the country.