SIMON & GARFUNKEL
The Columbia Studio Recordings 1964-1970
(Columbia/Legacy)
To a certain generation, Simon & Garfunkel defined the 60s. The voice-and-guitar duo observed the turbulent times and sang songs mocking, contemplating and lamenting the changes through which their country putting itself. To another generation, S&G are oldies radio staples, known more as the old duo that gave Paul Simon his start in the business. To them, it's hard to imagine the world music experimentalist of Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints as part of a vocal harmony duo like this. Simon must've been itching to get out. Those old tunes sure are catchy, though.

To another, even younger generation, Simon & Garfunkel are old fogies that their parents, maybe even their grandparents, revere. They dismiss them out of hand—after all, how could they relate to a couple of folksingers offering commentary on the baby boomer generation just as it came of age? S&G have nothing to do with their generation, certainly not with the music they plug into their car stereos.

They don't know what they're missing. Simon & Garfunkel's music is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. Paul Simon, at least back then, had a gift for universalizing his subjects; he dug deep into the heart of his characters, bringing to the surface feelings with which anyone could identify. It's a talent he's arguably ignored for most of his solo career, preferring to elevate pure craft over emotional content. He continues to write often stunningly well-crafted songs that often feel cold and distant. In the 60s, though, when he was writing for the beautiful vocal blend he attained with his childhood friend Art Garfunkel, his songs were as much models for the perfect balance between craft and emotion as those of the Beatles. An expert guitarist grounded more in early rock 'n' roll (the Everly Brothers were a big influence) and Tin Pan Alley pop than folk, he seemed to effortlessly generate immediately catchy hooks and sublime melodies by the guitar caseful. Any contemporary pop songwriter worth his or her diminished fifths has borrowed or outright stolen at least a few of Simon's ideas.

And while Simon & Garfunkel may have started their recording career as folksingers, following the then-current trend started by the Kingston Trio and totally revamped by Bob Dylan, their roots in other music led them from guitar-and-voice nudity to intricately arranged, fully-fleshed out arrangements over the course of less than half-a-dozen albums. The magical combination of Garfunkel's soaring choirboy tenor and Simon's more conversational vocal style continues to inspire harmony singers everywhere. They define folk rock as much as the Byrds and electric Dylan, though they're rarely credited with it. Their records stand the test of time better than most of the music of the 60s, and they're worth rediscovering by a new generation. Now they can, thanks to Legacy's new boxed set The Columbia Studio Recordings 1964-1970, which collects all five of the duo's studio albums, with remastered sound and bonus tracks.

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., the duo's debut album from 1964, is a straightforward folk album, not dissimilar to what Peter Paul & Mary were doing around the same time. Produced by Tom Wilson (who would go on to produce Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and Frank Zappa's Freak Out!), the record consists mostly of covers, from traditionals like "Peggy-O" and "Go Tell It On the Mountain" to then-contemporary neofolk/pop tunes like Bobs Camp and Gibson's "You Can Tell the World" and Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'." Versions of other folks' numbers have never really been this pair's strength; fortunately, there are a handful of Simon-penned tunes here. The original, acoustic version of "The Sounds of Silence," the lovely "Sparrow" and the gimmicky but good-intentioned "Bleecker Street" show a songwriter of uncommon talent. The twosome's distinctive vocal harmonies are already fully developed here, but overall this sounds like a pleasant but unremarkable folk record. There's little to indicate the greatness to come. (This edition also includes demos for three of the record's tracks.)

After Wilson added an electric rhythm section to "Silence" and scored the duo a major hit, S&G reconvened to make 1965's Sounds of Silence with future Dylan boardsman Bob Johnston producing. Here is where the Simon & Garfunkel sound truly begins to take shape. Significantly, all the tunes but one (Davey Graham's nimble instrumental "Anji") are composed by Simon, and the duo's vocal blend is strong and self-assured. Galvanized by Dylan (as was every other intelligent songwriter in the mid-60s), Simon successfully integrates Dylanesque social commentary ("Richard Cory") and wordplay ("Blessed") into his program of contemporary folk songs ("I am a Rock," "April Come She Will"). Johnston provides electric backing for many of the tunes, with the Wurlitzer piano-driven "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" coming out as a full-fledged pop song. (A pretty cheesy pop song, mind you, but a pop song nonetheless.) Not everything works—the Garfunkel showcase "Kathy's Song" is so ethereal it practically fades away as you listen to it—but Sounds of Silence constitutes a cogent step forward. (The bonus tracks include three traditionals and a take on Jackson C. Frank's "Blues Run the Game," which Simon picked up in London.)

1966's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme finds the duo taking an even stronger measure of creative control, sequencing the record to fit into a loose concept (though only S&G seem to know what that concept might be) and molding the music into a distinct shape. "Patterns" and "Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall" find Simon perfectly integrating his ultra-wordy lyrics with memorable melodies, a breakthrough that would pay big dividends later on. The orchestration and sophisticated vocal arrangements of "The Dangling Conversation" and the sound collage interpolation of "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night" push the pair's ambitions far beyond folk. The rhythmically insistent "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine," with its upbeat melody, and the wry "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)," with its honking harmonica, foamy organ and fuzzy bass, actually rock out. "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her" and the duo's reimagining of "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" retain their incomparable beauty 35 years on. The hits "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" and "Homeward Bound" further add to the album's luster. With PSR&T, Simon & Garfunkel confidently declare themselves Artists. (This version adds demos for "Patterns" and "A Poem on the Underground Wall.")

That record was just a warmup, however, for 1968's Bookends, the pair's Major Artistic Statement. Producing themselves for the first time (aided by longtime engineer Roy Halee), Simon & Garfunkel generated a pop tour de force to rival anything released by the same era's great rock bands, including the Beatles. Side one constitutes a musical travelogue through the cycle of life. The Moog synthesizer-enhanced "Save the Life of My Child," the exquisite "Overs," the wistful "Old Friends" and the magnificent "America"—possibly the finest song Simon's ever written, an absolutely flawless blend of craft and emotion—are literally bookended by the recurring theme that forms the melodic basis for "Old Friends." It's a nearly perfect flow that most progressive rock bands, who make a habit of this sort of thing, aren't capable of producing. Side two has less coherence, as it compiles recent singles, but what a collection: the sweeping, cinematic "Fakin' It," the jaunty, Brit-poppish "Punky's Dilemma" (all it needs is Colin Blunstone singing it to be a long-lost Zombies track), the gloomy rocker "Hazy Shade of Winter," the Swiftian allegory "At the Zoo." Of course, this is also the album that contains "Mrs. Robinson," the overplayed hit from The Graduate that for better or worse is the duo's "Stairway to Heaven." Despite that, Bookends is unequivocally Simon & Garfunkel's masterpiece. (This edition includes a demo of "Old Friends" and the dramatic single "You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies.")

After that triumph, the pair spent nearly two years crafting the followup, and were rewarded with the biggest album of their careers. Bridge Over Troubled Water, released in early 1970, is merely a collection of new songs, rather than an integrated statement, though that's a fairly inconsequential point. It opens with the title track, a tune that's found its way everywhere from the Vegas repertoire of Elvis Presley to Church of Christ hymnals. Despite an overexposure level that would make a porn star blush, the song holds up extremely well, due as much to Simon's tight songwriting as to Garfunkel's emotion-laden vocal. "Bridge" is not the only delight found herein, however. The record also features the biographic anthem "The Boxer," another big hit for the duo, and "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)," which displays the first stirrings of Simon's thirst for music from other cultures. The percussion-heavy original "Cecelia" and a faithful live cover of "Bye Bye Love" pay tribute to S&G's primary inspiration, the Everly Brothers. The vigorous rockers "Baby Driver" and "Keep the Customer Satisfied" and the meditative ballad "The Only Living Boy in New York" also contribute to the album's pleasures. A few songs—"Why Don't You Write Me," "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright"—float by without sticking, but overall BOTW is a strong record and a fitting parting shot. (The 2001 version contains a demo of the otherwise unissued "Feuilles O" and an alternate take of "Bridge.")

The duo split after that, though their individual careers continue. Simon has put out a dozen solo albums, of course, each one a marvel of songwriting craft but with considerably less passion than he felt in the S&G years. Garfunkel has puttered around with solo albums, sessions, an acting career and poetry, generally enjoying a life his success with Simon lets him live. All those great hits were consigned to oldies radio, thereby associating them with all the one-hit wonders and bubblegum bands who weren't fit to tune Simon's guitar, and nowadays few remember that Simon & Garfunkel were once an important act. Make no mistake, though, they were. With The Complete Studio Recordings, you can rediscover them all over again. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: the Everly Brothers, the Beatles' Rubber Soul, acoustic Posies

Copyright © 2001 High Bias