#234 - Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends (1968)
MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:
BACKGROUND – SIMON & GARFUNKEL
Simon & Garfunkel consisted of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They rank as one of the best-selling music acts of the 1960s. Their most famous recordings include three US number ones: "The Sound of Silence" (1965) and two Grammy Record of the Year winners "Mrs. Robinson" (1968) and "Bridge over Troubled Water" (1970).
Paul and Art Garfunkel grew up in the 1940s and 1950s in their predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, New York, three blocks away from one another. They attended the same schools from elementary school through high school, and both were fascinated by music. Both listened to the radio and were taken with rock and roll as it emerged, particularly the Everly Brothers. Simon first noticed Garfunkel when Garfunkel was singing in a fourth grade talent show, which Simon thought was a good way to attract girls. Their friendship formed in 1953, when they appeared in a sixth grade adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. They formed a streetcorner doo-wop group called the Peptones with three friends and learned to harmonize. They began performing as a duo at school dances. By the time they got to high school, they wrote their first song in 1956 called "The Girl for Me". Simon's father sent a handwritten copy to the Library of Congress to register a copyright. While trying to remember the lyrics to the Everly Brothers song "Hey Doll Baby", they wrote "Hey, Schoolgirl", which they recorded for $25 at a studio in Manhattan. While recording they were overheard by a promoter, who signed them to his independent label Big Records after speaking to their parents. They were both 15. Under Big Records, Simon and Garfunkel assumed the name Tom & Jerry; Garfunkel named himself Tom Graph, a reference to his interest in mathematics, and Simon Jerry Landis, after the surname of a girl he had dated. After graduating from high school in 1958, the pair continued their education should a music career not unfold. Simon studied English at Queens College, and Garfunkel studied architecture before switching to art history at Columbia. While still with Big Records as a duo, Simon released a solo single, "True or False", under the name "True Taylor". This upset Garfunkel, who regarded it as a betrayal; the emotional tension from the incident occasionally surfaced throughout their relationship.
Under the name Tom & Jerry, they had minor success with "Hey, Schoolgirl" a song imitating their idols, the Everly Brothers. After graduating college in 1963, Simon joined Garfunkel, who was still at Columbia University, to perform again as a duo, this time with a shared interest in folk music. Simon enrolled part-time in Brooklyn Law School. By late 1963, billing themselves as Kane & Garr, they performed at a Greenwich Village club that hosted Monday night open mic performances. They performed three new songs, including "The Sound of Silence"—and attracted the attention of a prominent Columbia Records A&R Man, Tom Wilson, who would later become a key architect of Bob Dylan's transition from folk to rock. Initially wanting to take one of their tracks and record it with a different group (The Pilgrims), but Simon convinced Wilson to let him and Garfunkel audition in the studio, where they performed "The Sound of Silence". Columbia then signed them. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (October 1964), sold poorly; Simon returned to a solo career, this time in England. In June 1965 "The Sound of Silence"—an acoustic song on the duo's debut album—was overdubbed with electric guitar and drums became a US AM radio hit, reaching number one on Billboard Hot 100, initially keeping the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" off the top spot. The duo reunited to release a second studio album, Sounds of Silence (January 1966)—featuring the updated version of "The Sound of Silence"—and toured colleges nationwide. For their third release, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (October 1966), the duo assumed more creative control. Their music, mostly old material, featured prominently in the blockbuster film The Graduate (released December 1967), including "The Sound of Silence", "Scarborough Fair", and two very short acoustic versions of "Mrs. Robinson". Across 16 consecutive weeks between April and July 1968 the film's soundtrack album and the duo's next studio LP, Bookends (April 1968)—featuring the hit version of "Mrs. Robinson"—alternated at number one on Billboard's Top 200.
Simon and Garfunkel had a troubled relationship, leading to artistic disagreements and their breakup in 1970. Their final studio album, Bridge over Troubled Water, released that January, became one of the world's best-selling albums. Following their split, Simon hit big on both the singles chart (13 Top 40 hits, 1972–86) and the album chart, including the acclaimed Graceland (1986). Garfunkel charted with hits such as "All I Know" (1973) and the two UK number ones "I Only Have Eyes for You" (1975) and "Bright Eyes" (Britain's top single of 1979), and briefly pursued an acting career, with leading roles in the films Catch-22 (1970) and Carnal Knowledge (1971), and Bad Timing (1980). The duo have reunited several times; their 1981 concert in Central Park may have attracted more than 500,000 people, one of the largest concert attendances in history.
Simon & Garfunkel have won 9 total competitive Grammy awards, 4 Hall of Fame awards, and a Lifetime Achievement Award. The Grammy HOF Tracks include Bridge Over Troubled Water, Mrs Robinson, Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme, and The Sound of Silence. They were induced into the RnR HOF in 1990, and the Vocal Group HOF in 2006. They are among the best-selling music artists, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Over the course of their career, Simon & Garfunkel's music gradually moved from a basic folk rock sound to incorporate more experimental elements for the time, including Latin and gospel music. Simon & Garfunkel were a highly regarded folk act distinguished by their intuitive harmonies and Paul Simon's articulate songwriting. By the late 1960s, they had become the "folk establishment..Their later albums explored more ambitious production techniques and incorporated elements of gospel, rock, R&B, and classical, revealing a "voracious musical vocabulary"
Simon and Garfunkel has cast a wide influence on the music world, including musicians from all genres and generations including Crosby, Stills & Nash, Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, Jackson Brown, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Melissa Ehteridge, John Denver and Neil Diamond.
ALBUM BACKGROUND – BOOKENDS
Bookends is the fourth studio album by American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. The album was released in April 1968. They had risen to fame two years prior with the albums Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and the soundtrack album for the 1967 film The Graduate. Bookends is a concept album that explores a life journey from childhood to old age. Side one of the album marks successive stages in life, the theme serving as bookends to the life cycle. Side two largely consists of previously-released singles and of unused material for The Graduate soundtrack. Simon's lyrics concern youth, disillusionment, relationships, old age, and mortality.
-Disc jockey and pioneer of FM Rock Radio Pete Fornatale once said Bookends represents "a once-in-a-career convergence of musical, personal, and societal forces that placed Simon & Garfunkel squarely at the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the sixties". Rolling Stone credited the record with striking a chord among lonely, adrift young adults near the end of the decade.
Much of the material was crafted alongside producer John Simon (no relation), who joined the recording when Paul Simon suffered from writer's block. The album was recorded gradually over the period of a year, with production speeding up around the later months of 1967.
2) Initial sales for Bookends were substantial in the US, and the album produced the number-onesingle "Mrs. Robinson". The album sold well in the US and in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number one. Bookends was considered a breakthrough for the duo, placing them on the same level as artists such as Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stonesat the forefront of the countercultural movement in the 1960s.
The duo were signed under an older contract that specified that the label pay for sessions. "As a folk duo, how much could recording costs be?" said John Simon). Simon & Garfunkel took advantage of this indulgence, hiring viola and brass players, as well as percussionists. When the viola players arrived, the duo were so intrigued with the sound of the musicians tuning their instruments before recording that they spent nearly all night (at Columbia's expense) trying to find the random sound. Simon paid close attention to his vocal takes, and he strived to get each line perfect. He took a bigger role in all aspects of production, and harmonies for which the band was famous gradually disappeared in favor of songs sung solo by each member.
This album's thematic qualities of this album have been compared to other concept albums like the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released ten months prior. While Sgt. Pepper was notable for sonically colorful, psychedelicshapes, Bookends is starkly contrasted by moody, "black-and-white and gray" sounds. Garfunkel confirmed the influence of Sgt. Pepper's in a 2015 interview, "We were terribly impressed, and that shone a light on the path that led to Bookends." Simon often smoked hashishwhen writing, and he was convinced he must be high to write. He felt the drug had a negative effect and caused him to "retreat more into myself." He often found himself alone while on tour, and his thoughts grew dark during these times. He attributed "the pain that comes out in some of the songs is due to the exaggeration of being high.”