大象传媒

by Bob Stanley

By 1966 they had both become bookish folk singers, and their image was as the intellectuals of pop.

Bridge Over Troubled Water was such a ubiquitous album when I was growing up in the seventies – a regular Sunday lunch soundtrack - that it's easy for me to forget that 's entire catalogue was recorded in the sixties. Incredibly, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel first met as far back as 1953. As kids, they both got hooked on rock 'n' roll at the same time, with a special fondness for the Everly Brothers. The Everlys were the obvious influence on their first single Hey Schoolgirl, a middling American hit which they released as Tom & Jerry in 1957 (I wonder which one was the lanky cat and which was the slightly smug mouse?). Their friendship was based on more than just their music; their shared a similar humour and maybe that was just as well – recalling Hey Schoolgirl in 1966, Paul Simon said: “I don't want to talk about it. It was fodder for mental eunuchs, I'm ashamed of it.”

By 1966 they had both become bookish folk singers (not afraid to name check Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost in The Dangling Conversation) and their image was as the intellectuals of pop. “They don't do many personal appearances because of 's continuing studies” said Carol Deck of KRLA Beat in 1966. Later that year, Paul Simon said "although teenage pop kids buy my records I find it a little hard to communicate with them. We don't have that much in common." As late as 1969, when they were virtually finished as a duo, NME's Keith Altham was still reporting that "with all their other commitments and Art still at college, there is no chance (of them coming to Britain) until next March. Art is now sitting for his Bachelor of Science degree, and I believe that Paul now has his B.A."

Given that Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits was another seventies best seller, it's shocking to realise how few hits they had in Britain in the sixties - a grand total of four! The first was Homeward Bound in 1966, which rather disliked - “I don't know how I wrote that. It's not even me”. The Sound Of Silence had been a US number one earlier that year but didn't register here at all; the Bachelors' faithful cover went to number three. I Am A Rock, their third major US hit of 1966, had been recorded in London by Paul Simon, solo, back in 1965 and was released here as a flop single. Paul made a deal with Graham Nash for The Hollies to have a clear run in this country with their cover version; CBS in Britain released it on an EP, but when the Hollies decided not to make I Am A Rock a single, the S&G version was finally released here as an A-side. Confused? I'm sure record buyers here were, and it staggered to number 17. Their other hits were Mrs Robinson (no.4 1968) and The Boxer (no.6 1969); singles like Faking It, Hazy Shade Of Winter, The Dangling Conversation, and At The Zoo failed to even reach the UK Top 50.

Of course, a lot of their best known songs were never singles. Take The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy), which Harpers Bizarre had a US Top 20 hit with. “I like it” Paul Simon told NME. “It's a hit record. Theirs is a little less alive than our version. Everything in it has an arranged feeling. When we did it, we used Gene Wright and Joe Morello from Dave Brubeck's group. Just me and those two guys. I wanted a light jazz thing. I think it came off quite well.” Modest lad.