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Paul Simon/Simon and GarfunkelAlbums ReviewedWednesday Morning 3.A.M. (1964)The Paul Simon Songbook (1965) Sounds of Silence (1965) Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966) Bookends (1968) Bridge Over Troubled Waters (1970) The Concert In Central Park (1982) Hearts and Bones (1983) Graceland (1986) The Rhythm of the Saints (1990) Simon and GarfunkelWednesday Morning 3.A.M.(1964)Simon and Garfunkel met at a school production of Alice in Wonderland, where Simon was cast as the white rabbit and Garfunkel as the cheshire cat. They released a few singles as teenagers in the fifties as Tom and Jerry, and then re-emerged in the folk movement with Wednesday Morning 3.A.M.. Their debut was presumably located at the unfashionable end of the folk spectrum, with vigorous covers of the Christmas carol 'Go Tell It On The Mountain', the spiritual 'You Can Tell the World' and the shanty 'Peggy-O'. There is also a lively cover of Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin'', which completely messes with the spirit of the original. Simon and Garfunkel are better on the slower songs where their vocals are given more space, but the choice of material is irredeemably tacky: 'Benedictus', a monk like chant, and the school assembly favourite 'Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream'. The redeeming points of Wednesday Morning 3.A.M. are Simon's original songs, which are darker and less dated. The original acoustic version of 'Sounds of Silence' only needed some electric backing to make it a quintessential mid sixties single, while the title track isn't as mature but a step ahead of the covers. The restrained and folkish 'Bleecker Street' is maybe the most interesting piece of music here for the discerning Simon and Garfunkel fan. There are signs of promise, but the majority of Wednesday Morning 3.A.M. is only useful for kitsch value. 
Paul Simon: The Paul Simon Songbook(1965)After the commercial failure of Wednesday Morning 3.A.M., Paul Simon relocated to London. A performance in a Soho club was witnessed by one Judith Piepe who managed to place some Paul Simon songs in a prime slot on the BBC, creating a groundswell of public interest which resulted in The Paul Simon Songbook. Songbook is almost exclusively Paul Simon with a guitar, delivering stripped back versions of songs which would eventually appear on Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Songbook only recently appeared on CD; it is far more consistent and tasteful than Simon and Garfunkel's first two albums, and contains plenty to interest Paul Simon geeks. 'A Church is Burning' and 'A Side of a Hill' are nice songs which never appeared on any other Paul Simon album, although the lyrics of 'Side of the Hill' were woven into 'Scarborough Fair/Canticle'. The embryonic version of 'A Simple Desultory Philippic' with markedly different lyrics is also intriguing, while even 'A Most Peculiar Man' is enhanced by the stripped down treatment. While Simon doesn't quite have the charisma to make Songbook compelling he definitely has the songs, making The Paul Simon Songbook a valuable addition to a Simon collection.
Sounds of Silence(1965)While Paul Simon was in London, producers at Columbia noted that the song 'Sounds of Silence' from Wednesday Morning 3.A.M. had gained a cult following among college students. Electric backing from Dylan sessions was added to the track, and it was released, reaching the top of the US charts. Simon rushed back to New York to record an accompanying album. Sounds of Silence is a frustrating result; there is only half an album of vintage sounding Simon and Garfunkel, and not all of it is of quality or substance. The title track from the first album is given a new title ('Somewhere They Can't Find Me') and a totally revamped melody and arrangement. There is an instrumental folk standard called 'Anji' and the dull cover 'Richard Corey'. Worst of all is 'A Most Peculiar Man' which embarrassingly mixes profundity and mundanity. None of these songs deserve album space. The best known songs, the title track and 'I Am A Rock', are fantastic, as are the nursery rhymeish 'April Come She Will' and the brooding 'Kathy's Song'. 'Leaves That Are Green', 'Blessed' and 'We've Got A Groovy Thing Going' are catchy and fun, although well below Simon's ability as a songwriter. In its defence Sounds of Silence is an entertaining listen, but not always for the correct reasons.
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme(1966)I have a soft spot for Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; it was the first album I owned, after I commandeered it from my parent's collection. Despite my affection, it's not perfect; Paul Simon's songwriting overcompensated for the adolescent themes of Sounds of Silence and ventured into the pretentious territory. 'The Dangling Conversation' in particular features precocious lyrics like "And you read your Emily Dickinson/And I my Robert Frost/And we note our place with bookmarkers/That measure what we've lost," which are diminished in emotional impact by their awkwardness. The lyrics are also overly preachy in 'A Simple Desultory Phillipic' and 'The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine'. While the lyrics have flaws, the music works wonderfully. Simon and Garfunkel explore a comfortable range of sounds within their palette without stretching themselves with unnatural abrasiveness, making Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme the best representation of their classic sound. The best songs therefore, are when the uniformly strong music is mixed with the least ostentatious lyrics. 'Scarborough Fair/Canticle' reworks a traditional song with lovely results, while 'Homeward Bound' and '59th Street Bridge Song' are catchy singles. 'For Emily, Where Ever I May Find Her' is heartfelt in its lyrical simplicity, although it unfortunately launched fifteen hideous minutes of musical fame for obnoxious New Zealand television presenter Paul Holmes. While it has flaws, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is an enjoyable album that represents the emergence of Paul Simon's writing talent.
Bookends(1968)After jumping on the folk bandwagon in 1964, Simon and Garfunkel plotted their own course in popular music, ignoring trends such as drug references, psychedelia and guitar heroes. Despite this, Paul Simon's songwriting finger is on the pulse on American society. 'Mrs. Robinson' asks "Where have you gone Joe Di Maggio/a nation turns a lonely eye to you," while 'America', reflects a climate of apathy in a nation unsure of itself at the height of Vietnam ("Kathy, I'm lost I said though I knew she was sleeping/I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."). Bookends is based around an aging theme, with childhood represented in 'Punky's Dilemma' and 'At The Zoo', adolescence in 'Save the Life of My Child', young adults in 'America', older adults in 'Overs', and old age in 'Old Friends' and 'A Hazy Shade of Winter'. While every song is interesting, my favourites are the anthemic 'America' and 'Punky's Dilemma' where I especially enjoy Simon's enigmatic lines "I prefer the boysenberry more than any ordinary jam/I'm a citizens for boysenberry jam fan." The major problem with Bookends is that it is light on content; several of the tracks are interviews with old people and variations on the Bookends theme, and it still clocks in at less than half an hour. While what is on the album is terrific, Bookends doesn't have a high enough musical content to be awarded full marks.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters(1970)Garfunkel trotted off to Mexico to act in Catch-22 during the making of Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which partly explains why it was the duo's last album. The disharmony between the pair may also explain the nature of this album; half of it consists of brilliant sophisticated pop epics, while the remainder is merely enjoyable filler. My favourite of the pop epics is 'The Only Living Boy in New York', a beautiful harmony laced song about Simon feeling abandoned by Garfunkel. 'The Boxer' is filled with innovative aural techniques; the percussion in the chorus was recorded down an elevator shaft, while the guitars and vocals were recorded in a Church for atmosphere. The title track is a pop music standard, while the Latin 'El Condor Pasa', marking Simon's first foray into world music, is also suitably epic. The rest of Bridge Over Troubled Waters is comparatively insubstantial, although 'Cecilia' is a Simon and Garfunkel standard, and 'Song for the Asking' and 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' are nice low key acoustic pieces. 'Why Don't You Write Me' and 'Keep the Customer Satisfied' feature innovative, yet corny, arrangements. While none of the songs are individually disappointing, as a whole they devalue the sincerity of the title track, 'The Boxer' and 'The Only Living Boy in New York'. Bridge Over Troubled Waters is an uneven album, but well worthwhile for its best moments.
The Concert In Central Park(1982)In 1981 Simon and Garfunkel reunited for a free concert in New York's Central Park. During the concert, Art Garfunkel observes that "I thought that it might be somewhat crowded, but we seem to have filled the place." Accordingly, Concert In Central Park is an ambitious project: reuniting for the first time in a decade in a massive and uncontrolled setting, and releasing the results for the world to scrutinise. The massive scale of the venue dictates which songs are effective and which songs are not; anthems like 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters' and punchy numbers like 'Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover' are suited to the epic scale of the setting. It is mostly the Simon and Garfunkel tunes, intimate numbers like 'Homeward Bound' and 'Old Friends', that are lost in the vastness of Central Park. Some of Simon and Garfunkel's low key tunes are desecrated by bored backing musicians, who contribute unnecessary backing parts which drown out Simon's guitar. On the positive side, most of Paul Simon's solo hits come across well, and it is obviously historically significant to hear them with Art Garfunkel's vocal contribution. The highlights of The Concert In Central Park are Art Garfunkel's solo spotlights; he transforms the generic 'A Heart in New York' into a heartfelt moment, while he steals the show with an excellent rendition of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. While The Concert In Central Park does have flaws, it is of definite interest because of its historical importance and because it offers markedly different interpretations from the original studio versions. And the remark about the drug dealers, who apparently do a lot of unrecognised good for New York City, is priceless.
Paul SimonHearts and Bones(1983)When I first became a Simon and Garfunkel fan, there was an advertisement on TV where a mother finds a stash of heavy metal CDs in her son's room. She shows him to her husband, who reads out the titles in a shocked voice: "Bloodbath, Axemonger, Bonecrusher." The parents take the CDs out to a field, and shoot them like claybirds. At the time (in my pre-teens) I was rather confused between "Bonecrusher" and Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones, and was trying to figure out how Paul Simon became so offensive after he split with Garfunkel. Hearts and Bones was actually intended as Simon and Garfunkel's reunion album (following their onstage reunion at Central Park and subsequent world tour), but it became a solo effort after Garfunkel failed to complete his vocals on time. It's difficult to imagine Hearts and Bones as an appropriate vehicle for the duo, as few of the songs seem suitable material. Some are obviously highly personal to Simon; the "one and one half wandering Jews" in the title track is a reference to his brief marriage to actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia in Star Wars), while 'Train In A Distance' also deals with a broken relationship. At least those two songs are from Simon's top drawer and are far preferable to the duo besmirching themselves with filler like 'Cars are Cars'or 'Think Too Much (b)'. Hearts and Bones didn't reach the top forty in the U.S., so it would have attracted more attention as a duo release. As a Simon and Garfunkel release, however, Hearts and Bones would have been regarded as a failure, but it stands as at least a mixed success as a Paul Simon solo effort. The title track, 'Train In The Distance' and 'Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War' are absolute masterpieces, easily overshadowing slightly less profound efforts like 'Song About The Moon' (a song about songwriting) and 'Think Too Much (a)', which are excellent regardless.The problem is that these rub shoulders with tossoffs like the gimmicky 'Cars are Cars' (with the memorable insights "Cars are cars/All over the world/Cars are cars/All over the world") and the lacklustre 'Think Too Much (b)'. Hearts and Bones doesn't start or end particularly well either; opener 'Allergies' is interesting, but not representative of the rest of the album, while 'The Late Great Johnny Ace' is rather dull. Seemingly random guests include disco guitarist Nile Rodgers, avante-garde composer Phillip Glass and saxophonist Mark Rivera, who contributes a memorable solo to the end of 'Train in the Distance'. Despite its faults Hearts and Bones is an interesting and diverse album, and songs like 'Train in the Distance' and the title track make it all but essential for a Paul Simon fan.
Graceland(1986)Paul Simon was largely written off as irrelevant after his lack of success with One Trick Pony and Hearts and Bones, and he surprised everyone by coming up with his greatest artistic triumph more than twenty years after 'Sounds Of Silence' reached number one on the U.S. chart. Simon received the inspiration for Graceland after a friend gave him a cassette of South African music. After continously playing the cassette in his car Simon became infatuated with one of the groups, and contacted them to suggest collaborating on a track. The project expanded to become an entire album, with Simon recording basic tracks with a variety of South African groups, then overdubbing vocals in the U.S.. The musical scope of the groups used is surprisingly wide; there's everything from the acapella of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, through the Zydeco of Good Rockin' Dopsie And The Twisters, to the more conventional rock style of Los Lobos (the latter two groups are actually American). Juxtaposed against the rootsy music are some of Simon's best lyrics and vocals; occasionally plaintive, but more often conversational and vernacular ("it's a turn around jump shot/it's everybody jump start/it's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts", "sometimes I'm falling, flying/or tumbling in turmoil"). Like Hearts And Bones, about half of the songs seem light weight, but this time around they're infectious rather than irritating. 'I Know What I Know' sounds awful on paper; Simon performs the backing track on a Synclavier, accompanied only by the wacked out vocals of General M.D. Shirinda And The Gaza Sisters, but it works wonderfully. It also serves as a reminder how timeless the remainder of Graceland is; by decamping temporarily from the U.S. Simon virtually escaped the eighties production sheen altogether. Instead, Graceland is dominated by pretty guitars, and the occasional accordion. The best songs here are simply sublime; 'Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes' encapsulates all the unique aspects of Graceland into one beautiful song, while the title track and 'You Can Call Me Al' both sound like instant, pervasive classics. My favourite Graceland moments include the absolutely astounding bass solo at the end of 'You Can Call Me Al', and Simon's impressive falsetto on 'Crazy Love, Vol II'. If I was to nitpick I find 'Gumboots' (derived from a track on the cassette that inspired Graceland) a little sludgy, while I'd argue that 'Homeless', a showcase for Ladysmith Black Mambazo, doesn't really belong on a Paul Simon solo album, but both songs are still eminently listenable. In light of its virtues, I'd recommend Graceland to almost anyone; it's often catchy and accessible, yet also unique, varied and displaying depth. Guest musicians involved in the U.S. overdubs include The Everly Brothers (background vocals on the title track), Adrian Belew and Linda Ronstadt, while Youssou N'Dour plays percussion on 'Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes'. Additionally Graceland provided valuable exposure for black musicians during the apartheid era, in particular launching an international career for vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The Rhythm of the Saints(1990)After the success of Graceland, which mixed South African popular music styles with Simon's increasingly sophisticated songwriting, The Rhythm of the Saints took the experimentation one step further. The African guitar styles used in Graceland are merged with the percussion of Brazil, a logical cross-pollination as African slaves were taken to Brazil during European colonisation. The Rhythm of the Saints is impenetrable compared to the catchier Graceland and lacking in punchiness, but scores with a greater consistency in tone and songwriting. With the exception of 'The Obvious Child', where the drums were recorded live in Brazil, The Rhythm of the Saints lacks energy and merely burbles along. This is exemplified in the difference between the studio version of 'The Cool, Cool River' and the live version from Simon's 1991 New York concert. The mood of the live version better captures the tension that Simon attempts to express, while the coda launches stunningly ("Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears."). While The Rhythm of the Saints lacks immediacy, there are plenty of sweet melodies and interesting lyrics to enjoy. Highlights include the lovely 'Spirit Voices', with a memorable Portugese section, and the horn inflected 'The Coast'. Simon also churns out a singalong single in 'Born at the Right Time'. At its occasional worst The Rhythm of the Saints meanders unmemorably, but it is still a pleasant and complex album and one of Simon's most filler-free efforts.
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Written 2001-2007, Graham Fyfe
