Having to put up with your bandmates is tough, especially in the early days. Everyone has their own ideas, creatively etc. and trying to merge them together can cause issues between members. Plus, there’s whether they can get along together, get to a show on time and, hopefully, pull their weight.
You would think the lesser the members the easier it would be, right? That’s not always the case for some acts. For example, in the supergroup trio Cream, bass player Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker never were friendly to each other, Sting and the Police were vicious to each other in the press when they broke up and the Everly Brothers didn’t talk to each other for a decade.
There is one duo, however, that had tensions right from the start of their career. They have broken up and reunited more times than hot dinners and all because of one incident in 1958. This week the Beat Marches On to the 24th April 2010 the last performance of Simon and Garfunkel.
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel met at the age of 11 while at school in Queens, New York. They fast became best friends listening to music and becoming fans of the aforementioned Everly Brothers. After performing and singing in a school production of Alice in Wonderland the two decided to write and perform together as a duo.
In what some may say is irony for what will come in the future, they decided on the names of Tom and Jerry to perform and went into the studio to record a single.
While recording their first single ‘Hey Schoolgirl’, (recorded for only $25, which is incredibly cheap even if you add in the inflation cost of today’s money) they were brought to the attention of record label boss Sid Prosen of Big Records. He signed the Duo on the spot and guided them towards a bright future.
The single was released in 1957. The duo just aged 15 got their first successful hit. It peaked at number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 thanks to some payola dealings by Prosen. The good chart performance even got the duo a slot on the country’s most popular music program American Bandstand. The following two singles didn’t even chart.
The next year Tom and Jerry decided to pause their career so they could go to college and have something to fall back on in case the music didn’t pan out. They both went to the same college in Queens to start with, but Art decided to change subjects and switch colleges going to Columbia in New York City. This is where the trouble began.
With Garfunkel in the city, under the guise of True Taylor, Simon released a single called ‘True or False’ which didn’t reach the charts. When his collaborator got wind of this, he described it as the ultimate betrayal. He broke the close bond the two once had and the friendship would never be the same again.
The duo wouldn’t perform again until 1963 when influenced by the new burgeoning folk scene in their native New York, they started to write new songs for a new audience. They were quickly signed to Columbia Records (headhunted by Tom Wilson, the guy who told Bob Dylan to go electric) and were in the studio to record their first album, ‘Wednesday Morning 3 am’. They now went by how we now know them as ‘Simon and Garfunkel’.
Due to the poor performance of the album, which included arguably one of their most famous songs ‘The Sound of Silence’, and the ongoing resentment between the two they decided to split again. Simon decided to have a change of scenery and try to launch a career in the UK.
Unbeknownst to the pair ‘Sound of Silence’ got a reimagining while they were apart and was better received upon the re-release and started climbing up the charts. Reluctantly, they went back into the studio to record another album.
Throughout the rest of the decade, Simon and Garfunkel recorded another three albums together. Their music was used in the original romantic comedy, ‘The Graduate’ which increased their popularity even more. It wasn’t until an intended follow-up to their last album ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ they decided to split yet again. This time though it was Garfunkel that upset Simon.
When Simon and Garfunkel decided to write the new material, Garfunkel left to star in a film called Carnal Knowledge by The Graduate director Mike Nichols. This left Simon to write all the new songs on his own. The singer did but then released it as a solo album.
They would never record again after the film incident. They would perform again in many reunions until 2010, but the thought of recording again didn’t cross their minds. They both have had their say about it though, through the media, autobiographies and in interviews.
The closest the pair would get to recording an album again would be in 1981 after a triumphant gig in New York’s Central Park, where they performed in front of an estimated 500,000 fans. The official report was the two had grown too far apart, but rumours from behind the scenes said Garfunkel was still upset about the True Taylor single almost 25 years ago at this point.
The worst was yet to come between the two at the last of the reunion shows in 2010. In what was originally meant to be a full-blown tour, it was cut short as many concertgoers and Paul Simon noticed that Art’s voice wasn’t the same as it used to be. Both men were in their late sixties and as you get older the voice naturally deepens. Simon would’ve been okay if Garfunkel told the truth, but the lack of honesty was the last straw and the two never performed again.
The animosity between them even reared its ugly head when they were at the height of their career in the 1960s when they would both throw insults at each other during recording sessions and photoshoots. The duo’s manager Mort Lewis put it best when he said ‘They both envied each other’s place in the band. Paul often thought the audience saw Artie as the star because he knew he was the featured singer, and some probably thought Artie even wrote the songs. Artie knew Paul wrote the songs and thus controlled the future of the pair’.
The jealousy between the two that rued throughout their whole careers festered because they wouldn’t talk about it. If they were more honest with each other and not try and do the typical guy thing of one-upping each other, there’s no doubt that the pair would have recorded throughout the 1970s.
Bands are always never going to see eye to eye but the way they get through the disagreements is how they get stronger.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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The websites used for research were:
Why did Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel split up? (faroutmagazine.co.uk)
The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Simon & Garfunkel (grunge.com)
The podcast Rivals: Music’s Greatest Feuds has an episode on the rivalry of Simon and Garfunkel.
If you want to request a story for The Beat Marches On blog, then you can contact jwhiteheadjournalism@gmail.com. We cannot guarantee that the story will be published but will be considered