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Simon And Garfunkel | Discography

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Live 1969

Imagine you are in the audience for Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's 1969 concert at New York's Carnegie Hall when Garfunkel announces that he would like to perform a new song. Accompanied by Larry Knechtel on the piano, with Simon sitting this one out, he then unravels a "Bridge over Troubled Water" that is every bit as soulfully stunning and moving as the now-familiar recorded version. The reaction from the audience to this gospel-informed gem, not only one of Garfunkel's purest, most transcendent offerings, but one of the great vocals by anyone, ever, is so ecstatic that it's apparent, even nearly four decades later: they know they have just witnessed the birth of a song for the ages. It's truly a shiver-inducing moment, and not the only one on this collection of assorted live recordings from the duo's final, pre-split tour together during their initial, mega-successful run. Live 1969, unlike the 2002-released Live from New York City, 1967, does not draw from a single concert but rather is a pastiche of highlights from six different shows from the duo's October-November 1969 tour (Detroit, Toledo, Carbondale, Illinois, St. Louis, Long Beach, California, and the NYC date). By the time they hit the road during that post-Woodstock/pre-Altamont window, Simon & Garfunkel had risen to become the most popular duo of the decade, logging numerous hit albums and singles and becoming a cultural institution. Like only a handful of others, they were considered spokesmen of their generation, their words studied as poetry, their records staples of virtually every collection.

Although they had recorded with other musicians backing them since 1965, however, their concerts had, until this tour, featured only the two voices and the sound of Simon's deftly finger-picked acoustic guitar. Here we hear both: the CD is assembled to approximate the set list for a typical show from the tour, with Simon & Garfunkel opening acoustically, joined by a small band midway, and then ending the show sans backing. They've never sounded better -- no one observing these shows could ever have guessed that there was friction between the two and that they would soon break up and go their separate ways. The material is drawn from all of their albums, including, technically speaking, the 1964 debut Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, since the version of "The Sound of Silence" performed here is all-acoustic as it was on that album, before Columbia Records added instrumentation to the track and turned it into the duo's first hit. Five of the songs -- "Bridge," "The Boxer," "Song for the Asking," the odd little architectural tribute "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" and the relatively inconsequential "Why Don't You Write Me" -- were yet to be released on the forthcoming Bridge Over Troubled Water album and thus were as yet unknown quantities to these audiences, which accepted them enthusiastically just the same. The rest came from the singles charts -- "Sound," "Homeward Bound," "I Am a Rock," "At the Zoo," "Scarborough Fair/Canticle," "Mrs. Robinson" -- and from the albums, except for one song, a cover of Gene Autry's "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine" as recorded by S&G's own heroes, the Everly Brothers, on the latter's Songs Our Daddy Taught Us album.

Simon and Garfunkel were, like many other '60s giants, popular enough by this time that their album tracks were as familiar to their fans as the hit singles, and it's sheer pleasure to hear now how tunes such as "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her," "Old Friends," "The 59th Street Bridge Song," "Leaves That Are Green" and "Kathy's Song," some stripped to their minimal core, translated so seamlessly to the stage. These two voices truly were meant to be as one, and the youth, freshness and sincerity the two of them brought to their collaborative effort is still palpable in these pristine renditions. Garfunkel was a masterful harmony singer and a commanding lead in his own right, and Simon, the primary songwriter, remains to this day one of the iconic voices of the era, as well as the best interpreter of his own work.

Not to be discounted is Simon's guitar playing, intricate and full-sounding -- even when the band joins in, one never feels that anything was missing beforehand, when Simon was the sole provider of music on the stage. Still, it was some band: Knechtel, bassist Joe Osborn and drummer Hal Blaine were the so-called "Wrecking Crew," the players on probably hundreds of hit records stemming from Los Angeles studios at the time, and guitarist Fred Carter, Jr. is no lightweight. They do add muscle to the likes of "Mrs. Robinson" and "The Boxer," but in a way they are superfluous, almost getting in the way of those beautiful harmonies and crisp guitar lines. Overall, though, this compendium of heretofore unreleased material is quite a document, capturing Simon and Garfunkel at the peak of their performing powers, even as the end was nigh. ~ Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide