H E A R__I T

"Bleecker Street"
Simon & Garfunkel
(640k)

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A L S O +T O D A Y

Paul Simon
Songs from 'The Capeman'
Warner Bros
(11/26/97)

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T A B L E__T A L K

Seduction music: Which jazz compositions do you keep around to lure a lover to bed? Discuss them in the Music section of Table Talk.

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R E C E N T L Y

Enit Festival
Jane's Addiction, Goldie, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Funky Techno Tribe
San Francisco
(11/25/97)

DJ Krush
Milight
London
(11/24/97)

Various Artists
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture
Malpaso/Warner Bros
(11/21/97)

Judy Collins
Forever: The Judy Collins Anthology
Elektra
(11/20/97)

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski
Bruckner: Symphony No.9
The Minnesota Orchestra
Reference Recordings
(11/19/97)

BROWSE THE
MUSIC ARCHIVES

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
The presidential suite
(11/14/97)

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B O O K S

The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock
Essays on women's role in rock history, and on artists ranging from Tammy Wynette to Courtney Love
(11/18/97)

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rose-colored revolution
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SIMON & GARFUNKEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-------------"OLD FRIENDS"---[---COLUMBIA/LEGACY---]

BY JACK SKELLEY | Every age has its affectations. These days pop fans are treated to disposable alternative and rap artists selling scads of product with a pose of vague defiance. But back in the 1960s, musical pretensions could be more genteel, as Simon & Garfunkel, the most significant folk-rock duo ever, scored hit after hit with immaculate harmonies and a lit-major esthetic.

Their career is enshrined with a nostalgic sheen on Columbia/Legacy's new Simon & Garfunkel box set, "Old Friends." The three-CD retrospective -- a spectacular remastering job by Bob Irwin from long-lost tapes -- covers the five core S&G albums from 1964 to 1970: "Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m."; "Sounds of Silence"; "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme"; "Bookends"; and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." There are also 15 previously unreleased tracks, including one unearthed studio recording, "Blues Run the Game" and several live numbers. But of larger interest is the retrieval of something even more elusive -- a melancholy glow from a bygone era.

Bob Dylan, of course, was the dominant influence on the earlier albums. But Simon & Garfunkel were journeymen from New York's Brill Building hit factory, and they soon settled into a palatable formula that was more dorm room than coffeehouse, more Cliff Notes gloss than acid-trip oracle. Some of Paul Simon's material might cause cringing 30 years later, but back then it struck a chord with alienated college kids and even their parents. (It also set the perfect mood as the soundtrack for Mike Nichols' 1967 movie "The Graduate.")

In the final albums, the increasingly studio-savvy duo created rich, soaring tone poems, but the earlier efforts are more intriguing, if more awkward. The first No. 1 hit, "The Sounds of Silence," shook 1965 with the climactic declaration "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls!" Simon's observations would remain in this puffed-up mode for some time.

The cuts from "Parsley" find S&G indulging in some precious poesy. There's the fluffy "Cloudy," in which the singer's thoughts echo and "swell from Tolstoy to Tinkerbell/down from Berkeley to Carmel." Even more laughably literary is "The Dangling Conversation," with its references to Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost and its self-mocking questions, "Can analysis be worthwhile? Is the theater really dead?"

Then there are the slew of groovy numbers, including, of course, "Feeling Groovy" (main title, "The 59th Street Bridge Song") and "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin' Baby." But all of these are redeemed by the pure musicianship of the two kids from Queens. Almost as much as the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel taught a generation how to harmonize. (Both groups say the Everly Brothers taught them.) Nor can Simon's adroit finger-picking guitar style be undervalued.

In "Bookends," S&G really hit their stride. Released in April 1968, it was much longer in the making than the first three albums, and it shows the influence of pioneering concept albums -- "Sergeant Pepper" and "Pet Sounds" -- in its thematic song linkage. In general, the collection moves from youth ("Save the Life of My Child") through midlife self-doubt ("Fakin' It") to fading memories ("Old Friends"). Gone, for the most part, are Simon's collegiate notebook rhymes, replaced by the assured ambition of songs like "America" (which has the odd distinction of being covered by prog-rockers Yes a few years later).

By the time of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Simon & Garfunkel are sounding like Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel on guest vocal. But what a vocal. "Bridge Over Troubled Water," is Garfunkel's showpiece, a falsetto monument where he is part Ronnie Spector, part Hallelujah chorus. The remainder of Simon's songwriting here is powered by narrative reach ("The Boxer") and ethnic experimentation ("El Condor Pasa") that remain his trademarks today, even as he hits Broadway with the musical "The Capeman." Still, "Bridge" is a splintered opus compared to the aspiring "Bookends."

It's comforting to rediscover this milder version of '60s angst in "Old Friends." The more dated songs capture something sweet and heartbreaking eluding the mature Simon. Captured here, their tone -- perfectly pre-Nixon, pre-sexual revolution, pre-cultural chaos -- crystallizes a more wistful Zeitgeist.
SALON | Nov. 26, 1997