Reading the just-published history of The Wrecking Crew, the famed squad of LA session musicians who played on thousands of hit records. It includes a story about the making of the song and yes, Knechtel played the piano and was instructed by Simon to play it in a “black gospel” style to increase the spiritual feel supporting Garfunkel’s plaintive vocal. Knechtel won a Grammy for his work - something that rarely happened for the Wrecking Crew since they were hired guns.
It is also mentioned that on songs on the previous album, Simon was the guitarist on the sessions - i.e., he worked with the Wrecking Crew hired guns; the producer didn’t use a session guitarist. At that time in LA that was uncommon, so it speaks to Simon’s abilities as a player.
Noticed over long lifetime that shorter men many times act like that… Seems to make up for things they had taken out on them at a younger age and from memory? Simon was “said” to be around 5’5 or so… Probably wearing shoe inserts, as saw him (and Garfunkel) in concert and he appeared to be full grown in stature all right… Like how big men got in the middle ages and earlier…
“Was”? He’s still alive. And there’s no need to take unsubstantiated shots based on short-guy jokes. Simon IS a huge talent who seems to have a big Picasso streak on him. Okay, fine - stay on topic.
Years ago, the NME’s Encyclopedia of Rock said that S&G would ultimately be considered the early part of Paul Simon’s career, and that Garfunkel only added the vocals. Garfunkel was a fine vocalist and his voice was an essential part of their sound, but Simon would have made it without him. Garfunkel would never have made it on his own (other than maybe as a backup singer).
OTOH, I happened to see Art Garfunkel in concert a few years ago - a free concert at a large civic event. Wasn’t expecting much from a sans-Simon show, but was pleasantly surprised to find that he is a very competent performer in his own right. As I recall, he did in fact play a guitar, or at least go through the motions on some songs.
SS
> It is worth mentioning, I think, that Paul Simon to some degree feared breaking
> up because he was afraid that Garfunkle would end up being the bigger star.
If this is true, why did Garfunkle take a job as a high school math teacher when Simon and Garfunkle broke up in 1970 and do that for two years? That doesn’t sound to me like someone who’s convinced that he has a brilliant career ahead of him. That sounds to me like someone who figures that he has no chance of making a living as a soloist, so he better fall back on something more stable.
According to wikipedia, late 1971 - early 1972, so probably less than a year. And after having done two films and a series of enormously successful albums I have to imagine the last thing he needed was a paycheck ;). At that point I’m sure he was already set for life - Bridge Over Troubled Water went 8x platinum. Even if Simon monopolized songwriting credits, his residuals must have been huge. Probably still are.
I saw perform Art in Nashville around 2000. Members of the symphony orchestra played with him. Art performed for over an hour and did a great job. He sang some of his own songs and some Simon & Garfunkel stuff. Some of the songs had been changed up for the Symphony accompaniment and for him singing solo.
I left thoroughly entertained and had a new appreciation for Art’s skills as a performer.
How is what Simon thought of Garfunkle in any way untrue because of what Garfunkle chose to do after Simon formed that opinion? Clark didn’t say anything about about what Garfunkle thought of himself.
Why would that be so? As the sole songwriter, Simon would get most if not all of the money from record sales, and all of the money from airplay, commercial use etc., in other words everything that was to be made off S & G after they stopped making albums and touring as a duo. Don’t know how it goes in the U.S. (and it obviously depends on the particular contracts made), but where I come from it’s common as dirt to have old, disbanded, once popular acts where the only guy who makes a living off the past is the guy who wrote the songs, while the rest of the band teach math, bus tables or whatever to make ends meet.
Everyone gets rich for a little while when a band hits the big time. Once the constant flow of money stops to feed the newly opulent lifestyle, it’s back to normaldom for most.
According to Wikipedia, because his fiancée asked him to. Once he did start up his solo recording career, he was quite successful, hitting the Top 10 for both albums and singles on his first try. Of course he never came close to eclipsing his former partner.
Well…actually, I can’t argue that it is :). I would assume that as a partnership they had set up a split based around more than just the standard songwriting/session musician rates. But I really don’t know, you’re correct. Those possibly wildly inaccurate celebrity net worth estimators on the web put Paul Simon at $45 million vs. Art Garfunkel at $35 million, but even if that’s accurate there is no telling from where and when that money came into being.
Still acknowledging that I was making assumptions above, I have to assume again that the not obviously dissolute Garfunkel of 1971 should have had plenty of bank at that point ( two recently completed films, S @ G having just broken up ), such that a short stint working as a math teacher seems unlikely to have been motivated by a grab for financial security.
I don’t know how much income the Cyrkle version would be generating these days, unless it appeared in a movie soundtrack or something. But a live (from 1967) Simon & Garfunkel version of the song came out on a box set a while back.
Does anyone know of any reasonably comprehensive, reasonably accurate statement about why Garfunkel spent that time as a high school math teacher? I mean something more than a mention on a webpage, even on Wikipedia. Perhaps someone has read a reasonably detailed biography of him, or a long, detailed interview, or maybe somebody knows him. The things I’ve read have given varied accounts of how long he taught and why he taught and whether he needed the money. Please, don’t just cite a random webpage. I’ve read them all. You’re wasting your time if you just cite a webpage and say, “How stupid are you? Isn’t it all obvious from this one citation?” You’re also wasting your time if you just make your personal guess about his motivations.
I mentioned this time he spent teaching because it strikes me as saying something about Garfunkel’s feelings about his chances as a soloist. No, it doesn’t prove it at all, but it suggests something. I think this is more interesting than, say, Tony Danza spending a year teaching a high school English course or Mayim Bialik getting a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Danza was doing it as part of a reality show. Bialik could go back to acting at any time (and did).