Simon & Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo comprising the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music acts of the 1960s. Their most famous recordings include three US number ones—"The Sound of Silence" and the two Record of the Year Grammy winners "Mrs. Robinson" and "Bridge over Troubled Water"—and "Homeward Bound", "I Am a Rock", "Scarborough Fair/Canticle", "A Hazy Shade of Winter" (also a cover hit for the Bangles), "America", "The Boxer" and "Cecilia".

Simon and Garfunkel met in elementary school in Queens, New York City, in 1953, where they learned to harmonize and Simon began writing songs. As teenagers, under the name Tom & Jerry, they had minor success with "Hey Schoolgirl" (1957), a song imitating their idols, the Everly Brothers. In 1963, they regrouped and were signed to Columbia Records as Simon & Garfunkel. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964), sold poorly; Simon returned to a solo career, this time in England. In 1965, a remixed version of "The Sound of Silence", became a US AM radio hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. They released their second album, Sounds of Silence, in 1966, and toured colleges nationwide. They assumed more creative control on their Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, released in 1966. Their music featured prominently in Mike Nichols's 1967 film The Graduate, and in 1968 the soundtrack album and the duo's fourth album, Bookends, featuring the hit version of "Mrs. Robinson", alternated at number one on the Billboard Top 200.

Simon and Garfunkel had a troubled relationship, leading to artistic disagreements and their breakup in 1970. Their final studio album, Bridge over Troubled Water, released that January, became one of the world's best-selling albums. Following their split, Simon had a successful solo career, releasing albums including the acclaimed Graceland (1986). Garfunkel released successful singles such as "All I Know" (1973) and "I Only Have Eyes for You" (1975) and "Bright Eyes" (Britain's top single of 1979), and pursued acting, with leading roles in the Mike Nichols films Catch-22 (1970) and Carnal Knowledge (1971) and in Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing (1980). The duo have reunited several times; their 1981 concert in Central Park may have attracted more than 500,000 people, one of the largest concert attendances in history.

Simon & Garfunkel won seven Grammy Awards—plus four Grammy Hall of Fame Awards—and in 1990 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Richie Unterberger described them as "the most successful folk-rock duo of the 1960s" and one of the most popular artists from the decade. They are among the best-selling music artists, having sold more than 100 million records. They were ranked 40th on Rolling Stone's 2010 list of the Greatest Artists of All Time and third on its list of the greatest duos.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel grew up in the 1940s and 1950s in their predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, New York, three blocks away from one another. They attended the same schools: Public School 164 in Kew Gardens Hills, Parsons Junior High School, and Forest Hills High School. They were both fascinated by music; both listened to the radio and were taken with rock and roll as it emerged, particularly the Everly Brothers. Simon first noticed Garfunkel when Garfunkel was singing in a fourth grade talent show, which Simon thought was a good way to attract girls; he hoped for a friendship, which started in 1953, when they appeared in a sixth grade adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. They formed a streetcorner doo-wop group called the Peptones with three friends and learned to harmonize. They began performing as a duo at school dances.

Simon and Garfunkel later attended Forest Hills High School, where in 1956 they wrote their first song, "The Girl for Me"; Simon's father sent a handwritten copy to the Library of Congress to register a copyright. While trying to remember the lyrics to the Everly Brothers song "Hey Doll Baby", they wrote "Hey, Schoolgirl", which they recorded for $25 at Sanders Recording Studio in Manhattan. While recording they were overheard by promoter Sid Prosen, who signed them to his independent label Big Records after speaking to their parents. They were both 15.

Under Big Records, Simon and Garfunkel assumed the name Tom & Jerry; Garfunkel named himself Tom Graph, a reference to his interest in mathematics, and Simon Jerry Landis, after the surname of a girl he had dated. Their first single, "Hey, Schoolgirl", was released with the B-side "Dancin' Wild" in 1957. Prosen, using the payola system, bribed DJ Alan Freed $200 to play the single on his radio show, where it became a nightly staple. "Hey, Schoolgirl" attracted regular rotation on nationwide AM pop stations, leading it to sell over 100,000 copies and to land on Billboard's charts at number 49. Prosen promoted the group heavily, getting them a headlining spot on Dick Clark's American Bandstand alongside Jerry Lee Lewis. Simon and Garfunkel shared approximately $4,000 from the song—earning two percent each from royalties, the rest staying with Prosen. They released two more singles on Big Records ("Our Song" and "That's My Story") neither of them successful.

After graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1958, the pair continued their education should a music career not unfold. Simon studied English at Queens College, City University of New York, and Garfunkel studied architecture before switching to art history at Columbia College, Columbia University. While still with Big Records as a duo, Simon released a solo single, "True or False", under the name "True Taylor". This upset Garfunkel, who regarded it as a betrayal; the emotional tension from the incident occasionally surfaced throughout their relationship.

Simon and Garfunkel continued recording as solo artists: Garfunkel composed and recorded "Private World" for Octavia Records, and—under the name Artie Garr—"Beat Love" for Warwick; Simon recorded with the Mystics and Tico and the Triumphs, and wrote and recorded under the names Jerry Landis and Paul Kane. Simon also wrote and performed demos for other artists, working for a while with Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

After graduating in 1963, Simon joined Garfunkel, who was still at Columbia University, to perform again as a duo, this time with a shared interest in folk music. Simon enrolled part-time in Brooklyn Law School. By late 1963, billing themselves as Kane & Garr, they performed at Gerde's Folk City, a Greenwich Village club that hosted Monday night open mic performances. They performed three new songs—"Sparrow", "He Was My Brother", and "The Sound of Silence"—and attracted the attention of Columbia Records staffer Tom Wilson, a prominent A&R man and producer (who would later become a key architect of Bob Dylan's transition from folk to rock). As a "star producer" for the label, he wanted to record "He Was My Brother" with a new British act, the Pilgrims. Simon convinced Wilson to let him and Garfunkel audition in the studio, where they performed "The Sound of Silence". At Wilson's urging, Columbia signed them.

Simon & Garfunkel's debut studio album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., produced by Wilson, was recorded over three sessions in March 1964 and released in October. It contains five songs by Simon, three traditional folk songs, and four folk-influenced singer-songwriter songs. Simon was adamant that they would no longer use stage names. Columbia set up a promotional showcase at Folk City on March 31, 1964, the duo's first public concert as Simon & Garfunkel.

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. sold only 3,000 copies on release. Simon moved to England, where he toured small folk clubs and befriended folk artists such as Bert Jansch, Martin Carthy, Al Stewart, and Sandy Denny. He also met Kathy Chitty, who became the object of his affection and is the Kathy in "Kathy's Song" and "America".

A small music publishing company, Lorna Music, licensed "Carlos Dominguez", a single Simon had recorded two years prior as Paul Kane, for a new recording by Val Doonican that sold well. Simon visited Lorna to thank them, and the meeting resulted in a publishing and recording contract. He signed to the Oriole label and released "He Was My Brother" as a single. Simon invited Garfunkel to stay for the summer of 1964.

Near the end of the season, Garfunkel returned to Columbia for class. Simon also returned to the US, and resumed his studies at Brooklyn Law School for one semester, partially at his parents' insistence. He returned to England in January 1965, now certain that music was his calling. In the meantime, his landlady, Judith Piepe, had compiled a tape from his work at Lorna and sent it to the BBC in hopes they would play it. The demos aired on the Five to Ten morning show, and were instantly successful. Oriole had folded into CBS by that point, and hoped to record a new Simon album.

Simon recorded his first solo album, The Paul Simon Songbook, in June 1965, featuring future Simon & Garfunkel staples including "I Am a Rock" and "April Come She Will". CBS flew Wilson over to produce the record, and he stayed at Simon's flat. The album was released in August; although sales were poor, Simon felt content with his future in England. Garfunkel graduated in 1965, returning to Columbia University to pursue a master's degree in mathematics.

In the United States, Dick Summer, a late-night DJ at WBZ in Boston, played "The Sound of Silence"; it became popular with a college audience. It was picked up the next day along the East Coast of the United States. When Wilson heard about this new wave of interest, he took inspiration from the success of the folk-rock hybrid that he had created with Dylan in "Like a Rolling Stone" and crafted a rock remix of "Sound of Silence" using studio musicians. The remix was issued in September 1965, and it eventually reached the Billboard Hot 100. Wilson did not inform the duo of his plan, and Simon was "horrified" when he first heard it.