Download Free Simon and Garfunkel * Songs

Simon and Garfunkel music biography continued...

both grew up in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York City. After becoming friends in middle school, the two started singing doo-wop in various groups. They became local hits and were soon discovered by an A&R man from Big Records, who had them record their first album under the name Tom & Jerry. Their career soon fizzled however, and they went their separate ways—Garfunkel to college and the study of mathematics and architecture and Simon to work as a songwriter and musician. In 1963, Paul and Art recorded again, this time as Simon & Garfunkel, for CBS Records in New York City. The result of this was Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. The songs performed on this album were a mix of gospel and cover tunes, as well as a few Paul Simon originals - including "The Sound Of Silence," which ultimately went on to become a chart topping hit and finally put the duo on the musical map. Simon & Garfunkel had their true breakthrough, however, when they recorded some new songs for the soundtrack to the blockbuster movie, The Graduate. The landmark tunes "America" and "Mrs. Robinson" were worldwide hits and turned the duo into folk rock icons. Bookends, arriving hot on the heels of the soundtrack to The Graduate, joined it on the Billboard charts, giving Simon & Garfunkel two simultaneous top-five albums.



Despite some tension between the two performers, the duo following the success of Bookends, they were able to come together to put out Bridge Over Troubled Water, which was heralded as Simon & Garfunkel's masterpiece. It was an enormous hit, topping the charts for ten weeks, and containing four hit singles (the title track, "The Boxer," "Cecilia," and "El Condor Pasa") and garnered them Grammys in 1970 for Best Album and Best New Song. At the height of their success, after a 1972 tour that featured a concert for Democratic candidate George McGovern, the two could no longer contain their animosity toward each other, and Simon and Garfunkel split to pursue careers as solo performers. They did reunite in 1975 for a Top Ten single, "My Little Town," and have periodically performed together since without ever coming close to generating albums of new material. A 1981 concert in New York's Central Park attracted half a million fans, and proved that though they might have given up on each other, their fans never gave up on them.