Simon & Garfunkel

Queens

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel became friends in Queens in 1953, after a sixth-grade production of Alice in Wonderland, and soon formed a doo-wop group called the Peptones. In 1956 they wrote songs at Forest Hills High School and recorded one, Hey, Schoolgirl, for $25. Billing themselves as Tom & Jerry, they sold more than 100,000 copies of it in 1957, reached number 49 on Billboard and appeared on American Bandstand. Simon was 15 when he signed his first record deal.

They drifted apart, then reunited in 1963 as a folk duo. Tom Wilson, an A&R man at Columbia, signed them after hearing The Sound of Silence at their audition. Their first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., came out in October 1964 and sold about 3,000 copies. Simon moved to England and Garfunkel went back to Columbia University.

The hits

In September 1965 Wilson added a rock backing to The Sound of Silence without the duo's involvement, and it reached number one on the Hot 100 in early 1966. Columbia rushed out the Sounds of Silence album that January. A second single, Homeward Bound, had been recorded in December 1965 and was released on 19 January 1966. It reached number five in the United States and nine in Britain.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme followed in October 1966. Simon insisted on total control of it, and it took four months to make. It was the duo's first album recorded on eight tracks. It reached number four in the United States and is now in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In 1967 they gave songs to the film The Graduate and played the Monterey Pop Festival. Bookends, released in April 1968, spent seven non-consecutive weeks at number one in the United States. It was a concept album about the stages of a life, and it included America and Mrs. Robinson. Simon was fighting writer's block during its making, and Garfunkel recorded the spoken Voices of Old People in care homes. Bookends sold two million copies in the United States. The director Mike Nichols had asked Columbia to license the duo's music for The Graduate, and the unfinished song Simon brought him became Mrs. Robinson, which in 1969 was the first rock and roll song to win the Grammy for Record of the Year.

The split

In January 1969 Garfunkel left for Mexico to act in Catch-22, and tension grew between the two. Their last American tour leg ended at Carnegie Hall on 27 November 1969. Bridge over Troubled Water arrived in January 1970 and spent ten weeks at number one. The duo split that year, and an audience recording of their show at Forest Hills Stadium on 18 July 1970 is preserved at the Internet Archive.

Reunions

The compilation Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits was released on 14 June 1972, two years after the split, and included four previously unreleased live recordings. They came together for a benefit for George McGovern at Madison Square Garden that month, and again in 1975, when they reconciled during a session with John Lennon and Harry Nilsson and recorded My Little Town. On 19 September 1981 they played The Concert in Central Park to an estimated 500,000 people, and the live album reached number six in the United States and Britain. A world tour followed in 1982.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 1990, and the citation said their literate, intuitive lyrics articulated the feeling of the time better than anyone. They received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. The Old Friends tour ran from October 2003 to July 2004 and grossed about $123 million, ending with a free concert in Rome on 31 July 2004. A short run of dates in 2009 and 2010 ended when Garfunkel developed vocal-cord problems. In 2024 Garfunkel said the two had reconciled as friends, and in April 2025 he said they might give it a try.