‘I was tired of the drama. I couldn’t trust him any more. He let us all down’
Old friends? You must be joking… as Paul Simon prepares for his final tour ever, he has laid bare how decades of bitterness, jealousy and in-fighting with Art Garfunkel created a rift that can NEVER be healed
DESPITE HIS SUCCESS SIMON WOULD OFTEN STRUGGLE WITH NEGATIVE FEELINGS
When the celebrated duo Simon & Garfunkel reunited in 1993 for a series of shows in their home town of New York, the 10-night run – given the name Event Of A Lifetime – sold out so quickly that the pair added 14 more dates.
However, things went rapidly downhill after the opening night, when a newspaper reviewer praised Simon but wrote ‘Mr Garfunkel turned out to be just one of a large supporting cast of Mr Simon’s collaborators and fellow singers’.
The review opened a lot of old wounds and the atmosphere backstage became toxic. Joseph Rascoff, Simon’s business manager, literally had to position himself between their dressing rooms to guard against trouble. ‘I genuinely believed that if there had been a knife on the table, one of them would have used it,’ Rascoff said.
How had it come to this for two old friends, who had met at the age of 11 and gone on to become one of the bestselling groups of their generation?
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel first started getting together to sing after they had performed in a school production of Alice In Wonderland.
They would record their vocals to measure how well their voices blended and as Simon got more comfortable on the guitar, they raised their ambitions again by trying to write their own songs – almost always patterned after something they had heard on the radio.
They soon felt good enough about their music to take it public by singing in school assemblies and, on October 16, 1957, three days after Simon’s 16th birthday, they went into a Manhattan studio and recorded an Everly Brotherstype number called Hey Schoolgirl.
Sid Prosen, boss of a small label called Big Records, liked the song and released it after renaming the pair Tom & Jerry. When the record was a minor hit, reaching number 49 in the charts, Prosen asked Simon if he had any songs for the second single, and suggested he could record a couple of tunes on his own. These would be in addition to the Tom & Jerry record. Caught up in the moment, Simon agreed and recorded two songs.
The mistake he and Prosen made – and it was a massive one – was not telling Garfunkel. He was crushed when he found out; he felt betrayed.
Garfunkel knew he had a wonderful voice but also that he was dependent on Simon for songs, which meant that Simon had all the power while he would always be in danger of being tossed aside.
The Paul Simon single and the new Tom & Jerry singles all flopped, so by the autumn, of 1958, Tom & Jerry were history, personally and professionally. But the split caused a wound so deep in Garfunkel that it would never heal fully.
But there was resentment on both sides. Simon said in 2017 that he had been sensitive about his short stature all the way back to the Tom & Jerry days.
‘I remember during a photo session Artie said: “No matter what happens, I’ll always be taller than you.” Did that hurt? I guess it hurt enough for me to remember 60 years later.’
Carrie Fisher, the Star Wars star with whom Simon had a long-term relationship and a short-term marriage, was the same height as him. She joked: ‘I used to say to him: “Don’t stand next to me at the party – people will think we’re salt and pepper shakers”.’
Simon and Garfunkel wouldn’t have a meaningful conversation until they ran into each other again in the summer of 1963. By then, Simon had finished university and been performing in folk clubs in England, while Garfunkel was an architecture student but had put out some records. Garfunkel was impressed by his friend’s new songs, and on the basis of one song in particular, The Sound
Of Silence, Columbia signed them. The name Simon & Garfunkel was agreed, despite concerns it sounded like a law firm, and they recorded an album,
Wednesday Morning, 3AM, which was ignored when it was released in November 1964, so Simon and Garfunkel went their separate ways once more.
Yet, slowly, radio stations began playing The Sound Of Silence, first in Boston then in other parts of the country, when students went home during the holidays and requested the song on their local stations. Then a reworked version really took off, finally topping the charts in January 1966.
Despite his huge success, Simon would often struggle with negative feelings and saw psychiatrists several times. In 1984, he said: ‘Most people look at me and wonder: “How could that guy be depressed?” And I now feel that people were seeing a more accurate picture of me than I was. I eventually realised: “Jesus, all I’ve been looking at is this thin slice of pie that has got the bad news in it and I’m disregarding the rest of the picture.”’
Asked what it was he saw as ‘bad news’, Simon replied, ‘Being short. Not having a voice that you want. Not looking the way you want to look. Having a bad relationship. Some of that is real. And if you start to roll it together, that’s what you focus on. I was unable to absorb the bounty that was in my life.’ Their next two albums, Sounds Of
Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme, were huge hits and by the time film director Mike Nichols asked them to contribute music to The Graduate, the pair were millionaires. Audiences loved the film and the song
Mrs Robinson and the soundtrack topped the charts for nine weeks.
But by now their manager Mort Lewis was noticing rivalry between the two.
‘They both envied the other’s place in the team,’ he said. ‘Paul often thought the audience saw Artie as the star because he was the featured singer, and some people probably thought Artie even wrote the songs.
‘But Artie knew Paul wrote the songs and thus controlled the future of the pair. I don’t think he ever got over what happened with Tom & Jerry.’ Years later, Garfunkel confirmed that, saying: ‘I never forget, and I never forgive.’
On April 15, 1968, Garfunkel sent Simon a long, deeply emotional and profoundly sad handwritten letter outlining his frustration over their relationship, and there were more problems when Nichols decided he wanted the pair as actors for Catch-22. They were told the filming would start in January 1969 and take only three months, but the character Simon was due to play was cut from the script before filming began. While Simon said his disappointment was only momentary, he was annoyed when filming overran because he was ready to start recording and Garfunkel was not available.
He became more incensed in November 1969, when he learned that Garfunkel had agreed to make another film with Nichols.
‘He knew how I’d feel, but he did it anyway,’ Simon said. ‘Mike told Artie he was going to be a big movie star, and Artie couldn’t say no. He later told me he didn’t see why it was such a big deal to me – he would make the movie for six months, and I could write the songs for the next album. Then we could get together and record them.
‘I thought: “F*** you, I’m not going to do that.” And the truth is, I think if Artie had become a big movie star, he would have left. Instead of just being the guy who sang Paul Simon songs, he could be Art Garfunkel, a big star all by himself. And this made me think about how I could still be the guy who wrote songs and sing them. I didn’t need Artie.’
In July, 1970, in a New York stadium in front of 14,400 people, Simon & Garfunkel played what would be their last concert as a dedicated team. Afterwards they walked to the parking lot then paused, shook hands, and went their separate ways. Simon didn’t announce his decision publicly. He didn’t even tell Garfunkel. ‘With Artie, there was no reason to talk about it. When he agreed to make
Carnal Knowledge, something was broken between us... I just wanted to move on. We were finished.’
Yet a decade later, when the city of New York wanted Simon to do a concert in Central Park in 1981, he asked Garfunkel to get involved. It was a huge success, with a crowd of half a million.
The city had initially contacted Simon’s former manager, Mort Lewis, to ask about the possibility of a show. Lewis had simply passed on the message to Simon. Nevertheless Simon gave him $100,000 for his help. ‘I said: “Paul, you don’t have to do this. All I did was pass along a phone call,”’ Lewis recalled. ‘Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said: “Mort, you’ll always be Simon & Garfunkel’s manager. This is your commission”.’
The pair teamed up again in 1993 for a series of New York shows but, according to Simon, Garfunkel was hurt when a critic was dismissive of his contribution and accused Simon of encouraging the journalist to write a negative review. After that, the atmosphere between them was hostile. ‘They never came to blows, but there was shoving, and I had to step between them,’ said Rascoff.
Simon recalled the incident that led to the backstage shoving. He mistakenly came in at the wrong time during a song on stage. Later, Garfunkel stopped singing at the wrong part during a different number. During the intermission, Garfunkel told Simon he had done it deliberately, to show him ‘what it feels like to be made a fool of’.
That was when they went at each other. They managed to get through the rest of the dates, but they wouldn’t tour again together until 2003 when they were offered $1m or more a night to play.
It was partly a business decision, but sentiment was also involved. Simon remembered how the late George Harrison had told him that he had gone through lots of tensions with Paul McCartney but eventually put them aside to reconnect with his old friend. So now he and Garfunkel put aside their issues and audiences sensed a genuine warmth between them during the 2003-2004 Old Friends tour.
On April 24, 2010, they played at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the relationship finally broke for what Simon vowed was the final time. It was soon apparent that Garfunkel was having trouble with his voice, but he struggled on gamely. Garfunkel had caught a bug earlier that year that had affected his vocal cords. He kept telling Simon things would be fine, and that he’d be ready for New Orleans and the Canadian-US tour that was to follow.
But after Jazz Fest it became obvious that the remaining shows would have to be cancelled. Simon decided Garfunkel had been underplaying the vocal problem all along and he was angry over what he felt was the lack of candour. It reminded him of the Carnal Knowledge row. ‘He let us all down. I was tired of all the drama,’ said Simon. ‘I didn’t feel I could trust him any more.’
The break was complete – personally and professionally.
INCENSED WHEN HE LEARNED GARFUNKEL WAS MAKING ANOTHER FILM