I have a friend who likes Paul Simon. Check that. “I LOVE Paul Simon!” she’ll exclaim whenever we talk about music.
Simon was the genius half of Simon and Garfunkel. He wrote all those great songs, helped arrange them, and sang half of them. And it was Paul, not Art, who went on to a prolific solo career.
But guess what? There are reasons to love Artie, too. In the double-feature film, Songs of America / The Harmony Game, Garfunkel’s valuable contributions, beyond his glistening soprano and gorgeous harmonies, are brought to surface. Especially in The Harmony Game, produced in 2010 with interviews of Simon, Garfunkel, invaluable engineer Roy Halee, and others, Artie shines. He came up with that beautiful instrumental bridge in “The Boxer.” When Simon was certain “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was finished, Garfunkel encouraged an additional verse, and, in the studio, Simon came up with “Sail on, silver bird…” Magic.
And it was when Garfunkel took a leave, to go and act in the film, Catch-22, in Mexico, that Simon was inspired to write “The Only Living Boy in New York.” “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright,” was also for Artie, who’d been an architecture major in college.
All of this tells us how, despite the numerous breakups, including one after their teenaged run as “Tom and Jerry,” and one right after the making of their greatest album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel were bonded for life.
The making of Bridge is the focus of The Harmony Game. The doc repeats segments from Songs of America, a TV special produced by the actor, Charles Grodin, and aired on CBS in 1969. Despite the repetitive moments, the films offer one revelation after another, of the guys backstage and onstage, of their concerns that their songs address social concerns—war, hunger, inequality; of the musical process, whether it’s Simon’s composing or the addition of the supergroup of L.A. session players, “The Wrecking Crew,” featuring drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Joe Osborn, and pianist Larry Knechtel. They were also known as “The Hollywood Golden Trio.”
But they had nothing on the Queens Golden Duo. The five of them, along with Halee and other behind-the-scenesters, produced some of the finest music in pop history.
I love them all.
Christmas is fast approaching and some of you may still be looking for gift ideas for your loved ones. Here is our ultimate gift guide for music lovers!
Watch Live From Wrigley Field now on The Coda Collection and Qello Concerts and immerse yourself in the unforgettable experience of The Lumineers live!
Grab a partner, warm up your vocal cords, and enjoy bringing this timeless duet to life!
Our music curators have been customizing karaoke playlists for over a decade, working with Stingray Karaoke and Singing Machine by Stingray Karaoke’s extensive libraries. If we know anything, it’s that it’s not easy to select the very best from a catalog housing thousands of tracks! Anyone who braved the stage at a karaoke party knows the challenge of picking the best song to sing. In this article, we offer a selection of some of the best karaoke songs to inspire our fellow karaoke fans.
Stingray Music and TikTok Radio are getting Behind the Beat with Suki Waterhouse and her hit song “Good Looking.” The song became a hit, garnering millions of views and appearing in over 300,000 videos on TikTok.
Stingray Music and TikTok Radio are getting Behind The Beat with INJI and her hit song ‘Gaslight’. INJI describes it as a satirical song not meant to be taken seriously. The song became a hit overnight, garnering millions of views and was used in over 1.9 million videos on TikTok. She shares her story about how she wrote ‘Gaslight’ and her favorite TikTok trend.