Background and career
Arthur Ira Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941) is an American singer, actor and poet who is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, Garfunkel became acquainted with Simon through an elementary school play, a production of Alice in Wonderland. Their combined presence in music began in the 1950s, and throughout the 1960s the duo of Simon & Garfunkel achieved great chart success with tracks such as "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson" (written for the 1967 film The Graduate), "Scarborough Fair", "The Boxer" and "Bridge over Troubled Water". The last song's title also served as the name of Simon & Garfunkel's final album in 1970. Simon & Garfunkel split for personal reasons, but the pair have occasionally reunited in the years since. Both experienced success solo in the years following their breakup. Highlights of Garfunkel's solo music career in the US include one top 10 hit, three top 20 hits, six top 40 hits, 14 Adult Contemporary top 30 singles and five Adult Contemporary number ones. He scored two UK number ones and a People's Choice Award. Through his solo and collaborative work, Garfunkel has earned eight Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, he and Simon were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2008, Garfunkel was ranked 86th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Garfunkel was born on November 5, 1941 in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, to Rose (née Pearlman) and Jacob "Jack" Garfunkel, a traveling salesman. Art was a middle child with two brothers, the older Jules and the younger Jerome. Jacob's parents had emigrated to the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century and settled in Manhattan. Before his career in sales, Jacob worked as an actor in Dayton, Ohio. Garfunkel is of Jewish-Romanian descent. When he was young, he often sang in synagogue. Garfunkel's love of singing originated in the first grade. "When we were lined up in size order, and after everyone else had left, I'd stay behind and enjoy the echo sound of the stairwell tiles and sing "Unchained Melody" and "You'll Never Walk Alone", learning to love this goosebumps song from the tender age of five." Later, Garfunkel's father bought him a wire recorder, and from then on, Garfunkel spent his afternoons singing, recording, and playing it back, so he could listen for flaws and learn how to improve. At his bar mitzvah in 1954 in the Jewish Center of Kew Gardens Hills, Garfunkel performed as a hazzan, a cantor, singing over four hours of his repertoire for his family. At age 14, Garfunkel became ill with a lung infection, which led to a love for basketball. "In the summer of '55, I had a lung infection. I couldn't run around, but I loved basketball and there was a hoop nearby. Much of the summer I spent methodically hitting 96, 98 foul shots out of 100. Then 102! I never played on a team after junior high school. Just 3 against 3, half court pick up games in the schoolyard." He met future singing partner Paul Simon in the sixth grade at PS 164, when they were both cast in the elementary school graduation play, Alice in Wonderland. Garfunkel said that Simon first became interested in singing after hearing Garfunkel sing a rendition of Nat King Cole's "Too Young" in a school talent show. Between 1956 and 1962, the two performed together as Tom & Jerry, a moniker coined by their label Big Records, occasionally performing at school dances. Their idols were the Everly Brothers, whom they imitated in their use of close two-part vocal harmony. In 1957, they recorded the song "Hey, Schoolgirl" under the name Tom & Jerry. The single reached number 49 on the pop charts. After Tom & Jerry came to a close, Garfunkel released two singles under the name Artie Garr: "Dream Alone"/"Beat Love" and "Forgive Me"/"Private World" with Warwick and Octavia Records respectively. Both singles failed to chart. After graduating from Forest Hills High School alongside Simon, Garfunkel initially majored in architecture at Columbia University, where he was a brother in the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and lived in Carman Hall. Garfunkel was a team member in tennis, skiing, fencing, and bowling at the college and also joined the all-male a cappella group on campus, the Columbia Kingsmen. While at Columbia his roommate, Sanford Greenberg, developed glaucoma and went blind. Garfunkel assisted him in his homework by reading his textbooks to Greenberg, who went on to graduate with honors. Another roommate of his was Tishman Speyer founder Jerry Speyer. Greenberg gave Garfunkel $500 to go and record a demo of "The Sound of Silence". Garfunkel earned a bachelor's degree in art history in 1965, followed by an master's degree in mathematics education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1967. He completed coursework toward a doctorate in the latter discipline at Teachers College, Columbia University during the peak of Simon & Garfunkel's commercial success. He dropped out.
In 1963, Garfunkel and Simon reformed their duo under their own names as Simon and Garfunkel. They released their first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. on Columbia Records in October 1964. It was not a critical or commercial success, and the duo split. The next year, producer Tom Wilson lifted the song "The Sound of Silence" from the record, dubbed an electric backing onto it, and released it as a single that went to number one on the Billboard pop charts. Simon had gone to the United Kingdom in 1965 after the initial failure of Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., to pursue a solo career. He briefly teamed with songwriter Bruce Woodley of the Seekers. After "The Sound of Silence" had started to enjoy commercial success, he returned to the US to reunite with Garfunkel. The duo recorded four more influential albums: Sounds of Silence; Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; Bookends; and the hugely successful Bridge over Troubled Water. They contributed to the soundtrack of the 1967 Mike Nichols' film The Graduate. While writing "Mrs. Robinson", Simon originally considered the title "Mrs. Roosevelt". When Garfunkel reported this indecision over the song's name to the director, Nichols replied, "Don't be ridiculous! We're making a movie here! It's Mrs. Robinson!" Simon & Garfunkel traveled together to England in the fall of 1968. They made a concert appearance at Kraft Hall, which was broadcast on the BBC and featured Garfunkel's solo performance of "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her". While Garfunkel was not a songwriter, he did write the poem "Canticle" as a re-write of Simon's "Side of A Hill" from his debut album, for "Scarborough Fair/Canticle". He was the vocal arranger for the duo. He is credited as having written the arrangement on "The Boxer" and creating "Voices of Old People" (an audio montage) on Bookends. Citing personal differences and divergence in career interests, they split following the release of their most critically acclaimed album, Bridge over Troubled Water, in 1970. Each pursued solo projects after 1970. They occasionally reunited, as in 1975 for their Top Ten single "My Little Town", which Simon originally wrote for Garfunkel, claiming Garfunkel's solo output was lacking "bite". The song was included on their respective solo albums: Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years and Garfunkel's Breakaway. Contrary to popular belief, the song is not autobiographical of Simon's early life but of Garfunkel's childhood in Queens. In 1981, they got together again for a performance, released as The Concert in Central Park, followed by a world tour and an aborted reunion album Think Too Much, which was eventually released, by Simon without Garfunkel, as Hearts and Bones. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2003, they reunited when they received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, leading to a US tour: the acclaimed "Old Friends" concert series. It was followed by another in 2004, which culminated in a free concert at the Colosseum in Rome. The concert drew 600,000 people.
During a three-year hiatus after Simon & Garfunkel's breakup, Garfunkel starred in two Mike Nichols films, Catch-22 (1970) and Carnal Knowledge (1971). He spent late 1971 to early 1972 working as a mathematics teacher teaching geometry to high school sophomores at the short-lived Litchfield Academy in Connecticut. In late 1972, with Simon & Garfunkel having released their Greatest Hits album and briefly reuniting to perform a benefit concert for presidential candidate George McGovern, Garfunkel felt ready to return to his musical career. His first album was 1973's Angel Clare, which contained "All I Know", "I Shall Sing" and "Travelling Boy" as singles. The album was received with mixed reviews, reaching number 5 in the U.S. In 1974, Garfunkel released the hit single "Second Avenue". On his next album, 1975's Breakaway, Garfunkel briefly reunited with Simon for the 1975 hit "My Little Town". The album included the singles "Break Away" (B-Side: "Disney Girls") and "I Only Have Eyes for You" (a 1934 song written by Harry Warren), which is noted as Garfunkel's first UK number one.
In 1976, Garfunkel recorded both background and duet vocals for several artists, including Stephen Bishop's album Careless, James Taylor's album In the Pocket and JD Souther's album Black Rose. From December 1976 to September 1977, Garfunkel worked on his next album. Garfunkel's next release was the 1977 album Watermark (US No. 19, UK No. 26). It failed to make an impression on the public upon release. Its main single, "Crying in My Sleep" ("Mr. Shuck 'N' Jive") (UK No. 25) did not reach the US Top 40. After a two-month hiatus, it was re-released in January 1978, with Garfunkel's cover of Sam Cooke's "(What a) Wonderful World" (B-Side: "Wooden Planes"), reaching number one on the Adult Contemporary chart and seventeen on the pop chart. Paul Simon and mutual friend James Taylor had contributed backing vocals to the song, which was a huge hit on the US Adult Contemporary charts. In 1978, Garfunkel toured the U.S. and Canada extensively with guitarist Arlen Roth, John Barlow Jarvis on piano, and Leah Kunkel on second vocals. Garfunkel's last release of the 1970s was the 1979 album Fate for Breakfast (US No. 67, UK No. 2). It was his first US flop. The album's first single, "In A Little While (I'll Be on My Way)" (B-Side: "And I Know") (US AC No. 12) failed to break the top forty, as did his second single, "Since I Don't Have You" (B-Side: "When Someone Doesn't Want You") (US No. 53, US AC No. 5, UK No. 38). The album was a huge success in the UK, scoring a number one hit with "Bright Eyes" (B-Side: "Sail on a Rainbow") (US AC No. 29, UK No. 1) (a song written by Mike Batt). Garfunkel's girlfriend since 1974, Laurie Bird, died by suicide in June 1979 at their Manhattan apartment, three months after the album's release in March. Garfunkel stated that her death left him in a deep depression.
In 1980, he sang on the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song "Daylight Again", featured on the album of the same name. Garfunkel's next album was a low point in his career. The 1981 album, Scissors Cut (US No. 113, UK No. 51) (dedicated to Bird), contained three singles, "A Heart in New York" (B-Side: "Is This Love") (US No. 66, US AC No. 10), "Scissors Cut", and "Hang On In". The latter two failed to chart. Following disappointing sales of Scissors Cut, Garfunkel reunited with Simon for The Concert in Central Park and a world tour. They had significant disagreements during the tour. In 1984, Stereo Review Magazine reported that Simon mixed out Garfunkel's voice from a new album. It was initially slated to be a Simon & Garfunkel studio reunion, but was ultimately released in 1983 as a Simon solo album (Hearts and Bones). In 1986, Garfunkel played the part of the butcher on the Mike Batt concept album The Hunting of the Snark. Garfunkel released his first compilation album in 1984, The Art Garfunkel Album (UK No. 12), never released in the US, which contained the minor hit "Sometimes When I'm Dreaming" (UK No. 77, US AC No. 25). In the fall of 1985, he met his future wife, Kathryn "Kim" Cermak; they were married in September 1988. Garfunkel's next release was his 1988 album, Lefty (US, No. 134), which produced three singles, "So Much in Love" (US No. 76, US AC No. 11), "When a Man Loves a Woman", and "This Is the Moment".
