The Concert In Central Park, 1981

Tracks :

Mrs. Robinson
Homeward Bound
America
Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard
Scarborough Fair
April Come She Will
Wake Up Little Susie (Felice and Boudleaux Bryant)
Still Crazy After All These Years
American Tune
Late In The Evening
Slip Slidin' Away
A Heart In New York (Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle)
Kodachrome / Maybelline (Paul Simon / Chuck Berry, Russ Fratto and Alan Freed)
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover
The Boxer
Old Friends
The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
The Sound of Silence

Press Interview :
Playboy Interview : Paul Simon, 1984

Paul Simon : ... Somewhere in the middle of that summer, I got a call from Ron Delsener, the main concert promoter in New York City. He said that the parks commissioner of New York wanted me to do a free concert in Central Park, and asked if I'd be interested. I said yes, but then I began to think it wouldn't work. I was still feeling a little shaky about One-Trick Pony. Then I thought, Why don't I ask Artie to join me ? Not the usual thing where I sing and he comes out at the end and sings three songs with me. Maybe we'll do 20 minutes, half an hour, a full set. I called up Artie and he was in Switzerland. He travels all the time, loves to walk places. I asked if he wanted to do this concert and said yeah. Then I realized that if we did half the show as Simon and Garfunkel and did the second half alone, it just wouldn't work in show-business terms. Which meant I would have to open the show. Then I said, "I don't want to be an opening act for Simon And Garfunkel!" So I figured, Well, let's try to do a whole Simon and Garfunkel show.
Playboy : What were you working on?
Simon : I was on a real roll with my writing by then, but I stopped to go into rehearsal for the concert. And at that time, we were all in very good spirits. Well, the rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar. I said, "I can't do that anymore. I can't just play the guitar for two hours." First, my hand had never fully recovered from when it was injured a few years ago, when I had calcium deposits. And second, a lot of the songs I've written in recent years weren't made to be played by one guitar. Still Crazy After All These Years, for example, is an electric-piano song. And Late in the Evening has to have horns. So we got a band.
Playboy : Once you got onstage in Central Park, in front of 500,000 people, did your differences fade away?
Simon : Yeah. We just did what we'd done when we were an act in the Sixties. We tried to blend our voices. I attempted to make the tempos work. I talked a little bit, too, but I found it impossible to hold a dialog with 500,000 people.
Playboy : How did playing for a crowd that size feel?
Simon : In a certain sense, it was numbing. It was so big, and it was happening only once. I didn't have much time for an overview while I was performing.
Playboy : And afterward ?
Simon : Afterward, our first reaction was, I think, one of disappointment. Arthur's more than mine. he thought he didn't sing well. I didn't get what had happened - how big it was - until I went home, turned on the television and saw it on all the news, the people being interviewed and later that night on the front pages of all the newspapers. Then I got it.
Playboy : What made you decide to follow the concert with a tour together ? To what extent was it just a way to make some easy bucks repackaging old material?
Simon : Well, hey it was old material. But it wasn't cynically done. It wasn't hype. It was done because there was an overwhelming demand. The thing that struck me was that people seemed to like those songs, which I found to be really surprising, because I felt they were dated.
Playboy : How do you feel about the record produced from the concert ?
simon : I don't particularly like it. I don't think that Simon and Garfunkel as a live act compares to Simon and Garfunkel as a studio act.
Playboy : Why not ?
Simon : In terms of performing, I've never really been comfortable being a professional entertainer. For me, it's a secondary form of creativity. I'm not a creative performer. I'm a reproducer onstage of what I've already created. I guess everyone who goes on the stage is exhibitionistic, but there are limits to what I'll do to make a crowd respond.
Playboy : What did you expect creatively from a Simon and Garfunkel tour ?
Simon : Nothing. I thought I was going to get an emotional experience from it. I felt I wasn't really present for Simon and Garfunkel the first time around.
Playboy : Where were you ?
Simon : I wasn't home, the same way that I wasn't present for the concert in the park when it was happening. I mean, a phenomenon occurs and it's recognized as a phenomenon. But because you're in the middle of it, you just think that it's your life - until it's over. And then you look back and say, "What an unusual thing happened to me in the Sixties."
So there it was. A chance to go and re-experience, to a certain degree, what I hadn't really experienced the first time. Some of those hits from the Sixties I just had no interest in anymore, musically. But I had an interest in experiencing what it was like being the person who wrote and sang those songs.
Playboy : How was the experience ?
Simon : I liked it. And I began to think about the songs. I remember playing a concert somewhere in the middle of Germany. It's strange enough to be in Germany, and when I finished playing, I was thinking, I hate Homeward Bound. And then I thought, Why do I hate it ? I said "Oh, I hate the words." So I went over them. And then I remembered where I wrote it. I was in Liverpool, actually in a railway station. I'd just played a little folk job. The job of a folk singer in those days was to be Bob Dylan. You had to be a poet. That's what they wanted. And I thought hat was a drag. And I wanted to get home to my girlfriend, Kathy in London. I was 22. And then I thought, Well, that's not a bad song at all for a 22-year-old kid. It's actually quite touching now that I see it. So I wonder what's so embarrassing to me about it. Then I said, "I know! It's that I don't want to be singing that song as Simon and Garfunkel!"
Playboy Interview
by Tony Schwartz, ©1984

Biography :
Simon and Garfunkel, 1984

(Recorded live in Central Park, New York City, 19 September 1981)
The circumstances surrounding this extravaganza have already been related earlier in this book. It is symptomatic that the previous CBS album, The Simon and Garfunkel Collection, found space for seventeen titles on two sides whereas this Geffen double album requires four sides for nineteen tracks. Nor is this due just to middle-age spread: sixty-eight minutes total playing time for four sides is poor value, especially when much more was recorded (including new material never before issued on disc) and could easily have been accommodated on the set.
The performances, as we shall see, are variable. In the circumstances this is perhaps only to be expected, but the recordings, too, take some time to settle down and get into their stride. When one considers the fastidious approach Simon is known to have adopted during his concert tours in the 1970s one might reasonably ask why proper sound balances were not carried out earlier, so the listener would not have to pay to hear people learn their craft. This is most noticeable on the opening track, a very disappointing, 'cold' version of 'Mrs Robinson'. The balance is poor, with a hint of distortion and little or no stereo separation. The inevitable crowd scenes would have been more suitable for 'Save The Life Of My Child'. 'Homeward Bound' also disappoints, but for different reasons. It is not 'tight' enough and is transformed into a medium bounce number. It is a long way from Widnes. The third track is yet another disappointment, for the performance itself is so sleepy and indolent. This is 'America', and the dewy-eyed freshness of the original 3/4 song is here changed into a heavy 12/8, sluggish and faintly uncaring.
With 'Me And Julio Down By the Schoolyard' things get better, and after that much better. This is the best performance so far and the recording is less offensive. The final track on side one is 'Scarborough Fair', which is extremely well sung and the recording is now much better balanced. The only thing to mar this track is the somewhat dragging tempo, which roots this performance of the classic song firmly to the spot.
'April Come She Will' is another very well sung performance by Garfunkel, but the fire is lacking; there is no excitement, no youthful sexual anticipation here, just a faintly blasé rendering. 'Wake Up Little Susie', the old Everly Brothers hit, presumably put in for old times' sake, is not the kind of thing that leads one to expect a recreation of the Everly Brothers, but this version is too heavy-handed by far (principally because the recording is bass-heavy) or what is in essence a light and airy number. Simon's 'Still Crazy After All These Years' is an unfortunate piece of self-indulgence, not at all helped by a damaging organ part that all but smothers the singer. lt. certainly detracts from whatever enjoyment would have been there. The 'American Tune' is much better, and this more beefy sentiment seems to suit the occasion more. The final song on side two, taken from Paul Simon's Warner Brothers album One-Trick Pony and titled 'Late in the Evening', is the best so far. In fact, although the brass is somewhat bass-heavy the playing is electrifyingly good and the sound is not inappropriate to this song. Curiously enough, this performance comes over better than on the One-Trick Pony album, which has a somewhat antiseptic air about it. This really is very fine.
Side three begins with another (comparatively) recent Simon song, 'Slip Slidin' Away'. This is a fine extended version, well balanced and recorded with a genuine feel of growth. The tempo is ideal and the whole has that aura of relaxed and easy power which is very impressive. One can certainly sense that by now the performers have got fully into their stride. The next song, 'A New Heart in New York', is by Gallagher and Lyle, and oddly enough the descending five-note phrase which it has shortly after the start is identical to that in 'American Tune' (or rather in this case, the Lutheran adapted tune). The performance is excellent and is superbly controlled. Two good songs now follow: the first is 'Kodachrome', which is very good, but then as it is such a good song it has to be. Chuck Berry's 'Mabellene' is terrific, a real rock 'n' roll performance, driving, urgent, insistent and irresistible. This is perhaps the most pleasurable performance on the set, which certainly cannot be said of the live rendering of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' that follows. The piano is poor; it is out of tune and the sound poses severe problems for the recording engineer. Garfunkel seems a little nervous at first, being unable to relax and so put the song over as it demands. But these flaws are not great and conversely add a new element, that of growing tension. As a result the emotion builds inexorably to a splendid statement of the coda.
'Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover' begins the final side and receives another good, dependable performance from Simon, with excellent backing from the band. The instrumental breaks are quite long and the song ends with superb solo drumming from Steve Gadd. There would seem to be one miscalculation; the atmosphere should have generated a reprise of one or other verses. 'The Boxer' is a severe disappointment. The duo sound uncommitted and tired, and the self-indulgence that has largely been held in check is here allowed full expression. Nor are the voices well blended, and they are occasionally out of tune. This is then followed by what seems to be the longest crowd applause of the evening, far too long for a record; after several minutes of this roar one has to check that there is still more to hear on the record. As if to compensate for this, 'Old Friends' receives a very good performance indeed. This must have made an indelible impression on the crowd, for the sense of atmosphere is strong. 'The 59th Street Bridge Song' is spoiled by crowd catcalls and other noises off. The ending is rather too much a tongue-in-cheek affair to be convincing.
After this a lone voice in the crowd calls out for 'The Sounds Of Silence' and after a short speech from Paul the classic song begins. This is not a great performance but it is a highly sentimental occasion, charged with emotion. As if to settle the matter once and for all, at the very end Garfunkel clearly sings 'sounds', yet the lines 'People bowed and prayed/To the neon god they made' could have seemed a little uncomfortable.
After all, half a million people were there that evening; to see the gods they had made? Whatever they came for, it is safe to assume they found it, and we can recapture those parts of the concert in Central Park whenever we wish. In many ways the resultant discs could have been better, but not by much in the technical sense. The trouble is that there are too many less than satisfactory performances to make it really memorable, and possibly the whole thing was overambitious. They had not played in public as a duo for many years and the tension and hesitancy took a long time to leave them. On balance it was probably right to have given the concert and to have recorded it, but the seeker after truth will find it better expressed on the earlier albums.
Simon and Garfunkel
by Robert Matthew-Walker, ©1984

Biography :
Bookends - the Simon and Garfunkel Story, 1982

Whatever the personal reasons for getting back together again (on what seems like a relatively permanent basis), Simon and Garfunkel were aided by the unlikely combination of the Rolling Stones and a sportswear firm. Many of the Sixties stalwarts had fallen by the way- side. Dylan's triumphant return in 1978 had been marred by the poor music which accompanied his later Christian 'rebirth'. The Beatles, even before John Lennon's tragic murder, were never likely to perform together again. American rock 'n' roll, while roaring ahead with Springsteen at its helm, was still trailing the dead weight of anonymous bands like Journey, Foreigner and Styx. It took the Stones to remind people of the pulling power of a guaranteed rock legend. Their 1981 American tour was the most successful in rock history (one day's tee shirt sales in San Francisco alone netted over a million dollars !) The fact which surprised many people was that the majority of people who actually went to see the Stones were kids who weren't even born when they were first around. They were out to see a rock 'n' roll legend, perhaps for the last time.
While Simon and Garfunkel's fans had kept pace with their respective solo careers, they still craved the magical combination of Simon and Garfunkel. That partnership proved irresistible, and provided the mass appeal. Nostalgia was proving all the more marketable as the world lurched hesitantly into a new decade. With the Beatles little more than a potent memory, Dylan a Christian recluse and the Stones proving there was a growing market available, the timing couldn't have been better for a Simon and Garfunkel reunion.
Paul Simon has always been vehemently partisan about his home city of New York, and willingly agreed to play a solo concert in Central Park in the autumn of 1981, when approached by Warren Hirsh of Fiorucci Sportswear, who had previously promoted similar shows in the park by James Taylor and Elton John Simon was keen on the idea, and approached Garfunkel to come and join him onstage for the second half of tile show. But as Garfunkel recalled the situation to Rolling Stone in 1981: "Some friends of ours said why not a full Simon and Garfunkel concert? That would give the crowd the biggest kick. It also didn't seem right to either of us that Paul should be the opening act for Simon and Garfunkel." The inevitability of the situation was apparent, and the duo began sounding each other out at rehearsal and in conversation. The announcement of a full time reunion may have seemed too much like an admission of failure. "It got easy again", said Simon, "Artie and I had some heart-to-heart talks, which, amazingly, we had never had, and we just settled some things . . . We found ourselves talking about what would work, instead of what the other person did that was wrong."
Both men had just turned forty, were upset by the response to their recent solo projects, realised the possibilities both creative and financial, that a reunion could bring and started thinking seriously about the idea. Hanging out together, all the old antagonisms were soon forgotten. The realisation that they had as much in common as had kept them previously apart was soon realised. "We reminded ourselves of the humour we shared, the jokes, the similar concerns the similarity of our lives" Garfunkel recalled.
It may have made perfect sense for the two of them. The rest of the world was slightly more cynical about Simon and Garfunkel's motives for reforming. The relative failure of their recent solo efforts, the enormous financial possibilities a reunion would bring to them both, the security of Simon and Garfunkel, a chance to test the reaction in their home town. These were some of the reactions news of their reunion brought, which Simon was swift to dismiss: "The truth is, neither Artie nor I feel our lives rise and fall on hit albums or flop albums . . . I don't think we'd get together if the potential for a joyous reunion weren't there. We'd never decide to grit our teeth just to make a couple of million dollars." Maybe not, and how comforting to be in a position to be able to say that.
September 19, 1981 was the date set for the reunion. The stage was built resembling the New York skyline, and the event cost around 750, 000 dollars to stage, with Simon putting up the bulk of the money. Large crowds were expected, but the size of the half million crowd surprised everyone. The days of the big festival, with a crowd of that size gathering to see one act, had long since past. They came in their hundreds of thousands not simply to a concert, but to celebrate the passing of time, and see if some of it could be snatched back. It was a chill, autumn evening when Mayor Ed Koch came onstage around dusk and announced simply: "Ladies and gentlemen, Simon and Garfunkel." The roars which greeted the two tiny figures were deafening, the city of New York paying tribute to two of its celebrated sons.
"It's great to do a neighbourhood concert" cracked Simon early on and the crowd roared their enthusiasm, paying tribute to the duo they wished had never gone away. It was an emotional occasion, a celebration of lost innocence. Simon and Garfunkel's rapturous reception was a testimony that, "after changes upon changes/we are more or less the same." That the turmoil of the intervening years was a bad dream, like Cambodia and Watergate had never happened. After eleven years, Simon and Garfunkel's Central Park concert was like the return of 'Joltin' Joe' DiMaggio.
The success of the Central Park show generated an enormous amount of interest in Simon and Garfunkel. CBS quickly compiled The Simon And Garfunkel Collection. "Seventeen of their all time greatest recordings which no-one's record collection will be complete without" boasted their old company. (Indeed, so swiftly was the the album put together in Britain, there were strong rumours that the hazy couple on the cover were not Simon and Garfunkel, simply a couple of lookalikes photographed somewhere on the Welsh Coast! It was a rumour CBS swiftly denied.) Nonetheless, the album arrived just in time for Christmas, and sold close on two million copies in Europe. There were no new songs, nor indeed any live versions of old songs on the album, so the sales indicated that, like the Stones, Simon and Garfunkel had reached a whole new generation of fans. Simon attained an intellectual accolade in 1980, when the revised Penguin Dictionary Of Modern Quotations included four of his lyrics. Simon was sandwiched between surrealist playwright N.F. Simpson and Frank Silver, author of Yes, We Have No Bananas, an irony I am sure he would appreciate.
The subsequent, obligatory live double album of the Central Park show offered a hint of the event Yet few of the familiar S&G songs are enhanced by the record, Kodachrome loses its dramatic drive, America, Homeward Bound and The Boxer are perfunctorily per- formed, and Garfunkel even manages to fluff the second verse of Bridge Over Troubled Water. The songs which worked best were those which had previously been solo Simon efforts, a funkier Slip Slidin Away, a thunderous Late In The Evening and a haunting American Tune all benefitted from Garfunkel's harmonising. His solo renderings of April Come She Will and Scarborough Fair are spellbinding.
The only 'new' songs are another excursion into the Everly Brothers back catalogue, and personally I find S&G's version of Wake Up Little Susie plain embarrassing, two 40 year old men wondering how their parents are going to react when they're late home from a date! Chuck Berry's automotive tribute, Maybelline, fares better, but adds little of real quality to the Simon and Garfunkel repertoire. A major disappointment is that room wasn't found on the album for Simon's only new song, The Late, Great Johnny Ace, a potted history of rock 'n' roll, and one of Simon's most touching, obviously autobiographical songs.
Johnny Ace was a young R&B singer, who had a posthumous Top 10 hit in 1955 with Pledging My Love. Ace died backstage on Christmas Eve 1954, after losing at Russian roulette. Simon's poignant tribute recalls Ace and conjures up the Beatles, Stones and John Lennon by name. The most chilling moment of the show came during Simon's performance, when, at the exact moment he invoked Lennon's name, a fan leapt onstage and rushed towards him. The look on Simon's face was of anguish, and terror, like thinking maybe he is the next to go, in front of half a million fans within a gunshot of the Dakota Building.
Simon was haunted for days afterwards, with the kid's words ringing in his ears: "Paul, I need to talk to you." That was how much Simon and Garfunkel meant to their millions of fans. It was a thin line between Mark Chapman and John Lennon, and between Paul Simon, and that unknown young man who had to speak to the man whose songs had reflected his life. The fact that it happened during Simon s tribute to another rock legend was eerie, the grey area between reality and illusion. An area that Paul Simon had so suitably evoked in his songs. Those songs which will ring down the years, suitable to the mood the listener wants, the mood Paul Simon helps create, because he understands.
So, 1982 brings Simon and Garfunkel together again, with talk of a new studio album, their first since Bridge Over Troubled Water. Their appearances this summer will mean millions of people will have the opportunity to relive a little bit of their past. Those haunting voices will harmonise again on Simon's marvellous songs, and the thousands gathered before their idols will scream for a song about the inability to communicate. And once again, Simon and Garfunkel will sing The Sounds Of Silence. And everyone will remember where they were when they first heard that song, and how their lives, and our lives, have changed since. And we will be comfortable in that shared memory. That is perhaps the real tribute to Simon and Garfunkel.
Bookends - the Simon and Garfunkel Story
by Patrick Humphries, ©1982

Back to the main page Email