CBS
Sunday Morning featured a segment on Art Garfunkel today. The timing could hardly seem better: not only
in support of his new memoir, What Is It All but Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man, but also right on his 76th birthday. (He
was born in Forest Hills, Queens, for those who don't know.)
As I listened to CBS’ Rita Braver interview the pop legend, I felt a vague sense of
familiar unease when Garfunkel explained the motivation for his retrospective:
“I suppose, if I examine my inner mind, I would say, 'Time to come out of the
shadow of Paul Simon and establish yourself as a thinking artist who can sing.'
I know myself to be a creative guy, and I think my profile out in show business
is 'the guy over Paul Simon's right shoulder.'... I thought I was playing it too
deferential to Paul."
My disquiet turned into an old sinking feeling
as I heard Garfunkel acknowledge, late in the interview, that he and his
onetime partner were at "one of their low points." (There goes any joint
concert appearance for a while!)
As sensitive about the value of his solo career as
he is articulate about his influences (“When in the temple, it's got a high
ceiling, it's got wood walls—these are great for a singer, 'cause I thrive on
the reverb”), Garfunkel craves affirmation of his work apart from
What’s-His-Name. I, for one, don’t mind in the least providing that.
In mulling over which of his solo performances to
highlight, I thought of a heart-rending mid-Seventies work, “Second Avenue.” I
also carefully considered a comparative rarity, his theme sung over the opening
credits to Gary David Goldberg’s gone-way-too-song comic valentine to his
Fifties childhood, “Brooklyn Bridge.” (Oh, heck: just click on this YouTube link and see if you don’t get a lump in your throat as
you listen to him warble the nostalgic lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman about “that
place just over the Brooklyn Bridge/It’ll always be home to me.”)
But ultimately, I selected the biggest hit from his
first post-Simon release, Angel Clare (1972),
a cover of Jimmy Webb’s “All I Know.” Recorded live in 1996, this performance on YouTube is not only one of the best renditions of a seminal tune by one of my favorite pop
singer-songwriters, but also gains vibrancy from its setting: Ellis Island, as special to Garfunkel as to those of us who grew up loving his angelic
voice, a sacred place not unlike the temple where he first became aware of his
God-given vocal gifts.
No comments:
Post a Comment