Two years after Simon & Garfunkel split up, Paul Simon dipped his toes back into record-making with the release of his second solo record (he had recorded the little-heard, acoustic Paul Simon Songbook during the first S&G hiatus).
This self-titled record signaled a departure from the folk rock Simon had recorded with Garfunkel. He introduced reggae and latin influences to some songs and a more contemporary sheen that places this album squarely on the other side of 1970.
When we left Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, they had split up after the failure of their debut folk album, 1964’s Wednesday Morning, 3AM, with Simon moving to London to perform in small venues and Garfunkel pursuing a Masters degree in New York City.
During the summer of ’65, one track off of that debut album showed signs of life on college radio. ‘The Sound of Silence,’ a gentle tune with grand lyrics, received a lot of airplay in Gainesville, Florida, and other college towns. Producer Tom Wilson, who had worked on Wednesday Morning, 3AM, sensed an opportunity.
I consider myself a pretty big Paul Simon fan, but I had never heard of The Paul Simon Songbook before working on these weekend posts. I’d always assumed his first solo album was released after the break-up of Simon & Garfunkel.
To be fair, Songbook wasn’t exactly a high-profile release. Simon himself killed a planned U.S. release of the album and reportedly requested that the British release be removed from circulation. Presumably he was unhappy not with the songs but with the recordings, because he went on to release almost all of the material on different albums over the next few years.
After the failure of Simon & Garfunkel’s debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, Paul Simon headed to London, where he played folk music in English pubs and enjoyed a small amount of success.
Simon drew inspiration from the music coming out of England at the time, and like Bob Dylan, later worked elements of English folk song lyrics and melodies into his own work. The best known example is the recording of ‘Scarborough Fair’ that appeared on a future Simon & Garfunkel album.
Simon & Garfunkel were nearly finished as soon as they began. The failure of Wednesday Morning, 3AM sent Paul Simon to London and Art Garfunkel to college in New York, their dream of recording together shelved indefinitely.
It would have been a depressing finish for the childhood friends who first performed together in high school (as Tom & Jerry) and had been friends since they were 12 years old.
But the turbulence that marked their first stab at recording as Simon & Garfunkel would become par for the course as their careers progressed.
Meet Me In Montauk 