Art Garfunkel on Recent Reunion With Paul Simon: ‘There Were Tears’

05 Nov 2024, 00:36 · Rolling Stone

It’s been nearly a decade and a half since Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel performed at the American Film Institute’s tribute to Mike Nichols in Los Angeles. The time in between then has been marked with Art Garfunkel’s four year struggle to regain his voice after being diagnosed with vocal cord paresis, followed by a delayed Simon & Garfunkel’s North American tour that never materialized, and Garfunkel’s public denouncement of his former bandmate.

However, their long-standing feud has seemed to reach a healing point. Speaking with The Sun, Garfunkel shared that he had recently met with Simon for the first time in years. While he did not specify what brought them together, his description of their reunion was positive. “It was very, very warm and wonderful,” he told the outlet. “There were tears. I was crying at a certain point because I felt that I had hurt him.”

He added that “there were hugs” and that he was “cherishing this two-week-old memory of having lunch” with Simon.

When asked if the pair discussed their time of massive success in the Sixties — during which they released the extraordinary “The Sound of Silence” and Grammy winners “Mrs. Robinson” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (technically, 1970) — Garfunkel replied, “No, we didn’t. That speaks for itself.”

“I like to think I’m a man who has a lot of love,” he continued, before adding, “I love everyone.”

Simon & Garfunkel’s final studio album, the best-selling Bridge Over Troubled Water, released in 1970, the year they disbanded. A brief 1993 reunion followed, and in 2003 they came together again for their highly lucrative Old Friends Tour. After taking the stage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th Anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden in 2009, they revealed a 2010 North American tour that was slated to begin at New Orleans’s Jazz Fest.

Then, that January, Garfunkel began to suffer major vocal issues, leading to an indefinite tour cancellation. While they performed “Mrs. Robinson” at Nichols tribute a few months later, the ambitious trek was shelved. After Garfunkel eventually regained his voice, Simon was seemingly no longer on board to tour, leading to Garfunkel to vent to The Telegraph in 2015.
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“How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul?” he said at the time. “What’s going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?”

Since then, Simon has announced his retirement from touring in 2018 after confirming his hearing loss in May 2023, and a month later, selling a “substantial stake” of his Simon & Garfunkel royalties to BMG in a deal that reportedly closed in the eight figures. In March 2024, the songwriting great released In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, a documentary reflecting on his almost seven-decade career. “People used to say, ‘Oh, you have your finger on the pulse,’” the 82-year-old musician says in the film. “No, I don’t have my finger on the pulse. I just have my finger out there… and the pulse is running under it.”

As for Garfunkel, the singer and his son, Art Garfunkel Jr., are set to release their first album together, Father And Son on Nov. 8. The LP will feature covers of the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper, the Everly Brothers’ “Let It Be Me,” and more.

Art Garfunkel on Recent Reunion With Paul Simon: ‘There Were Tears’

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