Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel as Tom & Jerry - Two Teen-Agers (1967)

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel grew up in the 1940's and 1950's in their predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, New York, three blocks away from one another. They attended the same schools, and were both fascinated by music, listening to the radio and being taken with rock and roll as it emerged, particularly the Everly Brothers. Simon first noticed Garfunkel singing in a fourth grade talent show, which Simon thought was a good way to attract girls. He hoped for a friendship, which started in 1953, when they appeared in a sixth grade adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, after which they formed The Peptones, a streetcorner doo-wop group with three friends, learning to harmonize along the way. In 1956 they wrote their first song, 'The Girl for Me', and then, while trying to remember the lyrics to the Everly Brothers song 'Hey Doll Baby', they wrote 'Hey Schoolgirl', which they recorded for $25 at Sanders Recording Studio in Manhattan. While recording, they were overheard by promoter Sid Prosen, who signed them to his independent label Big Records after speaking to the 15-year old's parents. Under Big Records, Simon and Garfunkel assumed the name Tom & Jerry - Garfunkel named himself Tom Graph, a reference to his interest in mathematics, and Simon chose Jerry Landis, after the surname of a girl he had dated. Their first single 'Hey Schoolgirl' was released with 'Dancin' Wild' on the b-side in 1957, and after Prosen bribed DJ Alan Freed $200 to play the single on his radio show, it attracted regular rotation on nationwide AM pop stations, leading it to sell over 100,000 copies and landing on Billboard's charts at number 49. Despite this early success, neither of their next two singles for Big Records got anywhere near the charts, and so after graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1958, the pair continued their education should a music career not unfold, with Simon studying English at Queens College, City University of New York, and Garfunkel studying architecture before switching to art history at Columbia College, Columbia University. 

While still with Big Records as a duo, Simon released a solo single 'True Or False' under the name True Taylor, which upset Garfunkel, who regarded it as a betrayal, and the emotional tension from the incident occasionally surfaced throughout their relationship. They continued recording as solo artists while together as Tom & Jerry, with Garfunkel's own 'Private World' and 'Beat Love' being released under the name of Artie Garr, while Simon recorded with the Mystics and Tico & The Triumphs, and wrote and recorded under the names Jerry Landis and Paul Kane. After graduating in 1963, Simon joined Garfunkel, who was still at Columbia University, to perform again as a duo, this time with a shared interest in folk music. By late 1963, billing themselves as Kane & Garr, they played at Gerde's Folk City, performing three new songs - 'Sparrow', 'He Was My Brother', and 'The Sound of Silence' — which attracted the attention of Columbia Records staffer Tom Wilson, and they were signed after auditioning 'The Sound Of Silence' for the label. Simon & Garfunkel's debut studio album 'Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.' was recorded over three sessions in March 1964 and released in October, and with five compositions by Simon, it heralded a new sound on the folk circuit. Simon was adamant that they would no longer use stage names, so the record was issued under the name of Simon & Garfunkel, and Tom & Jerry were no more. In 1967 the UK label Allegro released an album of Tom & Jerry singles, but attributed them to Simon & Garfunkel, and put a contemporary photo on the cover, with this attempt to portray the record as a new Simon & Garfunkel album so incensing Simon that he took legal action to get the album withdrawn on both sides of the Atlantic. The one odd thing about the Allegro collection was the inclusion of two instrumental tracks, the mournful 'Tijuana Blues', and the jazzy 'Simon Says', which were previously unheard, but unlike any of their other recordings. This short-ish album collects all the duo's tracks recorded as Tom & Jerry, as well as the afore-mentioned 'Beat Love' by Artie Garr, and an otherwise unreleased song by Jerry Landis as a bonus. 

Track listing

01 Hey Schoolgirl (single November 1957)
02 Dancin' Wild (b-side of 'Hey Schoolgirl')
03 That's My Story (single May 1958)
04 (Pretty Baby) Don't Say Goodbye (b-side of 'That's My Story')
05 Our Song (single February 1958)
06 Two Teen-Agers (b-side of 'Our Song')
07 Baby Talk (single June 1958)
08 Lookin' At You (single May 1959)
09 I'm Lonesome (b-side of 'Lookin' At You')
10 Surrender, Please Surrender (single August 1962)
11 Fightin' Mad (b-side of 'Surrender, Please Surrender')
12 Tijuana Blues (single October 1967)
13 Simon Says (b-side of 'Tijuana Blues')
14 Flame (recorded by Jerry Landis 1961)
15 Beat Love (single by Artie Garr October 1959)

Simon & Garfunkel - Overs (1970)

There are a number of out-takes collections by Simon & Garfunkel floating about online, but this one had quite a few songs that I'd never heard before, so I thought it was worth investigation. It includes demos, out-takes and live tracks from 1964 to 1970, all in reasonably good sound quality. The original double CD has 55 tracks, but a lot of them were multiple takes of the same song, or instrumental versions of released songs, so I've picked out the best sixteen songs for a more compact 41 minute album. It's a mixture of unreleased Simon originals and choice covers, with a five track live section. Paul over at Albumsthatshouldexist has had a similar idea for a S&G post at the same time (great minds think alike), and this should be a nice companion piece to his collection of unreleased Paul Simon compositions.

Track listing

01 Bleecker Street (demo 1964)
02 Sparrow (BBC session 1965)
03 Somewhere They Can't Find Me ('Sounds Of Silence' out-take 1966)
04 Bad News Feeling ('Sounds Of Silence' rehearsal 1966)
05 I Wish You Could Be Here ('Sounds Of Silence' rehearsal 1966)
06 Blues Run The Game ('Sounds Of Silence' out-take 1966)
07 You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies ('Bookends' out-take 1968)
08 A Poem On The Underground Wall (Live At Carnegie Hall 1967)
09 Red Rubber Ball (Live At Carnegie Hall 1967)
10 Anji (Live At Carnegie Hall 1967)
11 Blessed (Live At Carnegie Hall 1967)
12 A Church Is Burning (Live At Carnegie Hall 1967)
13 Feuilles-Oh ('Bridge Over Troubled Water' out-take 1970)
14 Hey Schoolgirl (Live At Carnegie Hall 1969)
15 That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine (Live At Carnegie Hall 1969)
16 Lightnin' Express (Live In Paris 1970)

It's called 'Overs' as it contains songs that were 'left over', but also because it includes six takes of the 'Bookends' songs 'Overs'. If you really want to hear them, along with twelve takes of 'For Emily....' then the original bootleg is fairly easy to find. I've left the back cover in the folder so that you can see exactly what was on the original 2xCDs.

Simon & Garfunkel - Think Too Much (1983)

In late 1982 Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were completing the last leg of a very successful reunion tour, and there was talk of recording a new album together. Their on again/off again partnership was going through an 'on' stage, and fans were clamouring for a new record to follow the tour. It was never going to be an easy ride, as Simon had already written all the songs as a follow-up to his 'One Trick Pony' album, and as they weren't written with Garfunkel in mind, then he would have to write his own vocal parts to slot into the tracks. This took longer than expected, and Simon had already finished recording all his vocals before Garfunkel had even written his parts. Eventually recording began and continued throughout 1983, with Garfunkel adding his vocals to the mostly already completed songs. Things then took a strange turn, when in August 1983 Simon called Garfunkel to tell him that the album wasn't turning out as he'd wanted and that he was going to issue it as a solo album called 'Hearts And Bones'. He then set about meticulously erasing every note of Garfunkel's voice from the tapes, and 'Hearts And Bones' duly appeared in 1983, featuring all of the songs that they'd both worked on, but with only Simon's voice audible. The relationship was now 'off' again. All that remains of Garfunkel's vocals are some hard to find rough mixes, but it does hint at what the album could have sounded like, as nearly all the songs are radically different from the 'Hearts And Bones' versions, and although Garfunkel can't be heard on all of them, where he is evident then the old magic is still there.

Track listing

01 Cars Are Cars (with Art Garfunkel)

02 Train In The Distance (with Art Garfunkel)

03 Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War (with additional coda)

04 Think Too Much (A)

05 The Late Great Johnny Ace

06 Song About The Moon (with Art Garfunkel)

07 Allergies (with Art Garfunkel)

08 Hearts And Bones (with additional introduction)

09 When Numbers Get Serious

10 Citizen Of The Planet (with Art Garfunkel)

11 Think Too Much (B)

Oddly enough, I don't hear much of Art on the two tracks which everyone agrees he is on - 'Train In The Distance' and 'Song About The Moon' - but his contributions to 'Cars Are Cars' and 'Allergies' are unmistakable..