ART GARFUNKEL FINDS HARMONY ON HIS OWN PATH
November 12 1997
Denver Rocky Mountain News
Simon & Garfunkel made some of the most beautiful music ever to grace pop radio. Paul Simon has since toured with African and South American artists and is now finishing a musical. In many ways, Art Garfunkel has followed a different, less visible but no less rewarding path.
Garfunkel literally walked across America for much of a decade, finding solace on the highways while listening to a Sony Walkman and writing poems gathered in his book Still Water.
This summer, Garfunkel resurfaced with two well-made albums: Across America (the first live disc of his career) and the engaging Songs From a Parent to a Child, dedicated to his 6-year-old son, James.
"I'm feeling really good about my life,'' says Garfunkel, who was long known as a nit-picking intellectual but has since lightened up. "I've spent many nights hitting the pillow this year feeling very pleased about doing good work and earning my soul's peace.''
He's also given his blessing to a Simon & Garfunkel boxed set, Old Friends, which comes out Oct. 28 and is filled with hits from Homeward Bound to Mrs. Robinson, along with 15 previously unreleased tracks. "Sony found a lot of stuff in the vault, and when they showed it to me, I said, `Hmmm, it is appealing. I have to admit that,' '' he said.
There's no Simon & Garfunkel reunion on the horizon, and there may never be another one, Garfunkel says, though "I would never say to Paul or to anyone else that I've ruled him out of my future.''
His proudest accomplishment of late is the Songs From a Parent to a Child CD. It was commissioned by Sony and executed wondrously by Garfunkel, who targets young listeners with cover songs such as The Beatles' I Will, the Elvis-style Good Luck Charm and James Taylor's Secret o' Life.
"I'm forever a singer trying to get away with this lucky job,'' says Garfunkel, who hopes to tour the United States this year. "I try and soothe people. I try and lift them. That's my life. Just about everything I do is a business expense. It's all in the service of that calling.''
Once a loner, Garfunkel now has a young wife, Kim, a Buddhist whom he credits with steadying him and giving him an "angel'' for a son. The boy, James, harmonizes during Garfunkel's concerts and shows great potential.
"It all organically fell into place,'' he says of his son's joining the show. "I'm not putting aside entertainment value so Arthur can have his private indulgence here. No, James is adorable and is a treat on the eye and the ear. I feel very good that he belongs in the show as long as he feels comfortable. And James has always felt, `This is fun.' "I have no vested interest that he go into music permanently, but only if it satisfies his soul. "(He's) a boy who's breaking out at the edges and making my life break out, too. It's kind of a nice, healthy thing to realize: `You are human in spite of yourself, Mr. Garfunkel. Get used to it.' ''
Garfunkel still professes to be a perfectionist, at least in his music. "If there's a flat note, I can't say it's charmingly flat. I say, `Let's erase it and get it right,' '' he says.
He's less driven, though, than he was in his early years. And that stems partly from his walk across America, which followed an earlier three-week walk across Japan.
"I love traveling. I'm the son of a traveling salesman,'' says Garfunkel, whose walk across America was accomplished in many minitrips that took him from his Manhattan home to the Appalachians and across the prairies. "It's all in my eyes, in my heart, this love of the country and how beautiful and spacious it is. All this ready-for-the-21st century potentiality is sitting there. Now, if I could have my heart's delight, I would produce a second child and then I could just go to heaven.''