Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Simon & Garfunkel - More Rarities, 1966-1970 - Non-Album Tracks

I previously posted an  album of early Simon and Garfunkel rarities, stretching from 1957 to 1965. Nearly every single song on that remains officially unreleased, and more than half of them only featured Paul Simon.

This is the sequel to that album, rounding the rest of the duo's rarities, from 1966 to 1970. After 1970 they toured together from time to time but never created much new music as a duo, except for the occasional song here and there. This album is quite different from the other one in that most of the songs are officially released, and all but one of them feature Simon and Garfunkel. This is the stronger album musically, because it covers the peak years the duo were a creative force.

All of the songs were never released on their official studio albums, with one exception: "Mrs. Robinson." This is the version from "The Graduate" soundtrack. The song wasn't finished as quickly as the makers of that movie needed it, so the soundtrack version is mostly wordless. Actually, it consisted of two snippets of about a minute each, but I combined them with a little bit of overlap to make it sound more like a full song.

For a few of the songs, I could only find live versions. So, as I often do, I edited out the crowd noise to make them match with the other studio tracks on the album.

By the way, the song "Cuba Si, Nixon No" has been often misunderstood, including by Art Garfunkel who reportedly hated it. It's not a pro-Fidel Castro song. Instead, it's a song from the perspective of someone hijacking an airplane and flying it to Cuba (which was a common event in that era) and what he's thinking during the journey.

A few of the songs here are covers. I only know of one Paul Simon original not on these stray track albums or any official album (not counting his awful early 1960s songs), and that's the song "Someday, One Day." It's a nice song, but unfortunately I don't know of any version Simon was ever involved with. However, you can hear the Seekers do a version if you're interested, because it was co-written with a member of that group.

This album is 43 minutes long. The songs are ordered chronologically.

UPDATE: On February 13, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I added three songs. I never knew Simon and Garfunkel did a version of Bob Dylan's classic "Mr. Tambourine Man." It turns out they did it for a TV, though in a truncated version that's a little less than two minutes long. "Teenage Moron" appears to be an original. It's a parody of simple 1950s-styled tragedy songs. It's more of a joke than a full song, lasting just over a minute. But they worked up some nice harmonies for it, and played it in concert a few times. 

The third song should be well known for any Simon and Garfunkel fan, the traditional folk song "Scarborough Fair," merged with the song "Canticle." This version is unique though, because it was done on "The Andy Williams Show" in 1968 with Andy Williams joining in. Whenever Simon and Garfunkel played this in concert, they would only do the "Scarborough Fair" part, because that alone took two voices. But by having Williams join in, they were able to recreate the "Canticle" part as well, making it similar to the album version. Normally, I'm not a fan of Williams' style of music, but he did a very good job here. I suspect this is the only time Simon and Garfunkel played this song live with that "Canticle" arrangement included.

01 Mr. Tambourine Man (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 Blues Run the Game (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 Barbriallen [Demo] (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 Rose of Aberdeen [Demo] (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 Roving Gambler [Demo] (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 I Wish You Could Be Here (Paul Simon)
07 Teenage Moron (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 Comfort and Joy (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 Star Carol (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 Red Rubber Ball (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 Groundhog [Demo] (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 Scarborough Fair - Canticle (Simon & Garfunkel & Andy Williams)
13 Mrs. Robinson ['The Graduate' Version] (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 Feuilles-O [Demo] (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 Cuba Si, Nixon No (Simon & Garfunkel)
17 Hey Schoolgirl - Black Slacks (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine (Simon & Garfunkel)
19 Lightnin' Express (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700468/SIMNNGRFNKL1966-1970_MreRrities_atse.zip.html

The cover is based on a photo of Simon and Garfunkel from "around 1966," but I don't know any other details.

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