Various Artists - 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 10-29-2009

Here's a really great concert filled with lots of big stars performing classic songs. It was a two-day concert in New York City, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm posting both days of the concert, and this is the first one. I highly recommend this.

This two-day long concert had an unusual and interesting format: eight major artists were chosen: Crosby, Stills and Nash, Paul Simon (with and without Art Garfunkel), Stevie Wonder, and Bruce Springsteen for the first day, and Aretha Franklin, Jeff Beck, Metallica, and U2 for the second day. Each of those major stars were hosts for one fourth of the days they were on. Then they invited other stars to join them, to play a song or two. For instance, the first major artist, Crosby, Stills and Nash, had Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and James Taylor as their guests. The result was that, between the major stars and their guests, most of the major areas of rock and roll going back to the 1950s were represented. 

There were some key gaps though. For instance, although Mick Jagger was a guest on the second day to represent the Rolling Stones, there really wasn't any special representation of the Beatles, the most important musical act of all. (Although there were occasional covers of Beatles songs, at least.) Bob Dylan was also very missed. But then again, you can only do so much in two concerts containing about four hours each. 

I spent a long time putting this together. It was quite tricky. I was able to find all the songs from this, the first night, but only two and a half hours from the second night, even though that one probably lasted about four hours as well. The main source I used was an officially released DVD. But the longest version of that was only about three hours for both concerts combined. Plus, many of those were bonus tracks, which meant they were out of order and often had the starts and ends cut off.

Luckily for me, Wikipedia came through for me particularly well, with a list of all the songs performed in the correct order, including lots of details. You can see that, and more info about the concert, here:

25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concerts - Wikipedia 

From that, I was able to figure out the songs I was missing, and try to find them. It turns out four hours of highlights were shown on HBO the year the concert happened. That was longer than the DVD, so I found some extra songs there. Then I found an audience bootleg of the entire first day. That's why I was able to include all the songs. However, the sound quality of the songs from the audience bootleg was significantly poorer than the songs from the DVD and the HBO broadcast. But, luckily, I was able to clean things up quite a lot, by putting a lot of effort into audio editing. I ran all the audience boot sourced songs through two processes that I use in cases like this. For one thing, I used the MVSEP audio editing program to raise the volume of the lead vocals in contrast to the instruments. (That is such a common problem for concert bootlegs.) Then I also used MVSEP to wipe out the crowd noise during the songs, while keeping the cheers at the beginnings and ends of songs. In my opinion, that made the quality gap between the different sources a lot smaller, though still noticeable. ("Marrakesh Express" is an example of one of the audience boot sourced songs, and the songs just before and after it are not, if you want to make a comparison.)

However, I still had a lot of work to do. Another problem with the audience boot-sourced song is that the cheering at the ends of songs sounded quite different, with the sound of clapping of individual people near the taper more prominent. I mostly fixed this by copying and pasting cheering from the ends of DVD-sourced songs, and slathering it over the cheering of the audience boot-sourced songs. I also had a lot of transition issues. It was rare to have two songs in a row from the same source. I generally fixed that by patching in more generic cheering. Yet another problem was the banter between songs. The ones from the audience boot-sourced songs sounded really weak. So I did extra editing to pull the actual talking out from the background noise. 

I could go on and on. There were lots of little tweaks. But I'm hoping that the end result is this will sound like one coherent concert from one source, more or less, and you won't notice the "making of the sausage" with all the editing to get it to sound that way. It would be really great if this whole thing gets officially released one day, in top quality. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for that.

One thing that makes this concert special is all the collaborations. There are too many to count. Lots and lots of big names performing songs together, and usually the only time they ever did that for the songs. There were some interesting cover versions as well, as an attempt to have some inclusion of famous musician who died or otherwise didn't attend. Stevie Wonder singing the Michael Jackson song "The Way You Make Me Feel" and Paul Simon with Crosby and Nash singing "Here Comes the Sun" are just two examples of that.

This should particularly delight Bruce Springsteen fans. He dominated this first night, which his section of the concert lasting an hour and a half, easily the longest. And he assisted Jerry Lee Lewis on the first song of the night as well. (Plus, he showed up on the second night as well, as we shall see later.)

This album is four hours and eight minutes long.

01 talk (Tom Hanks)
02 talk (Jerry Lee Lewis)
03 Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On (Jerry Lee Lewis with Bruce Springsteen)
04 Woodstock (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
05 Marrakesh Express (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
06 talk (Graham Nash)
07 Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
08 talk (David Crosby)
09 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
10 Love Has No Pride (Bonnie Raitt & Crosby, Stills & Nash)
11 Midnight Rider (Bonnie Raitt & Crosby, Stills & Nash)
12 talk (Graham Nash)
13 talk (Jackson Browne)
14 The Pretender (Jackson Browne & Crosby, Stills & Nash)
15 talk (James Taylor)
16 Mexico (James Taylor & Crosby, Stills & Nash)
17 Love the One You're With (James Taylor & Crosby, Stills & Nash)
18 Rock and Roll Woman (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
19 talk (Graham Nash)
20 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills & Nash & Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne & James Taylor)
21 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (Paul Simon)
22 Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)
23 You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)
24 talk (Paul Simon)
25 Here Comes the Sun (Paul Simon with Crosby & Nash)
26 talk (Paul Simon)
27 The Wanderer (Dion & Paul Simon)
28 Late in the Evening (Paul Simon)
29 talk (Paul Simon)
30 Two People in the World (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
31 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)
32 Mrs. Robinson - Not Fade Away (Simon & Garfunkel)
33 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
34 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
35 Cecilia (Simon & Garfunkel)
36 Blowin' in the Wind (Stevie Wonder)
37 talk (Stevie Wonder)
38 Uptight [Everything's Alright] (Stevie Wonder)
39 I Was Made to Love Her (Stevie Wonder)
40 For Once in My Life (Stevie Wonder)
41 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
42 Boogie On Reggae Woman (Stevie Wonder)
43 talk (Stevie Wonder)
44 The Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson & Stevie Wonder)
45 talk (Stevie Wonder)
46 Mercy Mercy Me [The Ecology] (Stevie Wonder & John Legend)
47 The Way You Make Me Feel (Stevie Wonder with John Legend)
48 talk (Stevie Wonder)
49 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King & Stevie Wonder)
50 Living for the City (Stevie Wonder)
51 Higher Ground - Roxanne - Higher Ground (Sting & Stevie Wonder)
52 Superstition (Stevie Wonder & Jeff Beck)
53 10th Avenue Freeze-Out (Bruce Springsteen)
54 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
55 Hold On, I'm Comin' (Bruce Springsteen & Sam Moore)
56 Soul Man (Bruce Springsteen & Sam Moore)
57 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
58 The Ghost of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello)
59 Fortunate Son (John Fogerty & Bruce Springsteen)
60 Proud Mary (John Fogerty & Bruce Springsteen)
61 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
62 Oh, Pretty Woman (John Fogerty & Bruce Springsteen)
63 Jungleland (Bruce Springsteen)
64 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
65 A Fine, Fine Boy (Darlene Love & Bruce Springsteen)
66 Do Run Run Run (Darlene Love & Bruce Springsteen)
67 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
68 London Calling (Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello)
69 Badlands (Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello)
70 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
71 You May Be Right (Billy Joel & Bruce Springsteen)
72 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
73 Only the Good Die Young (Billy Joel & Bruce Springsteen)
74 New York State of Mind (Billy Joel & Bruce Springsteen)
75 Born to Run (Billy Joel & Bruce Springsteen)
76 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Everybody)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QU2h1WV1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7oTCzzonspG0GVX/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right: John Fogerty, Darlene Love, Bruce Springsteen, and Sam Moore.

Various Artists - Monterey International Pop Festival, Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey, CA, 6-16-1967

The 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival was the first famous rock festival. In my opinion, it was one of the best, if not the very best, in terms of the quality of all the musical acts involved. 

Here's what the beginning of the Wikipedia entry about the festival has to say: "The festival embodied the theme of California as a focal point for the counterculture and generally is regarded as one of the beginnings of the 'Summer of Love' in 1967 and the public debut of the hippie, flower power, and flower children movements and era. Because Monterey was widely promoted and heavily attended, featured historic performances, and was the subject of a popular theatrical documentary film, it became an inspiration and a template for future music festivals, including the Woodstock Festival two years later. Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner said 'Monterey was the nexus: It sprang from what the Beatles began, and from it sprang what followed.'"

Here's the link to the full entry, if you're interested:

Monterey International Pop Festival - Wikipedia

I had no plans to post this festival at this blog, because there a four CD box set of festival highlights was released in 1992. I had that for ages, and added some other songs to it as I found them. But I changed my mind a few days ago. I happened to notice that the complete performances by Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds were released last year, but obscurely, as "record store day" limited releases. Each of those contained extra songs that I'd never heard before, at great sound quality. That inspired me to dig further, and I found a project someone named Simon put together in 2022, gathering everything he could find from the festival that was publicly available up until that time. This is basically what Simon did, plus a few more recent releases, especially the Buffalo Springfield and Byrds ones mentioned above. 

The 1992 box set contains five hours of music. But thanks mostly to Simon's work, I'm able to present eleven hours of music from the festival! That's more than double! And all of it is in fantastic sound quality, despite the fact that a big chunk of it is from unreleased sources. There's no audience bootleg sourcing here, except for half of one song later in the festival. So this is a must have, in my opinion, for anyone who enjoys music from this era. 

It is now accepted fact that something very special happened in the San Francisco Bay Area in the summer of 1967, a time which is now widely known as "The Summer of Love." I don't want to go into it too much, but there's a very big Wikipedia article about that as well:

Summer of Love - Wikipedia

In short, young people from all over the U.S., and even the world, were drawn to the Bay Area to experience the rising counter-culture there. The Monterey Pop Festival was a big part of that. There was one rock festival that took place a week before that in my opinion sounds even MORE musically amazing, the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival. You can read about that here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Fair_and_Magic_Mountain_Music_Festival 

Rolling Stone Magazine wrote a great article about it in 2014, which you can find here:

Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain Music Fest: Story of 1st U.S. Rock Fest 

Unfortunately though, very little audio from that festival has survived (even though it seems there was an attempt to record it all). So it has pretty much been forgotten. But Monterey Pop was the opposite in that a popular documentary movie about it, "Monterey Pop," was released in 1968, and had a huge influence. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "The screening of Monterey Pop in theaters helped raise the festival to mythic status, rapidly swelled the ranks of would-be festival-goers looking for the next festival, and inspired new entrepreneurs to stage more and more of them around the country." 

Another factor to consider is the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," written by John Phillips, the main songwriter for the Mamas and the Papas, and recorded by Scott McKenzie. According to an NPR report, "local authorities in Monterey were starting to get cold feet over the prospect of their town being overrun by hippies" attending the festival. Phillips specifically wrote it "to smooth things over." It succeeded beyond all expectations. The single "only" reached Number Four in the U.S. singles charts. But it had a long staying power, ultimately selling over seven million copies worldwide. It had a very real impact, like a pied piper call, drawing people to the Bay Area, and specifically to the Monterey Pop Festival. It's estimated 30,000 people attended the first night of the festival, but that grew to 60,000 by the third and last night. This was the very first big rock festival anywhere, with the exception of the somewhat smaller Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival the week previously.

Monterey, California, an hour or more drive from the Bay Area, was chosen as the location because there had been a popular Monterey Jazz Festival taking place there annually since the 1950s, as well as a similar Monterey Folk Festival. It was thought that by giving this festival a similar name in the same location, it would help give rock more credibility as an art form, like jazz or folk music, both of which were much more respected at the time. Even the same stage manager and sound company were hired. That resulted in the festival having truly exceptional sound quality for rock concerts at the time, which resulted in excellent sounding recordings as well.

I'll write more about the festival as a whole later. But for now, I want to explain how I split up the eleven hours of available music. The festival itself was split up into five separate tickets: one for June 16th, then another for the afternoon of June 17th, another for the evening of June 18th, then afternoon and evening tickets for June 18th as well. So I'm splitting this up in a similar way. This one, containing all the available music from June 16th, is the shortest by far. I'm guessing that each of those five time periods contained roughly the same amount of music, give or take. But this is the shortest because it's the one with the most missing music.

Here's yet another useful Wikipedia link. It shows all the songs known to be played by all the performers at the festival:

Monterey Pop Festival set list - Wikipedia 

Each act was allowed to play for 40 minutes, but is possible some of the lesser known acts got less than that. The Association performed first. But two songs are missing, and there were an unknown number of other songs missing as well. The second act was the Paupers. Their entire performance is missing. (Simon did find a couple of songs, but they were of such poor sound quality that I couldn't even include them as bonus tracks.) Next was Lou Rawls. We have three songs from him, but two more are missing, plus an unknown number additionally missing. Next up was British folk singer Beverly Martyn. She just played three songs, all missing. 

After that was Johnny Rivers. He was a big star at the time. Interestingly, his keyboard player at the festival was the great songwriter Jimmy Webb. He played eleven songs, which must have been right at the full allowed 40 minutes, but only one song from his set is publicly available. Here's an interesting quote from Rivers about the festival: "Driving north on Highway 101, I had never seen so many VW buses pained with paisley and flowers, cars, trucks, and lots of out of state license plates. People were from everywhere. The vibe was very mellow and kind of the theme of the whole thing. It was a gathering of tribes and hadn’t really gotten to the wild hippie stage yet. The 'Summer of Love' was [really more] the summer that came after that. It wasn't going to be frantic, out of control, but everyone digging on the music. Because there was such a variety of music."

It seems we only have the full performances of the two final acts, Eric Burdon and the Animals, and Simon and Garfunkel. The Animals played for 27 minutes. As an aside, lead singer Burdon was so moved by the festival that he wrote a song praising it, "Monterey." It became a Top Ten hit.

Simon and Garfunkel played for only 22 minutes, despite the fact that they had to be the most popular act of the evening, by far. It appears they wanted to play longer, but they couldn't due to some kind of curfew for the evening as a whole. We know this because you can hear Paul Simon talking about how he chose the last song played, an unusual (and at the time still unreleased) final choice of "Punky's Dilemma," because he'd just been told they only had two minutes left and that song was two minutes long.

Normally, I put all the source material details in the mp3 tags of each song. But for this festival instead, I'm just including a PDF made by Simon, since that contains a great chart showing the sources. Hopefully, more music from this day in particular will come out in recent years. It seems at least one set from the festival has been released each year as part of "record store day" releases for the past few years. So far, most of those have been big-name performers where all or most all of the set was already available. But if that keeps going, maybe they'll get to things like Johnny Rivers' set, where 90 percent of it is missing.

Note that although the sound quality was already excellent in general, one problem I've often noticed with concert recordings is the vocals being too low in the mix. I checked every song in this festival for that, and I'd estimate about half of them had that problem. So for all those songs, I remixed them using the UVR5 audio editing program. So this should now sound even better than before. 

Oh, one last thing. I had so many other things to write about that I didn't really get to discussing the quality of the music. I'd say it's excellent across the board. But in case you're curious, here's the link to an article written by music critic Michael Lydon, which came out in Newsweek just two days after the festival. (Disregard the 2009 date shown at the top.) He was overly critical sometimes, as critics usually are, but still it's interesting to see a fresh take from that time. Plus, he has a lot of interesting information about how the festival came to be, and what happened behind the scenes. For instance, there's mention of a private jam at the end of the festival that lasted four hours consisting of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Jimi Hendrix. Wouldn't it have been amazing to have been a fly on the wall for that?

Monterey Pop: The First Rock Festival | Current | The Criterion Collection 

Here's a couple of relevant quotes about the festival. Art Garfunkel: "Monterey was the cherry on top of the sundae that was the 1960s. It was unprecedented, and the audience was unprecedented in their joy." And Tommy Smothers, who was one of the festival emcees: "There were no problems. The only problem was, just how happy could you get without hurting yourself?"

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. Each section of the concert reportedly lasted about five hours. No doubt a lot of that was down time between acts. But still, I would imagine a full version of this part of the festival would consist of at least three hours of music. If more gets released in the future, I will try to add it in and revise this.

01 talk (John Phillips)
02 The Machine (Association)
03 Along Comes Mary (Association)
04 Windy (Association)
05 talk (Peter Tork)
06 Love Is a Hurtin' Thing (Lou Rawls)
07 Dead End Street (Lou Rawls)
08 talk (Lou Rawls)
09 Tobacco Road (Lou Rawls)
10 Memphis (Johnny Rivers)
11 talk (Chet Helms)
12 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
13 San Franciscan Nights (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
14 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
15 Gin House Blues (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
16 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
17 Hey Gyp (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
18 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
19 Paint It, Black (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
20 talk (John Phillips)
21 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
22 At the Zoo (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
24 Feelin' Groovy (Simon & Garfunkel)
25 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
26 For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her (Simon & Garfunkel)
27 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)
28 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
29 Benedictus (Simon & Garfunkel)
30 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
31 Punky's Dilemma (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JdvDszNw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rCIzM8HEMC9QOil/file

It was too hard for me to pick just one picture for the cover, so I chose four, just like I did with the "Live Aid" albums I've posted. From top left clockwise, that's the Association, Lou Rawls, Simon and Garfunkel, and Eric Burdon of the Animals. All of them are from this exact concert. 

Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Paul Simon, Warner Theatre, Washington, DC, 5-23-2007

Here's another "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" concert. This one honors Paul Simon.

This was the very first Gershwin Prize to be awarded. In 1998, some entertainment producers and promoters came up with the idea of having an award for comedians, which resulted in the annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, connected to the Library of Congress and with an annual concert broadcast on PBS TV stations. That idea turned out to be a big success, so in 2003 the same group came up with the same idea, but for musicians. Then I guess it took a few more years before the first prize was awarded in 2007. You can read more about the prize and its history here:

Gershwin Prize - Wikipedia 

In this concert, there weren't that many guest stars performing Simon's songs. But that meant that most of the bigger names there (Lyle Lovett, James Taylor, Alison Krauss, Marc Anthony, and Stevie Wonder) got to perform two songs instead of the usual one.

As is usually the case with such concerts, it ended with a short set by the honoree, Paul Simon. Given the huge role Art Garfunkel had in Simon's music career as part of Simon and Garfunkel, I feel he got kind of dissed here, being only involved in one song, "Bridge Over Troubled Water." But the two of them had a turbulent relationship for decades. Their last tour together would take place in 2009, and their last performance together in 2010. After that, they had a more severe and prolonged falling out, though I was glad to see it reported that by 2024 they had reconciled as friends again.

This albums in unreleased in audio format. However, a DVD of it has been released. Strangely, it seems to be the only Gershwin Prize concert released on DVD. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 36 minutes long. 

01 talk (emcee)
02 talk (Bob Costas)
03 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Lyle Lovett)
04 The Boxer (Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin & Jerry Douglas)
05 Mother and Child Reunion (Stephen Marley)
06 Homeless (Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
07 Slip Slidin' Away (James Taylor & the Dixie Hummingbirds)
08 Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales (Billy Collins & the Dixie Hummingbirds)
09 That Was Your Mother (Lyle Lovett with Buckwheat Zydeco)
10 Still Crazy After All These Years (James Taylor)
11 El Condor Pasa (Marc Anthony)
12 Late in the Evening (Marc Anthony)
13 Gone at Last (Yolanda Adams & Jessy Dixon)
14 Something So Right (Dianne Reeves)
15 The 59th Street Bridge Song [Feelin' Groovy] (Grover & Elmo of the Muppets)
16 Graceland (Alison Krauss & Jerry Douglas)
17 talk (emcee)
18 talk (James H. Billingston)
19 talk (Paul Simon)
20 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (Paul Simon & Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
21 talk (Paul Simon)
22 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 talk (Paul Simon)
24 Father and Daughter (Paul Simon)
25 Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Paul Simon with Stevie Wonder)
26 talk (Paul Simon)
27 Loves Me like a Rock (Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder & the Dixie Hummingbirds)
28 The Sound of Silence [Instrumental Version] (Philip Glass)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/C2ct9sek

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3k0vX3n5GD90SUE/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Simon with Stevie Wonder and some members of the Dixie Hummingbirds when they performed "Loves Me like a Rock" together.

Simon & Garfunkel - BC Place Stadium, Vancouver, Canada, 8-22-1983

There are some no-brainer, must-have concert bootlegs that I've never gotten around to posting for one reason or another. This is one of them.

After breaking up in 1970, Simon and Garfunkel did a bunch of reunion tours, but never made much new music together. The closest they got was in 1981 to 1983, when they released "The Concert in Central Park" live album, then began recording a new studio album, to be titled "Think Too Much." I've already posted my version of what that would have sounded like, here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/12/simon-garfunkel-think-too-much-various.html

But in addition to some studio recordings that ultimately never got released, they also toured some before breaking up again. This is clearly the best bootleg recording from that tour, a soundboard. 

The set list is fairly similar to "The Concert in Central Park" album, recorded in 1981, especially by having Garfunkel sing harmonies on a bunch of Paul Simon solo hits from the 1970s. But they also did three songs from the planned new album: "Cars Are Cars," "Think Too Much," and "The Late, Great Johnny Ace." Plus, they varied up the set list in other ways, for instance with the covers "I Only Have Eyes for You" and "One Summer Night." So it's definitely worth having both, in my opinion. This also is about half an hour longer, so it just has more songs in general.

This album is an hour and 43 minutes long.

01 Cecilia - Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 America (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 My Little Town (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 Cars Are Cars (Simon & Garfunkel)
07 I Only Have Eyes for You (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 Late in the Evening (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 The Late Great Johnny Ace (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 El Condor Pasa [If I Could] (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 Think Too Much (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 Still Crazy After All These Years (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 Kodachrome - Maybellene (Simon & Garfunkel)
17 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
19 Slip Slidin' Away (Simon & Garfunkel)
20 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
21 The 59th Street Bridge Song [Feelin' Groovy] (Simon & Garfunkel)
22 Old Friends (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 Wake Up Little Susie (Simon & Garfunkel)
24 One Summer Night (Simon & Garfunkel)
25 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
26 Late in the Evening [Reprise] (Simon & Garfunkel)
27 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WGogkFTs

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/nxHotHUyVT2eMps/file

I looked for photos from this exact concert, and found two, both of them black and white. The other one only showed Simon, so I disregarded that one. This one is weird. I have no idea what was happening when this was taken. Their faces actually were even closer, with Garfunkel's nose overlapping Simon's a little bit, but that seemed even stranger, so I used Photoshop to move Garfunkel back a bit. I also used the Palette program to colorize it.

For the text at the top, I found an artistic rendering of their name, and stretched it to fit the space. Then I found a nice paisley pattern and used that to add some color and character to the letters.

Simon & Garfunkel - Millett Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH, 11-9-1969

This is one of Simon and Garfunkel's most bootlegged concerts, due to its excellent sound quality. I recently downloaded a version that was posted on the Internet this year that has even better sound quality. This now sounds as good as an official album from the 1960s.

In late 1969, Simon and Garfunkel went on tour for the first time in about a year, despite the fact that they were still putting the finishing touches on their new album "Bridge Over Troubled Water," which would be released in January 1970. Most or all of the short tour was professionally recorded for a possible live album that never came to pass, as well as for video footage meant for a TV special broadcast at the end of November. Decades later, an archival live album of highlights of this tour was released called "Live 1969." I prefer this bootleg over that album. "Live 1969" is a seemingly random selection of songs in seemingly random order, with band performances mixed with acoustic ones, and no banter between songs. Whereas this is longer, and a compete show, with the songs in order and all the banter included.

Speaking of the songs being in order, versions of this bootleg have been around for decades, but I believe the song order has been messed up all that time. In short, Simon and Garfunkel performed an acoustic set and a set with a full band. All versions of this bootleg that I've seen have the full band set first, followed by the acoustic set. But it appears to have been the opposite. It's usually done the other way for concerts in general, and that's how it was done for the other shows on the tour. I even found a review of the concert from the night before the states as much. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"During the first half of the show, there was little informal bantering between performers and audience. However, the numbers , which included 'Homeward Bound, ' 'America,' 'For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her.' and 'Scarborough Fair,' were warmly received.  For most of the second half, Simon and Garfunkel performed with the backup group that records with them. 'Mrs. Robinson,' the first number after the intermission, was ruined by a too-loud background and an audible whistle in the equipment."  

Other details in the article make clear the two sets should be released. For instance, the full band set included an encore of "Bye Bye Love" for both nights.

Further research revealed that the correct date of the concert was November 9th, not November 11th, as it has been on all versions of this bootleg up until now. There are mentions of the concert being on the 9th written in that time period. So I made that correction too.

Some versions of this bootleg contain two extra songs compared to other versions: "Overs" and "A Most Peculiar Man." Those do seem to fit with the show. For instance, they have the same stellar sound quality. But they seem to have been out of order. So I had to use some guesswork to figure out where to place them. The last song of the first set not including these two, "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her," ends with a regular amount of applause. But "A Most Peculiar Man" ends with a rapturous amount of applause (which gets suddenly cut off). That wouldn't make much sense, since it's not one of the duo's most favorite songs. But it would make sense if that was the end of the set and they left the stage. 

So I'm pretty sure that song ended the first set and I have the songs in their correct spots. But if anyone knows of the correct, complete set list for the show, please let me know. It's also possible that other songs were played that didn't get bootlegged. For instance, the review of the show from the night before that I quoted above mentioned two more encores after "Bye Bye Love," which is not the case here.

This show was rather unusual in that four songs from the still unreleased "Bridge Over Troubled Water" album were played, as well as an original, "Cuba Si, Nixon No," that never got released, plus a cover of a relatively obscure song, "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine." (One song on that album, "The Boxer," had been a big hit as a single already.) So the audience was in for some surprises. The biggest was the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water." This future classic was only played in concert for the first time a week earlier. The audience was totally amazed, as you can tell from the lengthy applause when the song ended.

This concert is an hour and ten minutes long. I cut out a little bit of dead air between songs, but not much, maybe a minute or two in total. 

As an aside, the band members were all part of the famous "Wrecking Crew" that played on the recordings of hundreds of hits in the 1960s and 70s, including drummer Hal Blaine.

01 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 At the Zoo (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 America (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 Song for the Asking (Simon & Garfunkel)
07 A Poem on the Underground Wall (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 Overs (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 A Most Peculiar Man (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 Fakin' It (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
17 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright (Simon & Garfunkel)
19 Why Don’t You Write Me (Simon & Garfunkel)
20 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
21 That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine (Simon & Garfunkel)
22 Cuba Si, Nixon No (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
24 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)
25 Bye Bye Love (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15176023/SimnandG_1969_MillettHllMiamiUnversityOxfrdOH__11-9-1969_atse.zip.html

Good color photos of Simon and Garfunkel in concert in the 1960s are surprisingly hard to find. The problem with the one I chose for the cover is that I have no idea where or when it's from. However, I saw some black and white photos from the tour, and they looked basically like that. (Simon would grow his hair longer shortly thereafter, and grow a mustache for a little while too.)

Simon & Garfunkel - Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel, Granada TV Studios, Manchester, Britain, 3-17-1967

Not that long ago (as I write this in May 2022), I posted some albums of Simon and Garfunkel performing for the BBC and other radio or TV shows in 1965 and 1966. Next, we come to 1967. In my opinion, this is the best bootleg from that year. 

Granada TV, one of the few British TV stations at the time, put on an hour-long special showcasing the duo in early 1967. It was simply called "Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel." Even though the duo was extremely popular in the 1960s and beyond, selling tens of millions of albums, they didn't actually get on TV or the radio that much, other than short appearances that typically featured the same few songs over and over again. What's great about this is that it's professionally recorded for TV, so it sounds great, and it's nearly an hour long (53 minutes), so they were able to dig deeper into their musical bag of tricks.

It's basically just a concert broadcast on TV, though recorded in a studio before a small audience. As a result, there's no host at all. But Simon and/or Garfunkel did make some interesting comments between most of the songs.

All the songs only featured Simon and Garfunkel on vocals and Simon on an acoustic guitar. However, there's an interesting version of the song "7 O'Clock News - Silent Night." On the album version, the "7 O'Clock News" was a radio news broadcast with bad new contrasting with the Christmas hymn. But since this was a British TV show, there apparently was some person who read a recent British news broadcast, making it very different from the album version.

Oh, by the way, if you want to see as well as hear this, just search for it on YouTube. However, note that it's only in black and white, since most British TV shows didn't start broadcasting in color until about 1969.

01 He Was My Brother (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 Leaves That Are Green (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 A Most Peculiar Man (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
07 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 The Dangling Conversation (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 The 59th Street Bridge Song [Feelin' Groovy] (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 Richard Cory (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 7 O'Clock News - Silent Night (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 A Hazy Shade of Winter (Simon & Garfunkel)
17 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 At the Zoo (Simon & Garfunkel)
19 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
20 Cloudy (Simon & Garfunkel)
21 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
22 Benedictus (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
24 Blessed (Simon & Garfunkel)
25 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
26 A Poem on the Underground Wall (Simon & Garfunkel)
27 I Am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel)
28 Anji (Simon & Garfunkel)
29 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700332/SIMNNGRFNKL1967_PSnAGGrandaTVStdiosManchstrBrtin__3-17-1967_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows Simon and Garfunkel when they were on the Andy Williams TV show in early 1968. I don't remember where I got the fancy text at the top, but I think it's a screenshot taken from another TV show.

Simon & Garfunkel - Twien TV Show, Taverne De Waag, Haarlem, Netherlands, 6-29-1966

Now that I've posted Simon and Garfunkel's BBC sessions from 1965, I want to post some other performances they did, mostly from TV shows. There are a number of times where they played live on TV, but just did the same songs you've heard a million times before, like "The Sound of Silence" and "Homeward Bound." Instead, I'm focusing on a smaller number of longer shows where they were able to play some of their more uncommon songs. Since there's a lot of bootlegs of their music, I'm able to select just the ones with great sound quality.

The first two songs here actually from another TV appearance, the "Mike Douglas Show" in January 1966. They played three songs. I've skipped one, because it's "The Sound of Silence," which they did many times elsewhere. But the other two are notable as songs they rarely played. In fact, I'd guess this is the only time they ever did this cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." Perhaps the TV producers asked them to do it. Too bad it's a short version, only two minutes long.

Everything else comes from Dutch TV show. You can find it on YouTube if you want to see it and not just hear it. Unfortunately, it's only in black and white, and the visual quality isn't that good. But the sound quality here is very good for the era. None of the songs from it are super rare, but it's one of the best bootleg recordings of them from 1966, if not the best. Also, they talk a fair amount between songs.

The one snag is that this show was rather short, at only 23 minutes long. Even with the two extra songs at the front, this is only 27 minutes long. I considered adding in other extra songs, but I didn't see anything else worthy of fitting.

01 You Can Tell the World (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 Mr. Tambourine Man (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 Anji [Instrumental] (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 Richard Cory (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
07 Leaves That Are Green (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 I Am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 A Most Peculiar Man (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 A Poem on the Underground Wall (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 He Was My Brother (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700328/SIMNNGRFNKL1966_TwienTVShwTaverneDWaagHaarlmNethrlnds__6-29-1966_atse.zip.html

I don't know any details on where or when the cover photo is from, but the time period looks to be about right.

Simon & Garfunkel - BBC Sessions (1965)

The vast majority of artists who performed BBC in the 1960s and 1970s were British, since BBC stands for "British Broadcasting Corporation," after all. But occasionally, artists from the US or other countries would be in Britain enough for some BBC sessions of their own. Simon and Garfunkel have enough material here for a BBC album, though just barely. 

In truth, only half of this features both Simon and Garfunkel, and that's from a single session that took place in July 1965. The first half features a session with only Paul Simon. Although American, he had been living in England for most of the previous two years, figuring he had a better chance of making it as a folk musician there than in his home country. He developed enough connections to have a single BBC session in January 1965. 

It was an odd one though. It was actually recorded for a religious radio show, even though the connections between his songs and religion was tenuous at best. I believe the six songs he recorded in a single session were then played on that show for one song per show slowly over spring 1965. It helped him gain popularity and more concert bookings, since he didn't have any albums in print in Britain at the time. (Simon and Garfunkel's first album "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." was released in late 1964, but only in the U.S.)

At the time, the partnership of Simon and Garfunkel was also tenuous, because Garfunkel lived in New York City while Simon lived in England. But every now and then, Simon would briefly visit the U.S. or Garfunkel would visit England, and they might play some concerts as a duo or do some recording in the studio. The BBC session in July 1965 was one such time when Garfunkel briefly came to England. At that time, they were still relative unknowns. They would only hit the big time in September 1965, when "The Sound of Silence" would be released as a single with a folk-rock arrangement and shoot to number one in the U.S. by the end of the year. At that point, Simon would move back to the U.S., and they would stick together as a duo to exploit their success. 

Unfortunately, it seems they didn't do any more BBC sessions aside from the one in July 1965. Perhaps by the next time they were both in Britain, they had become so famous that they felt they didn't need that exposure. 

Surprisingly, none of the performances here have been officially released. I'm particularly surprised that "I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound" has never been released, since it's a nice cover of a Tom Paxton song that it seems was never recorded by them in a studio. 

The sound quality in generally is very good, though there were a few problems. "A Most Peculiar Man" came to a sudden halt in the middle of the song. It seems Simon wasn't happy about something, and asked the recording engineer to play back the recording. If he went on to do a finished take, that hasn't been available to bootleggers. I patched in the second half of the song from the version he did on his obscure 1965 solo album "The Paul Simon Songbook." I also removed the few seconds of him talking to the engineer, since it didn't fit anymore.

"I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound" has "[Edit]" in the title because it suffered the usual BBC problem of DJs talking over some of the music. The version of "Anji" here is only a fragment that's less than a minute long. I'm guessing that it faded out as the radio program ended, and that's the only recording that survived. Even though much had some talking over it. I fixed both songs the usual way, by using the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe the talking.

Also, for some reason, to my ears, the sound quality of "A Church Is Burning" doesn't sound as good as the rest. But it's still pretty decent, just a bit more muffled.

This album is only 34 minutes long. Simon and Garfunkel did go on to play on other radio and TV shows. But those generally fell into two categories. One, they had short appearances where they tended to play the same famous songs that are probably overplayed enough already. The other are some longer appearances, with more song variety and banter between songs. I plan on posting a couple of the best such shows in full later on.

As an aside, while putting this album together, I also found a few other rare songs that I'd previously missed. So I've added those to the two "Rarities" albums I previously made. I also upgraded the volume balance between songs and mp3 tags for those.

01 I Am a Rock (Paul Simon)
02 Bleecker Street (Paul Simon)
03 talk (Paul Simon)
04 Kathy's Song (Paul Simon)
05 The Sound of Silence (Paul Simon)
06 talk (Paul Simon)
07 A Most Peculiar Man [Edit] (Paul Simon)
08 April Come She Will (Paul Simon)
09 I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound [Edit] (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 Sparrow (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 The Side of a Hill (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 I Am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 A Church Is Burning (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 Anji [Instrumental] [Edit] (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700628/SIMNNGRFNKL1965_BBSessons_atse.zip.html

Given how famous Simon and Garfunkel are, I'm surprised that I haven't been able to find many good photos of them from 1965, especially in color. So instead I found a black and white publicity photo and colorized it. This could have come from 1964 or even earlier; it's hard to tell, but they definitely were on the young side with this one.

Paul Simon - Queen's College, London, Britain, 1964

As part of my overall BBC project (check out my post about that), I took at look at what BBC sessions Simon and Garfunkel did. There's some, though barely enough for one album. However, that led me to, or reminded me of, some other interesting stuff worth posting.

I have a particular interest in very early bootleg recordings of famous musicians. Here's a special one for Paul Simon, dating all the way back to 1964. Exactly where and when this is from is a contentious issue that I will get to in a minute. But I think it's highly likely this concert took place before the first Simon and Garfunkel album was released in October 1964. Yet it seems to be a soundboard that sounds remarkably good for such an early bootleg.

As to the where and when this happened, note that most versions of this bootleg floating around the Internet claim it took place at Queens College in New York City some time in 1964. At first, that would make sense, because Simon graduated from Queens College in 1963 with a major in English. But I've seen extensive lists of all the places he played in 1964, with or without Art Garfunkel, and it looks like he didn't play in public in the US at all that year. He spent most of the year trying to start a music career in England, only occasionally coming back to the US to record or mix the first Simon and Garfunkel album, "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." By contrast, he played dozens of venues in England in 1964, and one of them was a girls' school in London called Queen's College. So I strongly suspect there was a confusion between the two places with the similar names (one with an apostrophe and one without).

There are more clues as to the place this happened. At the time, Simon was torn between pursuing a solo music career, or sharing a partnership with Garfunkel. One problem was that they weren't appreciated in the pivotal New York City folk scene. That was centered in Greenwich Village, and Simon and Garfunkel were looked down upon as coming from "the wrong side of the tracks" in Queens. By contrast, Simon found a very receptive audience when he played in England, where he was only seen as an American, which was unusual and cool for the British folk scene at the time. So he lived in England for nearly all of 1964 and 1965. But Garfunkel was still going to college in the US, and only occasionally made some visits to Simon in England. That said, they definitely wanted to play together whenever they were in the same place. So had Simon put on a concert in New York City, where Garfunkel was going to college, why would it have only been a solo show?

As for the time this concert took place, there are some clues there too. The main one is that the song list better fits the songs Simon was playing in 1964, not 1965. He had written "The Sound of Silence" and four others early enough for them to be included on the "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." album, which was recorded in March 1964. By the start of 1965, he'd written some more classics that he certainly would have wanted to show off at any concert, like "I Am a Rock," "Kathy's Song," and "April Come She Will." (We know this because he played them at a January 1965 BBC session.) Whereas in mid-1964, he didn't have that many excellent original songs yet, so he had to rely more on covers. 

One key clue is that two of the songs he performed at this concert, "Goin' to the Zoo" and "I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound," were written by Tom Paxton. "Goin' to the Zoo" was first released in 1962, and then both songs was put on the "Ramblin' Boy" album, released in October 1964. However, it's very possible that Simon knew them already after repeatedly crossing paths with Paxton in the New York City folk scene, where Paxton was a major figure. But in any case, they were widely known songs in the folk music world that were fresh to audiences in 1964, but would have been a bit old well into 1965. (Simon also played "I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound" in a January 1965 BBC session.)

Another factor is that Simon played "Scarborough Fair" in this concert, and it is known he learned the song from folk singer Martin Carthy after moving to England. But all that really tells us is this had to have taken place at some point after early 1964, when he first moved there. 

One bootleg version I've found of this show claims it took place on May 1st, 1964, in Queen's College in London. However, that has the caveat that the date is uncertain, and I have no idea how they got that date. If I had to guess, I think it's probably a little later than that, from the summer or fall of 1964, but that's just a guess.

One problem in figuring out the date and location is that there's very little banter between songs. I'm fairly certain Simon spoke a lot more, but the taper turned the recording device off as soon as the songs ended, in order to save tape. This was common practice in those days, when tape was much more expensive. One can tell this because the applause was cut off after a couple of seconds for all but two or three of the songs. So we don't get any "It's great to be in England" type comments that could give us more clues. 

We also aren't sure if this is the full concert or if there was more at the start, although I suspect this was the whole thing. At least we know this recording has the proper end, since he commented that he wasn't going to do an encore.

Although the sound quality is really good, I edited virtually every song due to that applause problem I just mentioned. For the many songs where the applause was cut off, I patched in more applause from elsewhere in the recording to give the impression of complete applause after all the songs.

I've already posted two albums of Simon and Garfunkel rarities. I included four of the performances from this exact show on the first rarities album: "House Carpenter," "Gospel Ship," "Pretty Boy Floyd," and "Goin' to the Zoo." Those are all covers where these are the only known recordings. That said, it's definitely worth hearing the full concert and not just those four songs.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 Scarborough Fair (Paul Simon)
02 House Carpenter (Paul Simon)
03 Gospel Ship (Paul Simon)
04 Pretty Boy Floyd (Paul Simon)
05 A Church Is Burning (Paul Simon)
06 The Sound of Silence (Paul Simon)
07 Leaves that Are Green (Paul Simon)
08 The Sun Is Burning (Paul Simon)
09 I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound (Paul Simon)
10 talk (Paul Simon)
11 Goin' to the Zoo (Paul Simon)
12 He Was My Brother (Paul Simon)
13 talk (Paul Simon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700334/SIMNNGRFNKL1964_QuensCollgeLondnBritin__1964_atse.zip.html

I'm pleased as punch at the cover art, which I feel evokes the feeling of listening to Simon in a small club very early in his career. It's a photo of Simon performing at the Jacquard Club in Norwich, England, in August 1965. Even at that relatively late date, Simon was a relative unknown, playing small clubs all over England. But one month later, a version of "The Sound of Silence" with full band instrumentation was released in the US and started climbing the charts, eventually hitting number one. Simon quickly moved back the US, reunited with Garfunkel, and continued to have massive success. So this photo could have just as easily been taken at any other English club in 1964 or 1965. Other photos from the same series show he was playing in a small basement to about 60 people (according to an article that goes with the photos). I've included one here so you can see what I mean.

Unfortunately, the photo was in black and white. So I used the Pixbim program to colorize it.

Simon & Garfunkel - Think Too Much - Non-Album Tracks (1983)

Just yesterday, I made my version of the 1983 Simon and Garfunkel reunion studio album that almost was. I'm kind of surprised I never tackled this before, because it's the exact sort of thing this blog is all about. I suppose I was dissuaded by the fact that PJ posted a version on his excellent blog "Albums I Wish Existed" a while back. But I had some different ideas on what to include or not include, so here's my version.

Here's the background story. After about 10 years apart, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel reunited for a concert in New York City in 1981, which was released as the live album "The Concert in Central Park." In 1982 and 1983, they toured all over the world, and also planned to put out a studio album, which was slated to be called "Think Too Much." However, Simon had written all the songs for an intended solo album, and he didn't see much point in having Garfunkel's harmonies added on, except to presumably boost sales and publicity. After Garfunkel recorded harmonies for a bunch of the songs, Simon changed his mind, wiped those harmonies, and released the album purely as a solo work in late 1983, renamed as "Hearts and Bones." I think it's one of his best solo albums, but it didn't have an obvious hit single, and it sold way below expectations.

Unfortunately, none of the Simon and Garfunkel versions of these songs have ever been officially released, even though there has been a version of "Hearts and Bones" with a handful of bonus tracks. I suspect those versions will never be released, since Simon and Garfunkel have had a contentious relationship for decades, and Simon probably doesn't want versions with Garfunkel to overshadow his versions.

A couple of the Simon and Garfunkel studio versions have been bootlegged: "Allergies," "Song about the Moon," and "Train in the Distance." I've used those, although I'm only really impressed with "Song about the Moon." "Train in the Distance" doesn't sound that different. I suspect with "Allergies" that some clever bootlegger stuck part of an Art Garfunkel solo song at the start, and the rest is just the "Hearts and Bones" version. But even if that's the case, it's very well done, so I'm fine with keeping it.

Note that there supposedly also is a bootlegged studio version of "Cars Are Cars," but I've listened to it, and I'm guessing it's just the "Hearts and Bones" version with some bits from a live version patched in. Unfortunately, it was not done in a seamless manner, so I've avoided that one. 

There's also the strange case of the song "Citizen of the Planet." Simon recorded a nice version of this song in 1983, but didn't release it at the time. Apparently, he felt the lyrics were too direct for this environmental message song, and he preferred a more subtle style. But in 2003, when Simon and Garfunkel put out a live album called "Old Friends: Live on Stage," Garfunkel added new harmony vocals to Simon's 1983 recording. It was included as the only studio song on a live album. So it's a bit odd in that the harmony vocals were recorded 20 years later, but you'd never know just by listening to it. I think it's a fine song, done well.

If that was all there was to work with, there wouldn't be enough material to make this a Simon and Garfunkel album. Luckily, a few more of the songs intended for the album were played in Simon and Garfunkel concerts in 1983. Also luckily, there's one 1983 bootleg that's an excellent soundboard, from a Vancouver concert. I was able to use versions of "Think Too Much," "The Late Great Johnny Ace," and "Cars Are Cars" from that. with the audience applause removed as much as possible. ("Allergies" and "Song about the Moon" were also played at some different 1983 concerts. Unfortunately, bootlegs with them on it sound much, much worse. Plus, the live version of "Allergies" I've heard has no Garfunkel vocals at all. And the bootleg studio version of "Song about the Moon" exists and is ideal for inclusion here.)

I need to explain more about "Think Too Much" and "The Late Great Johnny Ace," because I made edits to both of them. "Think Too Much" was just fine, except both Simon and Garfunkel badly flubbed the first verse. It was so bad that one of them apologized as the song kept going. So I edited out the first verse entirely, including that apology. (I tried to patch in the studio version, but there were too many differences and it sounded bad.)

I made a more radical edit with "The Late Great Johnny Ace." This is mostly a Simon solo song. But in concert, Garfunkel added harmony vocals to two parts. Using the audio editing programs Spleeter and X-Minus, I isolated the Simon and Garfunkel vocals from those two parts of the Vancouver live version, then patched them in to the studio version. What's interesting is the second part has some wordless harmonizing that is an entirely different way to end the song than in the studio version. So I fit that in, then edited the song so an instrumental section ending the studio version follows. I wouldn't have done this if I thought it didn't work, but I think it works well. I'd be curious what others think.

With those live versions added in, the amount of Garfunkel on this alternate album has gone up, but the album is still rather short on his vocals. On previous Simon and Garfunkel albums, he usually sang lead vocals on at least one song, but there's no such song or songs here. So, to boost his profile a bit more, I've added in two live covers that weren't actually intended for the "Think Too Much" album. I'm taking some creative license to make it more of a proper collaboration.

First, I added in a cover of the Chuck Berry song "Maybelle" taken from a soundboard bootleg recorded in 1982 in Osaka, Japan. This was the second half of a medley with "Kodachrome," but I split it from the medley. Then I added in a cover of "One Summer Night," from the 1983 Vancouver concert. This song was first done in 1958 by the Danleers. You can't really hear any crowd noise on "Maybelle" because the band is so lively and the bootleg is good. But you can hear the crowd cheering sometimes during "One Summer Night." I tried to reduce that using Spleeter and X-Minus, but I could only do so much without making things sound worse. Note that the 1970 Simon and Garfunkel studio album "Bridge Over Trouble Water" has a lot of crowd noise on the cover song "Bye Bye Love," so consider this a similar thing.

After everything described above, nine of the 12 songs have at least some Garfunkel vocals on them, though still not as much as I'd like for a reunion album like this. I couldn't see anything to do to the remaining three songs, "Hearts and Bones," "Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog After the War," and "When Numbers Get Serious," so I just used the "Hearts and Bones" versions of those. Note though that "Hearts and Bones" has two versions of "Think Too Much," labeled "A" and "B." I've only used one, which closely follows the arrangements of "Think Too Much (A)." I figure it's a stronger album, with more Garfunkel involvement, to have the two covers and "Citizen of the Planet" mentioned above instead.

This album is 48 minutes long. "Hearts and Bones" by contrast is 40 minutes long.

01 Allergies (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 Hearts and Bones (Paul Simon)
03 Citizen of the Planet (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 When Numbers Get Serious (Paul Simon)
05 Think Too Much [Edit] (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 Maybellene (Simon & Garfunkel)
07 Song about the Moon (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 Train in the Distance (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog After the War (Paul Simon)
10 Cars Are Cars (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 The Late Great Johnny Ace [Edit] (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 One Summer Night (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700487/SIMNNGRFNKL1983_ThinkToMch_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used a photo from 1982. I have no idea what city is behind them.

Simon & Garfunkel - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 5-2-1970

When it comes to posting concerts here, I only want to post the best of the best. There are way too many mediocre to poor sounding bootlegs out there. Plus, if there are good official albums available, I don't want to post something that substantially duplicates that.

That second issue is why I've never posted a Simon & Garfunkel concert here before. There's a bunch of official live material out there from their 1960s heyday. But here's one concert that's different and worthy of having. This, admittedly, is similar to the official album "Live 1969." But that was taken from a bunch of 1969 concerts. This is one 1970 concert presented in its entirety. 

Their album "Bridge Over Troubled Water' was released in January 1970, and was a massive critical and commercial success, going on to sell over 25 million copies. But the duo were on the verge of breaking up, and did so later that year. They only performed 10 concerts in 1970. Luckily, one of them, this one, was bootlegged as a soundboard, so the sound quality is top notch. 

The only thing I didn't like about the recording is that the duo were so popular that the applause after some songs went on and on and on! I edited some of that down, because I didn't want to hear a minute or more of cheering and clapping, which was the case for some of the songs towards the end of the show.

This concert isn't super vital, since the song list is quite similar to the "Live 1969" one. But I prefer this one to that one, mostly because it's a single concert instead of a selection. 

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long. And, in case you missed the label on this post, it's an acoustic performance, with just Simon and Garfunkel (plus a pianist for the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water").

01 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 Fakin' It (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 The 59th Street Bridge Song [Feelin' Groovy] (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
07 That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 I Am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 El Condor Pasa [If I Could] (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 Leaves that Are Green (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 Punky's Dilemma (Simon & Garfunkel)
17 America (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
19 So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright (Simon & Garfunkel)
20 Song for the Asking (Simon & Garfunkel)
21 A Poem on the Underground Wall (Simon & Garfunkel)
22 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
24 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)
25 Bye Bye Love (Simon & Garfunkel)
26 Old Friends - Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700488/SIMNNGRFNKL1970_ConcrtgbouwAmstrdmNtherlnds__5-2-1970_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken in Copenhagen, Denmark, on April 28, 1970, just a few days before the concert included here.

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.

Simon and Garfunkel - Rarities, 1957-1965 - Non-Album Tracks

Without a doubt, Paul Simon is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Yet did you know that there was a time that he was a derivative hack? And it wasn't just a brief moment either.

In 1957, Simon and Garfunkel had the minor hit "Hey Schoolgirl," under the name "Tom and Jerry." Simon was just 16 years old at the time. It was a good song, but very derivative of the Everly Brothers. Simon then spent the next seven years or so writing more derivative songs of the big artists of the day. Most of them were awful.

In the early 1960s, folk music became a very popular trend. Around 1963, Simon drastically changed his style from rock and roll to folk. Somehow in that process, his songwriting ability improved by several orders of magnitude. Only about a year later, he would write "The Sound of Silence," clearly one of the greatest songs of all time. I would really like to know how Simon went from a hack to a genius after already being a songwriter for many years.

Anyway, it turns out that as Simon switched to folk music, he (and sometimes Garfunkel with him) wrote and/or sang some actually good songs that have basically been utterly forgotten. Understandably, Simon would prefer that everything he did prior to 1965 be completely forgotten, with the possible exception of his "Hey Schoolgirl" hit. So his early recordings have remained extremely rare, coming out on albums of dubious legality or outright bootlegs.

It was a painful job for me slogging through this early material, but I found some gems in all the crap. Simon was so bad for so many years that I only found one good song after his 1957 hit until 1963, and that was a 1961 song, "Private World," that was actually written and sung by Art Garfunkel! (I don't know why Garfunkel stopped writing songs, because at that point he arguably was better at it than Simon.)

Aside from the fluke of that 1957 hit and that 1961 Garfunkel song, this collection really begins in 1963. Seemingly out of nowhere, Simon began writing really good folk songs like "Carlos Dominguez." However, it should be pointed out that some of the songs here are actually covers, like "River," "Linstead Market," and "Zombie Jamboree." There was steady improvement in 1964. But even that year, Simon still was attempting some awful songs, usually of the derivative rock and roll that he'd been doing for years. For instance, that year Simon and Garfunkel recorded a version of the kids' song "Bingo," the one with the lyric "There was a farmer who had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o." Trust me, you don't want to hear it.

Despite songs like that, I believe the songs I've chosen here are all good, and about the same level as the songs on the first Simon and Garfunkel album, the lesser known "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM." If you like that, you'll like this. Though be warned that Garfunkel is featured on less than half the songs.

By the way, the ONLY song on this album that Simon hasn't disowned himself from is the last one, "A Church Is Burning." Simon and Garfunkel played that song in concert at least through 1967, so it's made it onto some official albums, including a live album. But the version here is a still unreleased version from a BBC radio show.

In gathering up all of Simon and Garfunkel's stray tracks, I found there were two albums' worth from their classic 1960s era. I'll follow this album with a stronger collection covering 1966 to 1970.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Hey Schoolgirl (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 Private World (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 Carlos Dominguez (Paul Simon)
04 River (Paul Simon)
05 Linstead Market (Paul Simon)
06 Zombie Jamboree (Paul Simon)
07 Forever and After (Paul Simon)
08 3-4 AD [Instrumental] (Paul Simon)
09 Davy's Train Blues [Instrumental] (Paul Simon)
10 Yesterday's Little Girl (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 House Carpenter (Paul Simon)
12 Gospel Ship (Paul Simon)
13 Pretty Boy Floyd (Paul Simon)
14 Goin' to the Zoo (Paul Simon)
15 I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 The Side of a Hill (Simon & Garfunkel)
17 A Church Is Burning (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 Bad News Feeling (Paul Simon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700329/SIMNNGRFNKL1957-1965_Rrities_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in January 1958, back when Simon and Garfunkel were known as Tom and Jerry. By the way, for most of the songs here other aliases were used, but for simplicity's sake I only used their real names.