| | Headline | Art Garfunkel: The BLUERAILROAD Interview |
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| Author | Comment | Doug
May-30-2015, 12:19 GMT
USA - United Staates America
 | A very in-depth interview from Art circa 1989/1990; the interviewer (Paul Zollo) is obviously very pro-Art. Interesting to see that some of the same themes present some 25 years later via recent Art commentary. A very interesting read.
https://bluerailroad.wordpress.com/art-garfunkel-t
he-bluerailroad-interview/
| | | | Marieno
May-31-2015, 12:52 GMT
France
 | Ironically, i have re-read this interview (in the Stacey Lustig's book "The Paul Simon companion, four decades of commentary") the day before the "infamous" Telegaph interview was published.
While i was reading, i was thinking that this guy was really getting on my nerves.
You will say that i am biased, ok, i am, but really, this man can be...how to say that? My lack of english vocabulary is showing. I will try to demonstrate my feelings with some examples:
PZ: Had your voices changed at all by then?
AG: No… Paul seemed to sound a little better
What a very subtle way to say: i am a far better singer than Paul.
PZ: Did the two of you ever have thoughts of being a songwriting team, like Goffin & King or Mann & Weil?
AG: No, because thoughts like that, those are extrapolations beyond what I was doing.
I was just doing it. I wasn’t standing back from it thinking what it could lead to, what the name of it is, I didn’t have such images. Rodgers and Hammerstein didn’t mean anything to me. I just wanted to have a hit.
Yes, you didn't want to be another Rodgers and Hammerstein or Goffin & King (who would want?), but let's face it, you couldn't: you didn't have the talent for that!
PZ: One thing that Simon told me that was hard to believe was that when he first played you “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” that you didn’t want to sing it, that you thought he should sing it.
AG: Uh huh, that’s right, I thought he should sing it. He sounded real good on it. It was too high for him, so he went into falsetto on the high parts, and he has a really nice flutey falsetto. So I commented on that when he first played it for me, that he had a really nice falsetto and he sounded good up there. If you want to know the truth, that was one of about six billion generous things I tried to say to Paul. I call that simply in the category of a relaxed generosity of creative cooperation. I’m amazed that we’re talking about this twenty years later to this day as if there’s a thing or a story, or. When you say that you’re shocked, I go, “What are we talking about? Are you shocked that somebody says something that is relaxed and generous to another? Where’s the story there?”
Oh thank you Arthur, you're a kind man to try to say generous things to Paul (and we know now how you can be generous with him!)...but by the way, wasn't it very, very generous to give you this song?
About recording the BOTW album and filming Catch-22 (one of my "favorite" parts of the interview):
"So my thought was, rather than wait for Paul to write the next bunch of songs, I went off and did this movie."
You know, writing songs is like making a "bunch" of cakes (no offence to the bakers) or buiding a wall (no offence to the masons)...
"So I went off to Guaymas thinking, “This is the right thing to do, this is fine. For Art Garfunkel to be a little bit of a movie actor in addition to my role in Simon & Garfunkel is very nice for the identity of the group. ” After all, Paul plays the guitar on stage; Arthur just has his hands. Paul writes all the songs. So it beefs up my side of the group.
I thought it was excellent. It’s almost as if George Harrison suddenly did an acting role to balance out the McCartney- Lennon contribution. My sense of show-business told me it was the perfect balance. And I thought I was going to help give my side of the group a little more interest to the public (...)"
Sorry but i don't see the point: how making movies would have enriched the duo, apart from being good for your ego?
Note the George Harrison comparison; he seemed to already like it.
"Well, Paul couldn’t abide by these things. They were evidently threatening. So, in his mind, waiting for Artie is something he couldn’t do. Now, I was waiting for Paul to write the tunes all the time, before we’d go in the studio."
And this Paul who was selfishly making all his own personnal things like writing songs or playing the guitar, it is obvious that it was not for the duo well being; poor Arthur, having to wait while the selfish Paul writes a "bunch of songs"...
"They were evidently threatening.": translation in AG's language: Paul was jealous.
"I blew it by letting Mike Nichols hold me down there for so many months. That was a mistake on his part."
One of the AG's rules (apart from talking about yourself in the third person): always put your own fault on someone else's head.
I will stop here but it is funny to see that between 1990 and 2015, he hasn't change a lot, just a little bit bitter and his head is even bigger... | | | 2  Isabelle, Brenda
| Bodo
May-31-2015, 13:20 GMT
Austria
  | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL9bzTWPFTA&fe
ature=youtu.be&t=98
PROOF | | | | Bodo
May-31-2015, 13:47 GMT
Austria
| Come on, Art was not unfriendly, he was only funny! He just tried to copy an old Paul Simon joke, thats the one and only explanation. Its also privileg beeing copied by Art.
Please understand - Art is not only a singer, writer, walker, reader, actor, misanthrope, math genius, fan-appreciator, gracioutor*, architect, producer, singer and writer**, speaker and again a walker, he is also a comedian. But most people just see him as the best singer in the world, so they do not understand his jokes, because we only listen to his voice. Yes, voice.
* (we need new dictionarys with that to define people beeing only 1/16 as gracious as Art Garfunkel)
** Please understand, this is a different category than just beeing a singer and beeing a writer. For example: Paul Simon is only a singer and songwriter, Art ist singer, Art is writer and Art is singer and writer. But not songwriter! Anyway, 3 times better than what mini Paul Simon ever was. | | | 1 Isabelle
| Michiel
May-31-2015, 14:39 GMT
Netherlands
 | Hey, you finally got it! (just joking, like you do) | | | 1 Bodo
| Marieno
May-31-2015, 16:25 GMT
France
| No, no Bodo, Arthur is not a singer he is The Singer!
Paul should called is next album: The Songwriter... | | | 2 Bodo, Brenda
| Brenda
Jun-01-2015, 00:16 GMT
Australia
  | Apart from his many other brilliant talents Art is also "The Biggest Whinger " | | | 3 Bodo, Scaaty , Marieno
| Richard USVI
Jul-21-2015, 19:01 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| I just saw an article saying Art's voice is troubling him. He only sang 6 songs at a recent concert. When he did a question and answer section with the audience, his wife asked him if he was still friends with Paul Simon (I find that odd). He said it comes and goes but not at present. I started looking to see if he had said anything about his "I created a monster" interview and I saw that someone asked him about it and he refused to comment. (In that interview he admitted to being 'weird'.) Agreed! | | | | Ans
Jul-22-2015, 08:19 GMT
Netherlands
| What a weird thing to do, doing a Q&A session with the audience and start the session with a question from his guitarist and his wife.
Like some comments said, a lot of money only for six songs with a voice that didn't work.
http://vineyardgazette.com/news/2015/07/20/art-gar
funkel-show-must-go?k=vg5548b1313a895
| | | 1 Brenda
| Brenda
Jul-22-2015, 12:01 GMT
Australia
| I really think Art should have rescheduled if he could only perform 6 songs. Regarding his memories of John Lennon asking for his advice,he admitted, during an interview with Boyd Mattson ,(in which Paul also took part)on the Today Show, 20 July 1983 that he had made the story up! This was in reply to Paul saying "You don't even know John Lennon! Makes me wonder about his other memories (especially George Harrison). At least we now know for sure the current state of his relationship with Paul! | | | 1 Ans
| Richard USVI
Jul-22-2015, 12:16 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| The fact that he made up the story about John Lennon certainly does call into question almost all the other things he said. But I think he was telling the truth when he said that he and Paul are not on such good terms right now! | | | 2 Ans, Brenda
| Brenda
Jul-22-2015, 12:20 GMT
Australia
| Honestly Richard I wonder why they are not good friends at the moment !! It couldn't possibly have any thing to do with recent newspaper interviews could it?
| | | 2 Isabelle, Marieno
| Richard USVI
Jul-22-2015, 18:32 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| I agree! Gee whiz. It is truly bizarre to have his wife ask him about Paul -- especially after his highly publicized comments.
Judging from some of the looney things Art has said, I think if they asked Art why Paul is not his friend, he might say something like, "I guess Paul's giant ego prevents him from admitting how much he needs me to sing with him." | | | | Marieno
Jul-22-2015, 20:19 GMT
France
| As Brenda said: "At least we now know for sure the current state of his relationship with Paul!".
I will also add that the real question is the current state of his sanity: after years of living in the past, of bitterness against Paul, now he gives a "concert" where he sings 6 songs, reads second rate poetry and talks again and always about himself, telling more or less true anecdotes...
And the questions asked by his wife and his musician,especially the one about Paul (can he let him alone just for one day?!?), it is really, really weird and totally ridiculous!
| | | 3 Isabelle, Ans, Brenda
| Brenda
Jul-22-2015, 23:39 GMT
Australia
| Totally agree Marieno! Gets weirder and weirder!
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