Fact #64135
When:
Short story:
Simon and Garfunkel re-unite for the first time in eleven years for a concert in Central Park, New York City, USA, attended by 400,000 fans.
Full article:
Paul Simon : Somewhere in the middle of that summer, I got a call from Ron Delsener, the main concert promoter in New York City, USA.
He said that the parks commissioner of New York wanted me to do a free concert in Central Park, and asked if I'd be interested. I said yes, but then I began to think it wouldn't work. I was still feeling a little shaky about One-Trick Pony.
Then I thought, why don't I ask Artie to join me? Not the usual thing where I sing and he comes out at the end and sings three songs with me. Maybe we'll do 20 minutes, half an hour, a full set. I called up Artie and he was in Switzerland, Europe He travels all the time, loves to walk places. I asked if he wanted to do this concert and he said yeah.
Then I realized that if we did half the show as Simon and Garfunkel and did the second half alone, it just wouldn't work in show-business terms. Which meant I would have to open the show. Then I said, "I don't want to be an opening act for Simon And Garfunkel!" So I figured, well, let's try to do a whole Simon and Garfunkel show.
I was on a real roll with my writing by then, but I stopped to go into rehearsal for the concert. And at that time, we were all in very good spirits. Well, the rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time.
He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar. I said, "I can't do that anymore. I can't just play the guitar for two hours." First, my hand had never fully recovered from when it was injured a few years ago, when I had calcium deposits. And second, a lot of the songs I've written in recent years weren't made to be played by one guitar. Still Crazy After All These Years, for example, is an electric-piano song. And Late in the Evening has to have horns. So we got a band.
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Paul Simon : The weeks before the concert were so tense that there were times when I really regretted having agreed to do it. It was very rushed. Artie had to learn a lot of new material very quickly.
We just did what we'd done when we were an act in the sixties. We tried to blend our voices. I attempted to make the tempos work. I talked a little bit too, but I found it impossible to hold a dialogue with half a million people. In a certain sense, it was numbing. It was so big and it was happening only once. I didn't have much time for an overview while I was performing.
Afterward, our first reaction was, I think, one of disappointment. Arthur's more than mine. He thought he didn't sing well. I didn't get what had happened - how big it was - until I went home, turned on the television and saw it on all the news, the people being interviewed and later that night on the front pages of all the newspapers. Then I got it.
(Source : not known)
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He said that the parks commissioner of New York wanted me to do a free concert in Central Park, and asked if I'd be interested. I said yes, but then I began to think it wouldn't work. I was still feeling a little shaky about One-Trick Pony.
Then I thought, why don't I ask Artie to join me? Not the usual thing where I sing and he comes out at the end and sings three songs with me. Maybe we'll do 20 minutes, half an hour, a full set. I called up Artie and he was in Switzerland, Europe He travels all the time, loves to walk places. I asked if he wanted to do this concert and he said yeah.
Then I realized that if we did half the show as Simon and Garfunkel and did the second half alone, it just wouldn't work in show-business terms. Which meant I would have to open the show. Then I said, "I don't want to be an opening act for Simon And Garfunkel!" So I figured, well, let's try to do a whole Simon and Garfunkel show.
I was on a real roll with my writing by then, but I stopped to go into rehearsal for the concert. And at that time, we were all in very good spirits. Well, the rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time.
He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar. I said, "I can't do that anymore. I can't just play the guitar for two hours." First, my hand had never fully recovered from when it was injured a few years ago, when I had calcium deposits. And second, a lot of the songs I've written in recent years weren't made to be played by one guitar. Still Crazy After All These Years, for example, is an electric-piano song. And Late in the Evening has to have horns. So we got a band.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Paul Simon : The weeks before the concert were so tense that there were times when I really regretted having agreed to do it. It was very rushed. Artie had to learn a lot of new material very quickly.
We just did what we'd done when we were an act in the sixties. We tried to blend our voices. I attempted to make the tempos work. I talked a little bit too, but I found it impossible to hold a dialogue with half a million people. In a certain sense, it was numbing. It was so big and it was happening only once. I didn't have much time for an overview while I was performing.
Afterward, our first reaction was, I think, one of disappointment. Arthur's more than mine. He thought he didn't sing well. I didn't get what had happened - how big it was - until I went home, turned on the television and saw it on all the news, the people being interviewed and later that night on the front pages of all the newspapers. Then I got it.
(Source : not known)