When the singer’s gone, let the song go on…

Jimmy Webb wrote those words for the unlikely rock star by the name of Arthur Garfunkel, a former architecture student endowed with a purity of tone and the ability to pierce the heart. And thankfully, both the singer and the song remain very much alive today.  Garfunkel, of course, was the yin to Paul Simon’s yang, the Tom to his Jerry.  It’s most appropriate, then, that he will bookend his old friend with a new anthology coming on August 28 from Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. Art Garfunkel: The Singer serves as a new companion to the recently-released Paul Simon: Songwriter.

The 2-CD set was originally slated for release on April 10, but word arrived on February 21 that the title had been taken off the schedule.  Though The Singer has undergone some changes from its initially-announced iteration, it remains the first ever 2-CD career-spanning anthology for Garfunkel. Its thirty-four tracks have been personally selected by the artist, beginning with 1964’s Simon and Garfunkel debut Wednesday Morning, 3 AM and going right up to his most recent solo studio set, 2007’s Some Enchanted Evening. Whereas the original line-up of The Singer offered forty songs, sixteen of which were from the Simon and Garfunkel catalogue, the revised edition has eight songs from that magnificent team.  They’re drawn from four of the original S&G studio albums, the best-selling Greatest Hits and 2004’s Old Friends: Live on Stage.  In addition, the new track listing includes two previously unreleased songs from Garfunkel recorded especially for this collection: “Lena,” with Dean Parks on guitar, and “Long Way Home,” with Maia Sharp.  Like last year’s Paul Simon collection, this isn’t a standard “greatest hits” but rather a chronicle of the artist’s personal journey in music.

The Forest Hills-born Garfunkel, who turned 70 on November 5, met his future partner Paul Simon in the halls of P.S. 164 in the sixth grade, with both young men cast in a school production of Alice in Wonderland. They soon bonded over a mutual love of music, with Garfunkel citing Nat “King” Cole as just one early influence. (Garfunkel would come full circle, recording an entire album of American standards in 2007.) Beginning in 1956, Simon and Garfunkel locally performed as “Tom and Jerry,” modeling themselves on the Everly Brothers, with whom they would later collaborate. Though he and Simon briefly split in the early 1960s, with Garfunkel pursuing his continuing education at New York’s Columbia University, they reunited for Wednesday Morning 3 AM, a low-key collection of folk songs, including a number of originals penned by the precociously talented Simon. It was lost in the shuffle of the British Invasion, however, and Simon retreated to England while Garfunkel resumed his studies. When Columbia Records decided to reissue Wednesday Morning’s “The Sound of Silence” with electric overdubs in September 1965, Simon and Garfunkel were presented with ample reason to reform: the song was climbing its way to No. 1, hitting that coveted spot on New Year’s Day, 1966. Their second album, Sounds of Silence, was recorded in December 1965 during that heady time when “Silence” was making waves in the music industry. The rest is history.

Hit the jump to explore The Singer, plus a pre-order link and finalized track listing with album discography!

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel called it quits following the release of 1970’s epochal Bridge Over Troubled Water, but Garfunkel (always a renaissance man) had already begun a second career as an actor, receiving a Golden Globe nomination for his work in Mike Nichols’ 1971 film Carnal Knowledge. Nichols, of course, had directed The Graduate, featuring Simon and Garfunkel’s evocative score. Garfunkel returned to Columbia Records in 1973 for his solo debut, Angel Clare. It included two songs from the pen of Jimmy Webb, who would become a close ally to Garfunkel, and one of them, “All I Know,” became Garfunkel’s first solo hit. The album peaked at No. 5, and also featured compositions by such luminaries as Randy Newman, Van Morrison, and the team of Paul Williams and Roger Nichols. Rather than the orchestrated original version of “All I Know” (featuring “Bridge Over Troubled Water”-styled piano from that recording’s Larry Knechtel), Garfunkel has opted to include the song in a later rendition recorded with Jimmy Webb from 1993’s Up ‘Til Now. Webb is also represented on the new anthology with “Scissors Cut” and “In Cars” from Scissors Cut (1981) and a duet with Amy Grant, “The Decree,” from Webb’s underrated cantata The Animals’ Christmas (1986).

Each of Garfunkel’s solo albums between 1973 and 1993, all recorded on the Columbia label, has been tapped for The Singer. (1997’s intimate Songs from a Parent to a Child is the only overlooked solo LP.) Every No. 1 hit from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is featured, including three Adult Contemporary No. 1s all from the 1975 album Breakaway: the title track, a revival of the standard “I Only Have Eyes For You” and the darkly-tinged Simon and Garfunkel duet “My Little Town.” Garfunkel’s gift of interpretation served him well, allowing him to tackle the works of many respected composers. On The Singer, you’ll hear songs written by Bruce Johnston (“Disney Girls,” introduced on The Beach Boys’ Surf’s Up), Carole King and Howard Greenfield (“Crying In The Rain” (with James Taylor joining Garfunkel in this Everly Brothers homage), Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Waters of March”) and Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael (“Two Sleepy People”). After having contributed to the arrangements of many traditional songs both with Paul Simon and as a solo artist, Garfunkel began songwriting himself. “The Thread” and “Perfect Moment” are both co-written by Garfunkel, included from 2002’s Everything Waits to Be Noticed.

Art Garfunkel: The Singer celebrates but one central aspect of this performer, writer, actor and poet. It arrives in stores on August 28, and you can pre-order below. Listening to its thirty-four songs, it’s clear that, at least for a couple of hours, what a wonderful world this will be.

Art Garfunkel, The Singer (Columbia/Legacy 88725 45816 2, 2012)

CD 1

1. Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel)
2. All I Know (with Jimmy Webb)
3. Perfect Moment (with Buddy Mondlock and Maia Sharp)
4. For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her (Simon and Garfunkel)
5. Cryin’ in the Rain (with James Taylor)
6. I Only Have Eyes For You (with Nicky Hopkins)
7. 99 Miles From LA
8. (What A) Wonderful World (with James Taylor and Paul Simon)
9. Bright Eyes
10. Two Sleepy People
11. Skywriter
12. Scarborough Fair/Canticle (Simon and Garfunkel)
13. Some Enchanted Evening
14. The Promise
15. The Thread (with Maia Sharp and Buddy Mondlock)
16. Lena (featuring Dean Parks)
17. Barbara Allen

CD 2

1. Kathy’s Song (Simon and Garfunkel)
2. Long Way Home (with Maia Sharp)
3. Scissors Cut
4. The Sound of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel)
5. Breakaway (with Graham Nash and David Crosby)
6. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright (Simon and Garfunkel)
7. Waters of March (with Billy Payne)
8. The Decree (with Amy Grant)
9. I Wonder Why (with Kenny Rankin)
10. Disney Girls (with Bruce Johnston and Toni Tennille)
11. My Little Town
12. O Come All Ye Faithful (with Eric Weissberg)
13. A Heart in New York (with Michael Brecker)
14. I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face
15. April Come She Will (Simon and Garfunkel)
16. When a Man Loves a Woman (with Jeremy Steig and Michael Brecker)
17. In Cars

CD 1, Track 1 and CD 2, Track 6 from Bridge Over Troubled Water (Columbia CS 9914, 1970)
CD 1, Tracks 2, 5, 10-11 from Up ‘Til Now (Columbia CK 47113, 1993)
CD 1, Tracks 3 & 15 from Everything Waits to Be Noticed (Blue Note/Manhattan, 2002)
CD 1, Track 4 from Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits (Columbia KC 31350, 1972)
CD 1, Tracks 6-7 and CD 2, Tracks 5, 7, 10-11 from Breakaway (Columbia PC 33700, 1975)
CD 1, Track 8 from Watermark (Columbia JC 34975, 1978)
CD 1, Track 9 from Fate for Breakfast (Columbia JC 35780, 1979)
CD 1, Track 12 from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme (Columbia CS 9363, 1966)
CD 1, Track 13 and CD 2, Track 14 from Some Enchanted Evening (Atco 8122-79999-3, 2007)
CD 1, Track 14 and CD 2, Tracks 9 & 16 from Lefty (Columbia FC 40942, 1988)
CD 1, Track 16 and CD 2, Track 2 previously unreleased
CD 1, Track 17 from Angel Clare (Columbia KC 31474, 1973)
CD 2, Track 1 from Simon & Garfunkel – Old Friends: Live on Stage 2004 (Warner Bros. 48967-2, 2004)
CD 2, Tracks 3, 13 & 17 from Scissors Cut (Columbia FC 37392, 1981)
CD 2, Track 4 from Wednesday Morning, 3 AM (Columbia CS 9049, 1964)
CD 2, Track 8 from The Animals’ Christmas (Columbia CK 40212, 1986)
CD 2, Track 12 from Acoustic Christmas (Columbia CK 46880, 1990)
CD 2, Track 15 from Sounds of Silence (Columbia CS 9269, 1965)