|
Simon & Garfunkel back on the road
10/09/2003 09:12 - (SA)
New York - Legendary folk duo Simon & Garfunkel announced on Tuesday their first concert tour in 20 years, saying a one-off performance at this year's Grammys had exhumed their long-buried friendship.
The 36-city Old Friends: 2003 tour of the United States and Canada will begin in Michigan on October 18 and wind up in mid-December.
Art Garfunkel said the duo's reunion at the Grammy awards ceremony in February - when they received a lifetime achievement award - had revived a relationship that produced some of the most enduring tunes of the 1960s.
"It was the Grammys that forced it out of burial ... kicked us into hanging out, singing and rehearsing a little," he told reporters.
Inspired by the harmonising of the Everly Brothers and the socially relevant lyrics of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, Simon and Garfunkel's six-year collaboration from 1964 to 1970 produced songs like Mrs Robinson, Bridge Over Troubled Water and America that helped define a generation.
Estranged
Personal differences led to an acrimonious split in 1970, after which the two pursued solo careers, reuniting only rarely - notably for a concert in New York's Central Park in 1983.
"I never thought we lost the ability to sing together," said Paul Simon. "What we had was a friendship that was estranged, and the Grammys gave us a chance to put that behind us."
The duo will be backed on tour by a full seven-piece band, but both men promised that audiences could expect all the old standard acoustic sets.
"We would like to stay as true to the spirit of the Simon & Garfunkel period as we can," Simon said.
"I think our first responsibility is to our generation. For the new fans who may or may not come ... well, that's just another issue.
"There's a tremendous emotional involvement because decades of our lives have passed. That's what I'm most curious about and interested in reconnecting with," he said.
Dismissing the couple's infamously volatile past as "just squabbles", Simon said any hatchets had been well and truly buried.
"We're fine now. We've been talking and rehearsing," he said.
To prove they still have what it takes, the two performers ran through a medley of some of their greatest hits - Old Friends, Homeward Bound and The Boxer.
Garfunkel even held out the prospect of a possible studio recording in the future.
"But that's way down the line," he added.
- AFP
|
South Africa
