Live From New York City, 1967 [LIVE] [LIVE]

Simon & Garfunkel

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 25, 2008)
• Original Release Date: July 16, 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: SonyBMG Special Markets
• ASIN: B00151KJJU
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,200 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were the apotheosis of the '60s folk revival, bringing the music to the mainstream via Top 40 radio and network TV. This live set was recorded before a rapt audience at New York's Lincoln Center in January of 1967, just as their Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme album was carrying them to superstardom, and there's a palpable pre-Woodstock/Altamont sense of boundless possibilities in these performances. Carried by just their bittersweet, magnificently interlocking voices and Simon's acoustic guitar, the duo showcases its already impressive slate of hits ("Homeward Bound," "I Am a Rock," "The Sounds of Silence") and its stylistic diversity that was already confident enough to encompass breezy pop ("The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"), madrigal influences ("Benedictus"), and the introspective impressionism of "A Hazy Shade of Winter." Simon takes a jazz-folk solo instrumental turn on Davey Graham's "Anji," while Garfunkel showcases his angelic pipes on "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her." It's a remarkably crisp live recording as well, one whose digital remastering was overseen--but not artistically tweaked--by the musicians and their original engineer Roy Halee, ensuring the performance remains as true as the cold yet invitingly warm evening on which it was recorded. Their subsequent albums Bookends and Bridge over Troubled Water may have expanded their creative instincts and their fame, but, like the Beatles, their partnership eerily paralleled the decade's demise, its optimism and promise imploding in a swirl of cynicism and ego. Those facts make this find from the vaults all the more compelling. --Jerry McCulley

Review
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were the apotheosis of the '60s folk revival, bringing the music to the mainstream via Top 40 radio and network TV. This live set was recorded before a rapt audience at New York's Lincoln Center in January of 1967, just as their Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme album was carrying them to superstardom, and there's a palpable pre-Woodstock/Altamont sense of boundless possibilities in these performances. Carried by just their bittersweet, magnificently interlocking voices and Simon's acoustic guitar, the duo showcases its already impressive slate of hits ("Homeward Bound," "I Am a Rock," "The Sounds of Silence") and its stylistic diversity that was already confident enough to encompass breezy pop ("The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"), madrigal influences ("Benedictus"), and the introspective impressionism of "A Hazy Shade of Winter." Simon takes a jazz-folk solo instrumental turn on Davey Graham's "Anji," while Garfunkel showcases his angelic pipes on "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her." It's a remarkably crisp live recording as well, one whose digital remastering was overseen--but not artistically tweaked--by the musicians and their original engineer Roy Halee, ensuring the performance remains as true as the cold yet invitingly warm evening on which it was recorded. Their subsequent albums Bookends and Bridge over Troubled Water may have expanded their creative instincts and their fame, but, like the Beatles, their partnership eerily paralleled the decade's demise, its optimism and promise imploding in a swirl of cynicism and ego. Those facts make this find from the vaults all the more compelling. --Jerry McCulley --Amazon.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This one was definitely worth resurrecting!!, July 18, 2002

By	William Merrill "eclecticist" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Live from New York City, 1967 (Audio CD)

(4&1/2 stars) I'm not sure why it took 35 years for this live recording to be released, but it turns out to be a marvelous document of the classic folk duo's magical chemistry. The sound quality is remarkable, a pristine environment that faithfully captures their inspired harmonies, Paul's acoustic guitar strumming, and even their occasional small boo-boos. (This was recorded live after all.) Hearing Art sing "For Emily" is always spine-tingling, but especially from this era when he was at the very pinnacle of his art. And of course all the hits reminded me yet again what a gifted songwriter Paul was, especially "Homeward Bound," "the Sound of Silence," and "I Am A Rock." The way Paul's harmony line on "Rock" stays on the same note for most of the first verse is such an amazingly subtle but effective idea.

Art's between-song patter is amusing, particularly his explanation of the album cover for the Wednesday Morning record. Anthony DeCurtis also provided some informative and well written liner notes.

Of course it's important (and obvious) to note that this concert occurred prior to some of their later hits such as "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "El Condor Pasa," but live versions of those can be heard elsewhere.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime, August 12, 2002

By	R. Riis "rriis" (NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Live from New York City, 1967 (Audio CD)

The music and performance is sublime, capturing Simon & Garfunkel on their home turf on the cusp of broadening fame. This same material has appeared on easy-to-find bootlegs in the past, but not with this crisp, clear sound quality. Skip the "deluxe" packaging offered on an alternative edition of this CD unless a cardboard digipak sleeve with a shiny finish is important to you; the contents are otherwise the same as the regular jewel-case edition.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's hard to be humble..., September 17, 2006

By	running_man (Chesterfield Twp., MI) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Live from New York City, 1967 (Audio CD)

...when you're Simon and Garfunkel. And what reason does this duo have to be? Even as early as January 22 of 1967, when this concert was recorded, Paul and Arti were able to stack the setlist with three Top Ten selections ('Homeward Bound', 'I Am a Rock', and 'Sounds of Silence') and two other Top 40 numbers, 'Hazy Shade of Winter' and 'The Dangling Conversation', which Garfunkel introduces as their personal "favorite". Songs already in the works for later in 1967 included the likes of 'Fakin' It', 'Feelin' Groovy' and 'Scarborough Fair'. But chart success is far from what Simon and Garfunkel were all about at this most influential time in their careers.

Much is made in the liner notes by Anthony DeCurtis, and other reviewers here at Amazon, about the remarkable rapport between audience and performers on this disc. It's almost spellbinding in our day and age, when people come to concerts and all but ignore the performers, to hear the sounds of silence emanating from this reverant crowd at Philharmonic Hall in Philadelphia. Certainly not all 1967 performances were accorded such stature. It's hard to believe that the management of the auditorium went to the unheard of length of seating people on the stage behind the performers to accomodate the demand for tickets, and that Simon and Garfunkel would consent to such an unusual configuration for their performance. When listening to this disc, it is hard not to place yourself in one of these choice seats and imagine how it must have felt to hear these enigmatic performers unleash one poignant tune after another. I imagine you would be able to feel as though it was just you and them sharing these transcendent musical performances together.

And the music to this day remains glorious. Snippets of lyrical genius can be gleened with regularity from each and every song, and with each listen, some new image or combination of words or ideas will catch your attention. On one recent listen, 'Leaves That Are Green' left me with the brief aliteration "...and they wither with the wind", while 'You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies' emphasized its point by having each word in the title claim its own note. 'The Dangling Conversation' contrasts two people unable to connect with "we are verses out of rhythm, couplets out of rhyme, in sycopated time". 'Blessed' expands on the poor and the meek to include "meth drinkers" and the "groovy lookin'" before admitting "I've tended my own garden much too long". The writing of graffiti artists in 'Poem On the Underground Wall' is rendered as "a gently tapping litany". And in 'I Am a Rock', the self-isolated subject becomes "like a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow", capsulizing his unaffected and unaffecting nature. 'The Sounds of Silence' caress us with "a vision softly creeping" that "left its seeds while I was sleeping", while Garfunkels incredible vocal abilities illuminate images like "I kissed your honey hair with my grateful tears" from the first encore, 'For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her'. The pair sing "I won't be a slave anymore" in the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement, adding the defiant "you can burn down my churches, but I shall be free" in the second encore, 'A Church Is Burning'. Garfunkel tells the enthused crowd before the final number "Shut up, you've had your fun!", before performing the odd choice, 'Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.', the title song from their first disc, ending with "the morning is just a few hours away" before fading into an out-of-tune coda from Simon's frets. You could fill the auditorium with the lyrical gems that grace this concert with aural, literary, musical, cultural, and political and social import. While Simon was quite reserved regarding his vocal capabilities at this point in his career, his harmonies only enrich Garfunkel's leads, and his guitar work seems the perfect complement throughout, laced with both emotional expression and punctuation.

The recording is less than perfect. While everything that should be there is there, there is also an annoying buzz from the recording equipment (less pronounced after 'A Hazy Shade Of Winter', the middle track), but which cannot be ignored throughout the performance. Today's remastered, digital listener is less likely to be forgiving of such imperfections, but the perfection of these songs, performed live at the height of their influence demands that the good be taken with the bad. This is musical history, as well as a window into the best of what America was in perhaps its most turbulent and revolutionary of decades, save the 1770's and the 1860's. Even if you are not a Simon and Garfunkel aficionado, this concert should be taken in at least once to gain a better insight into who we were in the 1960's.