Customer Reviews

Simon & Garfunkel: The Biography

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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really had high hopes for this book. So little substantive is available on the career of Simon & Garfunkle. Unfortunately, this childish, fawning tome is almost a waste of time.

It's so hard to determine what the author had in mind. Certainly not the music of this duo. She spends more time on a plot synopsis of an Art Garfunkle movie than she does IN TOTAL on the creative process of the duo's groundbreaking albums. How they made their records, how the songs were created, life on the road - very little on their art is discussed. That seems not to be important to this amateur author.

Since she had such access to Garfunkle, that must be why the focus is on Artie-minutia (and then she should have called it that!). But if one wants insight into the actual career of this duo, to learn about their music, their muse and their legend...look elsewhere. Lord knows where that is...

I'm a huge fan of S&G, and this book is very respectful and lots of fun to read. But . . . Kingston (the author) goes through every song on every album and explains what it's about--that uses up about 25 pages in the book. Us fans already know the songs, when she rehashes them it comes off as trite. Also, there are a good many typos and mistakes. She lists Madison Square Garden as being in Pennsylvania (it's in New York) and cites newspaper "The Detroit Times," a paper that went out of business in the 1950's I think. There's a missing word here and there. Also, she's English, and there one or two things she said in the book and I wasn't quite sure what she was talking about. Also, she rehashes interviews published in Rolling Stone and other magazines. Why not just give us the gist of the article. Instead, she gives us verbatim quotes. That uses up about another 25 pages.

It's a fast read, and a fun one, but the book isn't perfect. A good editor could have straightened this book out.

There are too many factual errors and fan-mag platitudes here to make this an authoritative biography or analysis. Too bad, since the subjects are such interesting people with such interesting careers. Look elsewhere.

I have been a fan of Simon & Garfunkel since about 7th grade when a teacher played the song Silent Night / 6 O'Clock News. It hit me that some one very talented put those two things together and I wanted to hear more of their music. This book took me back to the feelings I had when hearing a S&G song for the first time. I read the book in two days; it was hard to put down. Kingston interpreted many of the meanings of the songs and included many quotes from S&G themselves. There always seemed to be much more to the songs than what was in the notes on the albums. Also, I never realized just how many awards S&G got - as a duo and as singles. I dusted off my cds and have been listening to them since I read the book. My appreciation for their talent has only grown. Even though I borrowed this book from the library, I plan on buying a copy to put beside my S&G albums and cds. Me and 500,000 other souls in Central Park can't all be wrong in appreciating their talent. Thanks to Kingston for gathering all the information together in one book.

Victoria Kingston's engaging and informative biography of one of America's most popular duets is a seminal history of the Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel collaboration. Victoria Kingson has created a biographical work of painstaking attention to detail and accuracy. Candid, comprehensive, insightful and poignant, Simon & Garfunkel: The Biography is a "must read" for all Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel fans, and a very highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library music history and biography collections.