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CHOICE SEPTEMBER 2016

WHAT’S ONNews of the best in the entertainment world this month

93SEPTEMBER 2016 CHOICE

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Together and Alone, bySpencer Leigh is published byMcNidder and Grace at £15.Paul Simon is touring the UKin November, playing the fol-lowing dates: November 3:Bournemouth InternationalCentre; November 4: Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff;November 7,8: Royal Albert Hall, London;November 10: Manchester Apollo; November 12:Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham. For ticket detailsgo to: (www.paulsimon.com).

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IT HAS never been easy being aSimon and Garfunkel fan. I know,am one. Admitting you admired theirmusic was not something you did in

fashionable company, or at least at myboarding school. They didn’t fit theSeventies fashion for glam, disco, punk,hard rock or Eighties style over substance,and during the Nineties they seemed todisappear altogether.Even during the duo’s Sixties heyday,

when Paul and Artie produced suchtimeless classics as Homeward Bound,Bridge Over Troubled Water, The Sound ofSilence, Mrs Robinson and Feelin’ Groovy,they didn’t really fit in.At the 1967 Monterey Festival, while all

high praise indeed. Later this year Simon isembarking on what may well be his lastBritish tour, the great man having recentlyhinted, in several interviews, that it may betime to turn his still restless creative energiesaway from music.The arrival of a new book looking back

at Simon and Garfunkel’s career, bothtogether and apart, by Liverpool authorSpencer Leigh, could not, therefore,come at a better time.It was Leigh who, back in 1973,

published Now and Then, the firstthorough examination of Paul Simon’swork. Published by a small Merseysidecompany, and long since out of print, itmay have been superceded over the yearsby more up to date tomes but none havecome close to matching Leigh’s originalquirky insights and knowledge.Together Alone (McNidder and Grace,

£15), an updated and greatly expandednew edition of Now and Then, is thereforevery welcome indeed. Spencer does anadmirable job, for instance, of untanglingPaul and Art’s pre-Simon and Garfunkelwork for a bewildering variety of smalllabels and he’s also very good on PaulSimon’s mid-Sixties English folk clubdays, but I would have liked more on the2003-04 and 2009 reunion tours. Fullmarks though for devoting a chapter toStranger to Stranger.It’s strange that a songwriter as

influential as Paul Simon, or indeed a musical act that crossed thegenerations as effortlessly as Simon andGarfunkel, has not been the subject ofmore critical attention. Perhaps nowthat Paul Simon is seemingly closingthe door on his remarkable career thatwill soon be rectified. That there may be new Paul Simon

songs to look forward to in the years aheadis a cause of much sadness amongst usSimon and Garfunkel fans, as is thethought that Paul and Artie will probablynever share a stage together again. Thecurrent state of the relationship is bestdescribed as frosty, with Paul Simonsaying recently that the two old friends,who have known each other sinceprimary school, were not speaking.We have been here before, however.

Back in the late Fifties Paul and Artiedidn’t speak for years after Paul released a

solo single behind Garfunkel’s back.There was renewed bitterness after thepartnership dissolved in the earlySeventies, and again in the mid-Eightieswhen, after a triumphant reunion tourPaul Simon summarily removedGarfunkel’s vocals from what wasintended to be a Simon and GarfunkelLP but ended up as the solo album Heartsand Bones.A brief reunion in the early Nineties

also ended acrimoniously and althoughthe 2003 and 2004 tours appeared to healold wounds, recent comments byGarfunkel that Paul Simon was an “idiot”for turning his back on Simon andGarfunkel seems to have reactivated anew round of hostilities.Perhaps the tragedy of the partnership is

best summed up by Spencer Leigh inTogether and Alone: “Early on, Simon andGarfunkel realised two things. Firstly, theworld liked them working together.Secondly, they didn’t.”

around them was love, flowers andexhortations to tune in and drop out,Simon and Garfunkel were performingBergmanesque vignettes of abandonedlove and quirky little ditties about CornFlakes and English muffins.And while Richard Neville, inPlaypower, his survey of thelate Sixties counterculture,described Paul Simon’s songsas “beautiful antique poetry”you wouldn’t have found toomany fashionable types at thetime taking along Simon and Garfunkel’sBookends album to their next rave.Thankfully that has all changed now,

and 30 years after being vilified for

Graceland, his exhilarating, career-definingexcursion into South African pop, PaulSimon is sitting on top of the album chartsagain, revered by a new generation ofmusic-lovers weaned on You Can Call Me

Al rather than I Am A Rock.Alone amongst his Sixties peers,

Paul Simon is producing work ofconsistently high quality, and stillpushing musical boundaries, too.His latest album, Stranger toStranger, is right up there with hisvery best, and with a catalogue that

includes the Bridge Over Troubled Wateralbum, Still Crazy After All These Yearsand Graceland, not to mention 2011’sbrilliant So Beautiful or So What, that is

On the level withEighties iconsFollowing on from their successfulSirens shows of 2014 and 2015, topEighties band Level 42 will be hittingthe road once again in October for atour of the UK in support of theirnew Sirens II EP.Starting in Llandudno on October

3 the tour will feature a further 19shows, culminating at London’sEventim Apollo on October 29. Theband will be performing a host oftheir greatest hits as well as newmaterial from the Sirens II EP. To date the band have released 14

studio albums, seven live albums, theSirens EP and six compilationalbums. They have had 18 top 40singles, including Lessons in Love,Something About You, Leaving MeNow, Running in the Family and HotWater, sold out Wembley Arena for atotal of 21 nights and sold in excessof 30 million albums worldwide.With the recent re-issues of the

band’s vast catalogue on UniversalMusic they are still a benchmark forthe best in British jazz funk.n For details of all the dates, and how to booktickets, go to: (www.livenation.co.uk). Ticketsare on sale at £28 except for the London datewhich has tickets on sale at £38.50, £34.50,£30 and £27.50 (subject to per-ticket chargeplus order processing fee).

His UK concerts this autumn may be the last chance to seePaul Simon playing live. By Simon Evans

End of the roadfor a pop icon