Thursday, June 11, 2015

Art Garfunkel returns to Israel after 17 years

Art Garfunkel, one half of the folk-rock duo Simon and Garfunkel, gave a moving performance this week at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv.

A native New Yorker, Garfunkel, 73, has mostly been a solo act since parting ways with singer-songwriter Paul Simon in 1970. The music they made defined a generation in the 1960s and has had lasting appeal.

Garfunkel's set list included some of the duo's classics, including Sounds of Silence, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965, and Bridge over Troubled Water, which was also the title of their final studio record, one of the best-selling albums of all time.

The capacity of Bloomfield Stadium pales in comparison to the numbers for Simon and Garfunkel's famous 1981 reunion concert in New York's Central Park, which attracted more than half a million people. The pair last played Israel together in 1983 as they neared the end of their reunion tour.

Amid performances of his solo material and songs by the duo, and accompanied by his son James on guitar, Garkfunkel read a selection of his own prose poetry off the back of envelopes, making it an event for all artistic tastes not been seen by fans since his last solo concert in the Holy Land back in 1998.

He has clearly left an indelible mark on fans the world over.


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