SIMON & GARFUNKEL TO STAR AT FIRST WEEKEND OF NEW ORLEANS JAZZ FEST
April 24 Performance To Be the Only 2010 U.S. Appearance by Legendary Duo
New Orleans, LA (January 13, 2010) -- "We are proud to announce that American music icons Simon & Garfunkel will be making their first-ever appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell," event organizers said today. The Saturday, April 24 performance by Simon & Garfunkel at Jazz Fest will be the only chance to see the legendary duo in the U.S. this year. The Festival is scheduled for April 23 - May 2, 2010.
"Over the years I've always enjoyed performing at Jazz Fest," said Paul Simon. "Everyone connected with the Festival, and in particular Quint Davis, has created an atmosphere that is both musical and enjoyable. I am looking forward to the opportunity to perform with my old friend Art Garfunkel at this year's Festival."
Simon & Garfunkel join previously announced artists Pearl Jam, Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, The Neville Brothers, Lionel Richie, Allman Brothers Band, Anita Baker, My Morning Jacket, Widespread Panic, Imagination Movers, B.B. King, Jeff Beck, Darius Rucker, Irma Thomas, Gipsy Kings, The Dead Weather, Elvis Costello & the Sugarcanes, The Black Crowes, Drake, Teena Marie, Keely Smith, Jonny Lang, Band of Horses, Allen Toussaint and hundreds more at the 41st edition of the beloved Festival. (A complete weekend-by-weekend schedule is available at www.nojazzfest.com. Jazz Fest's day-by-day schedule will be announced Wednesday, January 27.)
Simon & Garfunkel possess an unequaled and timeless songbook, and when they take the stage together at Jazz Fest on April 24 their wonderful blend of voices and energies will provide a once-in-a-lifetime thrill that only the best of live music performances can create.
"For Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to agree to come together and create this historic Simon & Garfunkel concert for our Festival is not only a great honor, but it will bring to all who attend the rarest opportunity to experience the magic of one of America's greatest musical institutions," said Quint Davis, producer/director of Jazz Fest. "Thank you Paul and Artie, for bringing your special thrill to New Orleans. No American City can so relate to the need for a Bridge Over Troubled Waters, and the power of being Homeward Bound."
Davis noted that Simon has a long history of being a part of Jazz Fest. "From his early visit to the Festival to experience the Neville Brothers in the 80's, to the thrill of his epic performance of Graceland, leading up to his never-to-be-forgotten closing-day set at the first post-Katrina Festival, Paul Simon has woven himself into the fabric of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival."
Tickets for the Festival, which takes place at the Fair Grounds Race Course, are on sale now through Ticketmaster. A limited number of discount ticket packages including tickets to each day of a particular weekend of the Festival are available. Ticket packages purchased for all three days of the first weekend (April 23, 24 & 25) will be $120 ($40 per day), while second weekend packages purchased for all four festival days (April 29, 30, May 1, & 2) will be $160 ($40 per day). (Tickets included in each package are day-specific.) Advance single day Jazz Fest tickets are only $45; the gate price is $60. Children's tickets (ages 2 - 10) are still only $5 and are available at the gate only. Single day tickets to Jazz Fest are on sale by specific weekend, with each ticket valid for a single day's attendance.
Tickets are available at www.nojazzfest.com and www.ticketmaster.com, at all Ticketmaster outlets or by calling (800) 745-3000. Tickets can be purchased in person at the Jazz Fest ticket office located at the New Orleans Arena Box Office or the Louisiana Superdome Box Office (Gate A, Ground Level). All Jazz Fest tickets are subject to additional service fees and handling charges.
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1/13/10 |
THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME CELEBRATES ITS 25TH ANNIVERSARY WITH TWO GROUNDBREAKING CONCERTS
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, U2, Simon & Garfunkel, Metallica, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Crosby, Stills Nash & Friends and Eric Clapton along with Special Guests Set to Perform in Concert at Madison Square Garden
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 22, 2009: Music's biggest stars - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, U2, Paul Simon, Metallica, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Friends, Simon and Garfunkel - will come together on October 29th and 30th at Madison Square Garden for two unique concerts celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The shows, presented by American Express, will be packed with guest stars and unique collaborations designed to tell the story of rock and roll. American Express(R) Cardmembers have access to advance tickets through ticketmaster.com or by calling 800-745-3000 starting 9 a.m. on Monday, July 27th. Additional sponsorship support for the event is being provided by Bacardi.
Each night will feature entirely different line-ups, with artists performing their own songs and the music that inspired them -tracing the history of genres ranging from soul to hard rock. All proceeds raised will go towards creating a permanent endowment for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and Museum. "Twenty-five years ago a group led by legendary Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun created this foundation to recognize and celebrate the music and careers of artists whose music helped shape and define our generation," said Jann Wenner, Founder and Chairman of Rolling Stone and Chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. "These once-in-a-lifetime concerts are designed to celebrate the artists and their music." A creative team of Tom Hanks and his producing partner Gary Goetzman, Wenner, singer-songwriter Robbie Robertson, Academy Award(R)-winning screenwriter, director Cameron Crowe and several others will work with the artists to curate the show through the live performances and filmed segments. Joel Gallen, the producer/director behind the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies and the MTV Movie Awards (1995-2006), will direct the show and oversee the 25th Anniversary Celebration along with the creative consultants.
This event is being presented in conjunction with the American Express Concert Series. American Express offers Cardmembers the exclusive opportunity to purchase advanced tickets to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation 25th Anniversary Celebration, prior to public. Tickets will be available for purchase with an American Express Card through ticketmaster.com or by calling 800-745-3000, from 9 a.m. Monday, July 27th, through Sunday, August 2nd at 9 p.m. Tickets will be on sale to the general public beginning Monday, August 3rd at 9 a.m.
The Rock and Roll of Fame Foundation and Museum's anniversary celebration will also extend beyond the concerts, with both a book and a deluxe DVD set to be released this fall. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The First 25 Years, chronicling 25 years of induction ceremonies, will be published by Collins Design (an imprint of HarperCollins) in September. In August, Time Life will issue a nine-DVD boxed set of highlights of the past induction ceremonies, featuring speeches and all-star performances, many that have never before seen by the public.
Performing on October 29th will be:
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Simon & Garfunkel
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Friends
Paul Simon
Stevie Wonder
Performing on October 30th will be:
Eric Clapton
Aretha Franklin
Metallica
U2
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7/22/09 |
SIMON & GARFUNKEL, LIVE 1969
Songs from Sounds Of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme and Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water - part acoustic, part electric backing
New live archive treasure from Columbia/Legacy arrives at both physical and digital retail outlets on April 14, 2009
"Several shows on the '69 tour were recorded in anticipation of what was earmarked to be their sixth album, the follow-up to Bridge. That live LP never came to be (until now, that is); in fact, there was no follow-up of any kind, mainly because Simon & Garfunkel were in the final months of their partnership."
- from the liner notes written by Bud Scoppa
In the fall of 1969, at the absolute pinnacle of their decade-and-a-half working association - and with two Grammy Awards, four multi-million selling Columbia LPs and nearly a dozen hit singles under their belts, including the #1's "The Sounds Of Silence" and "Mrs. Robinson," and their penultimate album masterpiece, Bridge Over Troubled Water, newly recorded (but not yet released) - Simon & Garfunkel undertook a major North American tour, which turned out to be their last live dates together until 1982.
Though there were occasional surprise reunions down the years, the litany of Simon & Garfunkel's powerful work has always resided in the 1960s. Of their work onstage, only a few sanctioned live concert recordings were made by Columbia, but not a note of it was heard on any official album until the Legacy era in 1997 - when the three-CD Old Friends box set unveiled five songs from the Lincoln Center concert in New York of January 1967. In 2002, the entire concert was finally issued as Live From New York City 1967, on Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
Chronologically situated in the aftermath of Woodstock and shortly before Altamont, SIMON & GARFUNKEL, LIVE 1969 is a 17-song chronicle of the tour which took places between the recording and release of Bridge Over Troubled Water. Gathering songs that were recorded during October and November in six cities - Long Beach (CA), New York, Carbon-dale (IL), St. Louis, Toledo, and Detroit - reissue producer Bob Irwin (who has overseen every release of Simon & Garfunkel material for Legacy over the past decade) has seamlessly re-created the magic of those concerts. This eagerly anticipated CD from Columbia/Legacy will be available at both physical and digital retail outlets starting April 14, 2009.
"The performances on LIVE 1969," writes Bud Scoppa in his liner notes, "were impeccably recorded, and that is a good thing indeed, because Simon & Garfunkel were in absolute peak form at the time, their imminent estrangement notwithstanding." Scoppa also penned the notes for the five individual original albums that were packaged together as expanded editions in the 2001 box set Simon & Garfunkel: The Columbia Studio Recordings (1964-1970) - namely Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964); Sounds Of Silence (early-1966); Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme (late-1966); Bookends (1968); and Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970).
Three major differences set LIVE 1969 apart from its predecessor, the 18-song Live From New York City 1967, beginning with the fact that the latter was a single concert, while the new release is a compilation of definitive performances from different cities on different nights.
Second, in purely chronological terms, the 1967 concert was (for the most part) comprised of songs drawn only from the first three Simon & Garfunkel LPs. (The exceptions were two songs, both singles, that had not yet found their way onto albums, "A Hazy Shade Of Winter" and "You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies.") The lion's share of seven numbers at the 1967 concert originated on Sounds Of Silence. The duo had rigorously toured in North America and Europe in support of that album for all of 1966 into '67, during which they landed three LPs and four singles inside the top 30 on the Billboard charts - no mean feat.
In contrast, of course, LIVE 1969 broadens the scope of songs as the timeline moves ahead nearly three full years. Now the concerts encompassed the release of Bookends and looked forward to the imminent release of Bridge Over Troubled Water in late-January 1970. On tour in 1969, in addition to dropping any songs from Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., Scoppa sums up "the 17 songs gathered on this collection include four apiece from Sounds Of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme (both released in 1966), three from Bookends (1968) and five from Bridge." Scoppa continues, "The obvious inspiration for the lone outside selection, the Gene Autry-co-written 'That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine,' was the Everly Brothers, who'd sung it on their autobiographical 1958 LP, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us."
Third and perhaps most importantly - and certainly most interestingly - is that 1967 presented an acoustic folk duo onstage. LIVE 1969 begins and ends with the acoustic folk duo, but Simon & Garfunkel play "the meat of their sets" (Scoppa) with four superb and legendary studio musicians who were among the stellar backing cast of the Bridge Over Troubled Water sessions. After reportedly spending more than 800 hours over a two year span recording the album - and after three previous albums that employed full complements of studio musicians - it came as no surprise when fans saw the duo onstage in the company of Hal Blaine (drums), Joe Osborn (bass), and Larry Knechtel (keyboards) - mainstays of Hollywood's so-called 'Wrecking Crew' - and Nashville A-Team guitarist Fred Carter, Jr.
Bridge Over Troubled Water took on a life of its own around the world as one of history's greatest achievements in recorded music. But by early 1970, not long after its release, the partnership of Simon & Garfunkel had run its course. Through the years, hopes and dreams of reunions have been fulfilled in unexpected ways - among them, their benefit performance at Madison Square Garden for 1972 Presidential candidate George McGovern; an appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live in 1975 to promote a one-off single, "My Little Town" (that both artists included on their solo albums at the time) and a return to SNL in 1977; a collaboration with James Taylor on an update of Sam Cooke's "(What a) Wonderful World" in '78, intended for Art's solo album at the time; their record-setting free concert in New York's Central Park, September 1981, subsequently issued as a double-LP in '82, followed by a European tour that year and a U.S. tour in '83; a performance at their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990; and their sold-out 21-show run at the Paramount Theatre of Madison Square Garden in 1993.
A full decade passed before they sang together in public again, in recognition of their Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys in 2003. The event inspired a two-month North American tour from October through December that year. In conjunction with the tour, Legacy "inducted" the duo into its prestigious series of double-CD retrospectives with The Essential Simon & Garfunkel. The 33-song collection spanned recordings from 1964 to 1975, including every song to hit the Hot 100 on Columbia, plus 10 album tracks, and eight live performances.
It was a perfect companion to Old Friends, the three-CD box set from 1997, which contained 59 tracks - their entire output of chart singles and a majority of the album tracks from their five original LPs, plus 15 previously unreleased tracks, including unissued demos, Christmas songs, newly-discovered masters (of unissued songs), and ten live performances.
Most recently, in March 2004, The Paul Simon Songbook made its historic reappearance on Columbia/Legacy. A virtually impossible-to-find LP in the Simon & Garfunkel canon, it was recorded by him during his 1965 sojourn in London, the year after the release of Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Songbook contained Simon's early versions of six songs that would be recorded in new versions in New York in 1966 for Sounds Of Silence.
The release of SIMON & GARFUNKEL, LIVE 1969 fills a significant gap in the duo's history. It sheds light not only on their development but on the American cultural and political landscape at the height of the Civil Rights and free speech and Anti-War movements that involved so many of their listeners and concert-goers. It was, "a time of great extremes, a tumultuous era," Scoppa writes. "In short, it was an era similar in many ways to the one we're now living through. We needed Simon & Garfunkel then, and we could very much use their equivalent now, 40 years later."
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3/26/09 |
Old Friends: Live On Stage
Old Friends: Live On Stage DELUXE CD AND DVD SET CHRONICLES SIMON & GARFUNKEL "OLD FRIENDS TOUR"
Historic Release Features Bonus Audio Track Of Revived Vintage Song
Purchase Simon & Garfunkel Albums
Old Friends: Live On Stage, a deluxe double CD and DVD package capturing the historic 2003-2004 Simon & Garfunkel "Old Friends Tour" will be released November 30th on Warner Bros. Records. Along with the deluxe two CD and DVD edition, Old Friends: Live On Stage will be released as a two CD set as well as in a DVD-only configuration.
Featuring a wealth of classic material from the legendary pair, who recently toured together for the first time in over twenty years, Old Friends: Live On Stage spans the duo's unparalleled career and includes such enduring Simon & Garfunkel favorites as "The Sound Of Silence," "I Am A Rock," "Scarborough Fair," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Mrs. Robinson," "A Hazy Shade Of Winter," "The Boxer" and a host of others. Old Friends: Live On Stage also features a bonus audio track "Citizen of the Planet," originally written by Paul Simon in the early 80's to be a part of the duo's repertoire but never recorded until Art Garfunkel added vocals especially for this release.
"'Citizen of the Planet' was a demo that Paul made some years ago," Garfunkel recently remarked. "I always liked it, but we'd never put it on anything. I came across it in my kitchen just last year, played it again and loved it again. I'm a big protagonist of 'Citizen of the Planet.'"
The package also spotlights a treasure of extras including liner notes by acclaimed music journalist David Wild, a photo gallery and rare footage from a 1970's Simon & Garfunkel television special. Also included are performances on the DVD of "Wake Up Little Susie" and "All I Have To Do Is Dream" by special guests The Everly Brothers as well as "Bye Bye Love," on both the CD and DVD with the Everlys and Simon & Garfunkel.
Material for both the CD set and the DVD was taken from the duo's 5 SRO performances at New Jersey Meadowlands' Continental Airlines Arena and New York City's Madison Square Garden, December 3rd-8th, 2003.
A complete track listing of Simon & Garfunkel's Old Friends: Live On Stage is as follows:
CD Disc 1
1. Old Friends/Bookends
2. A Hazy Shade of Winter
3. I Am A Rock
4. America
5. At the Zoo
6. Baby Driver
7. Kathy's Song
8. Tom and Jerry Story
9. Hey, Schoolgirl
10. The Everly Brothers Intro
11. Bye Bye Love (The Everly Brothers with Simon & Garfunkel)
12. Scarborough Fair
13. Homeward Bound
14. The Sound of Silence
CD Disc 2
1. Mrs. Robinson
2. Slip Slidin' Away
3. El Condor Pasa
4. The Only Living Boy in New York
5. American Tune
6. My Little Town
7. Bridge Over Troubled Water
8. Cecilia
9. The Boxer
10. Leaves That Are Green
11. Bonus Track: Citizen of the Planet
DVD
Act 1
1. Opening Montage (America inst.)
2. Old Friends/Bookends
3. A Hazy Shade of Winter
4. I Am A Rock
5. America
6. At the Zoo
7. Baby Driver
8. Kathy's Song
9. Tom and Jerry Story
10. Hey, Schoolgirl
11. The Everly Brothers Intro
12. Wake Up Little Susie
13. All I Have To Do Is Dream
14. Bye Bye Love (The Everly Brothers with Simon & Garfunkel)
15. Scarborough Fair
16. Homeward Bound
17. The Sound of Silence
Act 2
18. Opening Montage
19. Mrs. Robinson
20. Slip Slidin' Away
21. El Condor Pasa
22. Keep The Customer Satisfied
23. The Only Living Boy in New York
24. American Tune
25. My Little Town
26. Bridge Over Troubled Water
27. Cecilia
28. The Boxer
29. Leaves That Are Green
30. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
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10/26/04 |
