Here’s a story that will raise your spirits on a dark November morning: Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon have apparently met up for the first time in years and, by the sounds of it, rekindled their friendship.
The pair have been estranged for over a decade, but in an interview with The Sun, Garfunkel mentioned that he recently met up with Simon for lunch. He didn’t mention what had brought them together, but the outcome sounded positive. “It was very, very warm and wonderful,” he said. “There were tears. I was crying at a certain point because I felt that I had hurt him.”
He added that “there were hugs” and that he was still “cherishing this two-week-old memory of having lunch” with his old buddy
He was asked if they had discussed their creative partnership and massive success they achieved in the late 60s, but according to Garfunkel they didn’t. That speaks for itself,” he said, before adding
“I like to think I’m a man who has a lot of love. I love everyone. I can’t imagine holding a position of dislike and clinging to it. It’s all meant to be resolved so we can die easy.”
Simon and Garfunkel have had a long and often turbulent friendship that goes back to the 1950s. The duo split up in 1970 after their huge selling Bridge Over Troubled Water album, but there were occasional reunions in the decades thereafter. In 2010 they were set to go on another of these when Garfunkel started to suffer vocal issues, which led to the tour’s cancellation. When these issues were resolved, Simon then announced he wasn’t up for the tour, which led to a complete breakdown of relations between the pair.
In the time since Simon has retired from touring and has had problems in recent years with hearing loss. Despite this, he is still working and released a new album, Seven Psalms in 2023.
Meanwhile Art Garfunkel turned 83 yesterday and is set to release a new album with his son Art Junior later this week. Father And Son is a covers set that features versions of Blue Moon, The Beatles’ Blackbird and Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time.
And Art Junior, in an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year suggested that it still wasn’t too late for his dad and Simon to reunite onstage once more: “I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said. “I think my dad and Paul will always be best friends. There is a lot of love. They are in touch. Things are going in a good direction, and I think that the possibility is there.”
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