Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel gave the world something that has never been fully recognized, I think. Now, I enjoy folk music and several of its most recognizable proponents, but I cannot deny the inherent sanctimony of a lot of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan’s most famous tunes. Sure, these were protest songs, and the subjective “us versus them” attitude was an obvious tack, but over time, some of these songs lost luster. Some lost it because of modern cynicism: “Yes, you’re outraged over this Tower of Babel. Where were you when it was being built? Is singing about it all you can do now?” Others lost it because of an overbearing quaintness, hymns to Ralph Waldo Emerson that smacked of being so out of touch, they might as well be alien transmissions.

So when Simon & Garfunkel burst on the scene, they freed up the voice and acoustic guitar from the tyranny of the right-minded (or the left, thinking politically). Their songs could be political, but they could also be nonsensical, traditional, and deep in their hearts they were always pop stars like their heroes the Everly Brothers; when they approached thorny material, Paul Simon did so as a writer, Art Garfunkel as a choir singer. When the duo was matched with a crack staff of Columbia’s studio musicians, the mass psychosis that plagued Dylan’s efforts in going electric didn’t affect the pair. Their saving grace was not simplicity but subtlety.

This all comes through on Live 1969, a collection of recordings from a tour concurrent with their finishing Bridge Over Troubled Water that year. They were on the verge of an acrimonious breakup that would result in years of sniping, famously documented in a “reunion” on the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975. Fortunately, that subsurface nastiness is nowhere to be found here. Instead, the focus is hard set on the songs of two voices and often one guitar. You couldn’t get more traditional folk than that. And when they are backed up by other musicians, it’s never superfluous. The clearest example is when Garfunkel takes the stage, backed only by piano, to perform “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Just as poignant is “The Sound of Silence,” the song originally intended for the stark folk treatment, then later filled in with studio musicians to produce the rock tune we recognize today. In it’s rawest, live incarnation, nothing is lost because it was always there from the start. When Simon palm-mutes the strings and thumps out a beat while moving toward the end section, it becomes as epic as anything they’ve ever done. (more…)