walking upstream…
Simon & Garfunkel
photo: eddie mallin · cc by-sa 2.0 ↗Simon & Garfunkel
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel grew up as Queens schoolboys harmonizing in imitation of the Everly Brothers, first charting as teenagers under the name Tom & Jerry before reuniting in the early 1960s as Simon & Garfunkel. Simon's increasingly literary, folk-inflected songwriting wrapped around Garfunkel's pure tenor produced a run of era-defining albums — Sounds of Silence, Bookends, Bridge Over Troubled Water — that fused close vocal harmony with the introspective unease of the folk-rock generation. They split at the height of their fame in 1970, reuniting only sporadically after, but their sound remained a fixed reference point for harmony-driven singer-songwriters that followed.
the sound in question
1968
Mrs. RobinsonSimon & Garfunkel
walk the tributaries ↓
The Everly Brothers1950s · Rock and roll / Country / Pop
As teenagers calling themselves Tom & Jerry, Simon and Garfunkel modeled their entire vocal approach on the Everly Brothers, trying to reconstruct the two-part blend of 'Hey Doll Baby' from memory when they wrote their own debut single, 'Hey Schoolgirl'; decades later Simon said there 'wouldn't have been a Simon & Garfunkel without the Everly Brothers.'
listen: upstream & heresource: Britannica ↗
1957
Bye Bye LoveThe Everly Brothers
1970
Bye Bye LoveSimon & Garfunkel
listen forListen for how the Everlys' two voices lock into one tight, high harmony line, moving as a single instrument rather than trading lead and backup — that's the exact blend Simon and Garfunkel spent their career refining, down to reviving the Everlys' own breakout hit note-for-note, audience clapalong included, on their final studio album.
Bob Dylan1960s · Folk / Folk rock / Rock
Simon has flatly said 'The Sound of Silence' wouldn't have been written if it weren't for Dylan — hearing Dylan's topical, image-driven songwriting on the Greenwich Village folk circuit pushed Simon away from simple pop lyrics and toward the allusive, socially uneasy voice that became his signature.
listen: upstream & here
1963
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna FallBob Dylan
1965
The Sound of SilenceSimon & Garfunkel
listen forDylan's stark strummed guitar and flood of apocalyptic imagery on 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' set the template Simon answers with his own quieter, more compressed vision of urban isolation on 'The Sound of Silence' — both songs trade a conventional melody for a kind of prophecy, a lone voice warning a world that isn't listening.
Swan Silvertones1950s · Gospel / Jubilee quartet
Simon has said he was consumed by gospel-quartet records, and according to gospel historian Anthony Heilbut, he sat up one night in early 1969 listening on repeat to a Swan Silvertones album; Claude Jeter's ad-libbed line 'I'll be your bridge over deep water, if you trust in my name' on their 'Mary Don't You Weep' became, almost verbatim, the title and hook of Simon's own 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' — a debt Simon later acknowledged in person, handing Jeter a check.
listen: upstream & heresource: CBS News — Paul Simon on the Swan Silvertones/Claude Jeter origin of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' ↗
1959
Mary Don't You WeepSwan Silvertones
1970
Bridge Over Troubled WaterSimon & Garfunkel
listen forJeter's soaring, unaccompanied falsetto floats the 'bridge over deep water' line over the group's hushed harmony — the same image and the same vocal ache Garfunkel reaches for on the piano-and-strings build of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water,' Jeter's a cappella quartet traded for a solo voice rising over Larry Knechtel's gospel-styled piano.