Arthur Ira Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941 in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City) is an American singer-songwriter and actor of Romanian Jewish ancestry, best known as half of the Grammy Award winning folk duo Simon and Garfunkel.
Garfunkel attended Forest Hills High School.
He met his future singing partner, Paul Simon, in the sixth grade. Between 1956 and 1962, the two had performed together as Tom & Jerry. Garfunkel ("Tom Graph") chose his nickname because he liked to track, or "graph" hits, on the pop charts. Garfunkel attended Columbia University in the early 1960s, where he sang with the Kingsmen, an all-male a cappella group (not to be confused with The Kingsmen of "Louie Louie" fame) and was a Brother in the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. In 1962, Garfunkel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in art history, followed by a Master's degree in mathematics.
In 1963 he and Simon reformed their duo under their own names as "Simon and Garfunkel" and released their first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. on Columbia Records in October 1964. It was not a critical success, and the duo subsequently split again. The next year, producer Tom Wilson lifted the song "The Sound of Silence" from the record, dubbed an electric backing onto it, and released it as a single that went to #1 on the Billboard pop charts. Simon and Garfunkel reunited and went on to become two of the most popular artists of the 1960s, releasing five studio albums. Citing personal differences and divergence in career interests, they split following the release of their most critically acclaimed album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, in 1970.
Art Garfunkel (center) with his band after the show at Liseberg fairground on June 4, 1998
After attending Leicester University in the 1970s, Garfunkel released several solo albums. He scored hits with "I Only Have Eyes For You." (a 1934 song written by Harry Warren) and "Bright Eyes" (both British #1 hit singles), and "All I Know" (#9 in the United States). A version of "Bright Eyes" also appeared in the movie (based on the famous novel) Watership Down. Garfunkel briefly reunited with Paul Simon in the 1975 hit "My Little Town". During this time, he also starred in major motion pictures Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge (1971).
Following disappointing sales of his 1981 album Scissors Cut, Garfunkel reunited with Simon for The Concert in Central Park and a world tour. They had disagreements during the tour, and Simon excluded Garfunkel's voice from a new album, initially slated to be a Simon and Garfunkel album, but released as a Simon solo album (Hearts and Bones). Garfunkel then left the music scene until his 1988 album, Lefty and later 1993's Up 'til Now, neither of which received significant critical or commercial success. His live 1996 concert Across America, recorded at the registry hall on Ellis Island features musical guests James Taylor, Garfunkel's wife, Kim, and his son James.
Garfunkel performed the theme song for the 1991 television series, Brooklyn Bridge, and "The Ballad of Buster Baxter" for a 1998 episode of the children's educational television seriesArthur, where he was depicted as a singing/narrator moose. Garfunkel's performance of Monty Python member Eric Idle's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was used in the end credits of the 1997 film As Good as It Gets.
In 2003, Garfunkel made his debut as a songwriter on his Everything Waits to Be Noticed album. Teaming up with singer-songwriters Maia Sharp and Buddy Mondlock, the album contained several songs whose origins were poems written by Garfunkel. The album is recognized as his first effort at songwriting since his teenage years with Tom & Jerry.
In 2003, Simon and Garfunkel reunited again for a successful world tour that extended into 2004. In 2005, his song "Sometimes When I'm Dreaming" from The Art Garfunkel Album (1984) (written by Mike Batt) was re-recorded by ex-ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog on her album My Colouring Book.
In 2006, Garfunkel signed with Rhino Records (revived Atco Records), and his first Rhino/Atco album Some Enchanted Evening was released in America on January 30, 2007. In late February 2007 during a German television interview to promote the new album, he expressed interest in reuniting with Paul Simon on a new Simon and Garfunkel album.
Garfunkel is an avid reader, and his website contains a year-by-year listing of every book he has read since 1968. Currently the list contains more than 1,000 books.
Garfunkel has undertaken several cross-continental walks in his lifetime, writing poetry along the way. In the early 1980s, he walked across Japan in a matter of weeks. From 1983 to 1997, Garfunkel walked across America, taking 40 excursions to complete the route from New York City to the Pacific coast of Washington. In May 1998, Garfunkel began an incremented walk across Europe.
Garfunkel has been arrested twice for the possession of cannabis: in early 2004 and again in August 2005.
Garfunkel is the brother of Jerome Garfunkel, the former editor of the specification for the COBOL programming language.
Garfunkel is the younger brother of Jules B. Garfunkel who was a financial consultant who died on September 17, 2006 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Garfunkel is a first cousin of boy-band mogul and convicted felon Lou Pearlman who grew up idolizing Art's success. Garfunkel, as well as other members of his family, eventually filed suit against Pearlman due to his unsavory business practices.
See Simon and Garfunkel discography for joint works with Paul Simon.
