The Truth About S&G "Sounds Of Silence"

It is a somewhat interesting story but its impact is completely undone by (as Stokes pointed out earlier):

"...this terrible crime of theft of credits and secrets that made you and Art international stars..."

"...one of the biggest thefts in recording history..."

All credibility goes out the window.

 

And the album in question was released in january of 1966, so thanks for helping to prove my point!

 

Nonsense. S&G "broke" after the songs were included in the film, The Graduate, and they performed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Give it a rest. I've got the Columbia
original pre-recorded tapes and LPs, so stop.

If you read Clive Davis's book, he without hesitation The Graduate broke them. Which, btw, used the stereo mixes.

 

Mono records were sold to kids with cheap record players by 66, with stereo being sold mostly to adults with more disposable income. That is easy to see on Billboard's Stereo only charts from the early sixties. Lawrence Welk made top ten on that chart regularly.

 

I'm trying to but every statement you make makes less and less sense. As the article in question in this thread states S&G Sounds of Silence was a #1 hit in 1966. So maybe they hadn't "broke" in your opinion until 1967. But the rest of the world considers a #1 hit a big deal. You are discrediting the original mono engineer's (so he claims) claim that the mono mix of Sounds of Silence was relevant, and have provided nothing at all to prove that point.

So I will back off when you retract your idiotic statement, that the mono mix is irrelevant. No one disagrees mono sales were higher than stereo in early 1966. And no one disagrees that the mono mix would've been played on AM radio at the time. So how can you continue to state that the article's claims (if true) and consequently the mono mix itself is irrelevant?

And you've actually heard them in mono and still prefer the stereo? I politely disagree.

 

It doesn't matter what had "taken over." What matters is which mix is the best.

 

that is a different debate.

 

I prefer stereo, but mono often is amazing. And stereo mixes quite often sucked big rocks. Stereo was often mixed as a novelty, or designed for those huge floor model stereos like my Dad's. I didn't get a stereo record player until around 1970.

 

The notion that S&G didn't become well-known until The Graduate is one of the stupidest things I've ever read -- it would be about on the level of saying The Beatles were completely unknown until A Hard Day's Night hit the theaters. Seriously, if Clive Davis now claims that, my guess it that he helped make the licensing deal, and is now using "selective memory" to claim a greater share of the credit for himself.

 

I have both the mono and stereo. No comparison for me. If anyone is being idiotic is it you, using Google as your authority.

I am not discrediting anything. I think everyone here knows it was a stretch that the original mono mix was some genius thing that without, they would have
tanked.

 

This may be nitpicky, but it drives me crazy:

The song is "The Sound of Silence". The album is "The Sounds of Silence".

 

Yeah, they had TWO huge albums before Bookends(Silence and Parsley, Sage), as well as the "hardcore" fan album Wednesday Morning 3AM.

 

He was there, were you? They had successful singles at that point, but no album sales. After The Graduate their albums sold like crazy.

 

Inedible revisionist history. Their first album was A FLOP. That is why they re-released it in 66. Their second album, came out in OCTOBER 66, months before the Graduate was released.

Bookends came out AFTER the Graduate.

 

For the pop/rock audience, singles had been the norm, but around '66/'67, that started to change and rapidly. I was there.

 

The creation of an electrified Sound Of Silence is an act of near-genius. A band playing around an acoustic track with iffy timing? What a chore. And the mono mix band sounds of OS and Somewhere are dense and heavy. If the author mixed these he should get accolades, they are groundbreaking.

 

Sorry I didn't have time this morning to go to my local library and search through encyclopedias and old newspapers. Usually I reserve that kind of research for topics more near and dear to me than 1966 album sales.

"Released in January 1966, Sounds Of Silence, Simon & Garunkel's second album..."

Is the first line on the back of the 2001 Columbia CD. So there primary source!

 

I never eat history.
I base it on the fact that many of my friends had the albums. Yeah 3AM was a flop on release
But Sounds was number 21 and PSR&T went to number 4

 

Mono ruled through the mid-'60s because of AM radio -- that's where most people heard new music in those days. By the late '60s, FM radio began to make stereo the new standard format.

 

Meehan makes a lot out of a little.

 

This may be nitpicky, but it drives me crazy.

The song is "The Sound of Silence." The album is "Sounds of Silence." =p

 

Touche

 

This was the most interesting part to me:

"They were Simon and Garfunkel’s original Tom and Jerry tapes of Sounds of Silence and Somewhere with Bobby Gregg’s drums and some guitars added by Vinnie Bell and Bucky Pizzarelli"

Which of the guitarists played on Sounds of Silence? It will make my day if that was by personal guitar hero Bucky Pizzarelli.

 

Says Vinnie Bell and Al Gorgoni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Silence
Another source says:

http://archive.today/4FvIk
"Somewhere" was recorded on April 5 along with "We've Got A Groovy Thing"

 

I always remember what blues legend Mojo Flopcock said about this album..."I'd have preferred silence!".