The Truth About S&G "Sounds Of Silence"

I'm sure they gave him a good tip too.

 

OK, so this guy doesn't know who played on the track and bizarrely thinks the Wednesday Morning 3am version was released by "Tom and Jerry." I suppose I should take everything else he says as gospel.

 

Can we just all agree that people need to stop calling it "Bridge Over Troubled Waters"?

 

Your posts remind me of the latter day historian syndrome, in particular, a memorable event years ago with a number of prominent WW2 veterans present. One of those 'know-it-all' fellows attending had to make sure everyone there understood that he, not the vets, knew the real facts. While the vets may have actually experienced events firsthand, he had read books, plus, his dad told him some stories.

S&G were a well known group and quite popular years before The Graduate and Monterey. They had several top charting hits and were ubiquitous on pop radio stations. Monterey pop did not break them, in fact, I gather that most of us alive then probably didn't even know about the event other than hearing about it. Radio was a daily staple, going to a theater to see a later released minor movie hardly trumped radio as far as exposure. You seem to be misinterpreting Clive Davis, not just S&G but many acts were 'breaking' in 1968-69 because thats what was happening across the board culturally. The arrival of FM radio, the rock festival era, rock album sales spiking upwards, the big growth of the home sound system industry...there were several catalysts at work all at once.

While you may personally prefer the stereo mixes, and thats fine, that has nothing to do with the history of mono and the industry phasing out of discrete mono mixes during 1968, the year Graduate was released. Incidentally that soundtrack was released in mono as well, although they are folds. Stereo was just coming into vogue. Most people I knew in the mid-60's had, like our home, a hi-fi console that had one speaker. I inherited it about 1968 or so when dad brought home a Zenith 'stereo' console. I think that was pretty typical.

 

I can't find any information on the April 5 sessions, Pizzarelli may have been on that.

 

I never noticed the album was plural- that's cool

 

The greatest theft in rock history? You have to be kidding. He was a staff person at columbia and credits were not the norm. Was he union? If so, he should be barking at the leadership for not getting credits during negotiations. Every swinging dick who breathes air on a movie set gets a credit. It's not because studios are nice. So if he got credit for SoS he would then be in the same conversations as Norman Smith, Geoff Emerick, etc? I doubt it

 

Mixing is a unique art and a talent, which is why these days they get credit. His day precedes that recognition which is his main (if not well articulated) observation. The mono mix of an electrified SOS broke S&G, no doubt about it. So his point is valid.

 

The mono mix hasn't been in regular rotation for at least 40 years, so there's that point.

Also, mixers today are usually working with 24 or more tracks as a source. That isn't to say nothing goes into a 4-track mix, but it is certainly more simple than a modern mix.

 

All may or or may not be true, and up for debate

What is not up for debate is that this mix engineer was not responsible for making SG stars and Paul Simon owes him zilch.

 

Although the Meehan article is not well written and factually incorrect in some respects ('Tom and Jerry' never recorded The Sound of Silence) i am prepared to credit his view that in 1966 the mono mix was the primary mix and that stereo was an afterthought. This can be read across to recollections of other people working in the industry during those years eg George Martin. The change to stereo as the primary medium would appear to have taken place sometime later, ie during 1967-68 , certainly after the mixing of Sgt Pepper in the UK so say late 1967, maybe slightly earlier in the US. I have never read a clear account of the preparation of the Parsley Sage album, ie as to which mix received the greater effort, although an excellent mono mix does exist.

What doesn't fly - see also the thread "Did the Beatles really prefer mono?' - is for people who prefer the stereo mix (a legitimate auditory response to the available mixes) to try and retrofit history to suit their preference. Mono ruled in 1966 and Meehan's comment adds to the contemporaneous evidence from the industry.

As stated above, for this reason mono mixes of Sounds of Silence and Parsley Sage would greatly enhance the S&G catalogue. Do we know that Paul Simon is actually opposed to the mono mixes per se, or just to any effort at all going into the S&G catalogue?

 

How about Roy Halee?

 

I'd turn that around and say that's 40 years of recognition based on the brilliant breakout hit that The Sound Of Silence was.

You self respecting Hoffmanites should all know that, 4 track or 48 track, mixing is an art. How often does Steve rail against touching original mixes? There's a reason for that.

This engineer is clearly not a very good writer, and I think his clumsy phrasing hurts his case. But he 's saying that all the fancy schmancy mastering goodies employed today were not needed in his mixes because of his personal tricks. Like Brian Wilson, he had an ear for getting a sound to pop out of AM mono radio - and a special little reference speaker to help make it happen.

The Sound Of Silence, together with Like A Rolling Stone, were groundbreaking singles that launched an entire genre, folk rock, and many new careers in the process. But LARS was cut live in the studio. SOS was a total Frankenstein cut and paste, bandaid after-the-fact concoction that neither Paul or Artie had any knowledge or participation in! Their career was basically launched without them! Don't you get how weird that is?

Everyone involved gets a gold star as far as I'm concerned. This guy just wants his. I'm with him.

 

A Simon & Garfukel MONO Box is absolutely NEEDED!

 

Boy...good thing that mix engineer showed up for work that day or S&G would be cab drivers

 

Post of the year candidate!

 

That is not what Clive said in his book. What he said is that an S&G soundtrack to The Graduate would push them to the next level of stardom and in fact made them superstars. He never claimed that The Graduate soundtrack 'broke' them.

This is far from correct. PSR&T - their 3rd album - was released in October '66. Their first album (Wednesday Morning, 3AM) was re-released after the success of their single "The Sound of Silence" and their second album SoS in January '66. Neither PSR&T or SoS could be considered a FLOP by any standard. PSR&T reached #4 in the US Billboard charts in '66, a full year before The Graduate movie was released in December of '67.

 

I agree with your second sentence.
Your first sentence is actually humorous, since it is you that has alleged all sorts of things about mono vs stereo, and S&G's popularity but when someone actually puts the facts about their hits in front of you, and those of us who actually were buying LPs during the 1960's know what we bought and what our friends bought, then you say it is up for debate.

Guess what? It IS true. Mono was the norm. S&G were popular before The Graduate. Some of us were there in the mid-1960's and were listening and buying. You, apparently were not.

 

I, too, am too young to remember when mono ruled but I 100% agree with you. My mother loved S&G but we only had the later 70's stereo pressings in my house. However, I now have copies of both the mono and stereo LPs and I prefer the mono mix of this LP by far - especially for the track Richard Corey. The stereo mix just seems to drag where the mono mix is so much more alive with the envy, anger, and urgency that fits the lyrics of this song.

 

Señor Hoffman?

 

Indeed, the Mono mixes should be available [not just youtubes]

 

That seems to ignore everything else in their career. And the fact that the original version was picking up airplay before the overdub session even happened. Yes, his mix was a big hit, but it's pretty doubtful that there was anything in particular about that mix that made it the hit.

Mixing 4-track is far more straightforward than mixing 48-track, art or not. And how often has Steve remixed things because he can?

He starts with "No sour grapes intended", but it's pretty clear that's what it's all about. He talks about stealing and cover-ups, but he presents no evidence of either, just that nobody has mentioned him. I guess he's mad because Roy Halee gets a shout-out in A Simple Desultory Philippic and he doesn't?

 

I hear now that Felix, the coffee runner, wants his props as well. Apparently, s&g refused to sing until they had their morning coffee. Felix feels he is as responsible for the breakout of S&G as anybody. " There would be no music to mix if they didn't sing". Felix, now 67, wants former coffee runners to petition the music labels to include them in album credits.

 

Well, somebody just needs to convince Artie & Paul that there is enough $$$MONEY$$$ in it to give it the green light.

 

"Strangely, the Columbia box #5029 that I initialed containing the mono tape and signed on that date, was replaced and the mono tapes and mono album that I mixed were nowhere to be found according to a source. They don’t exist."