This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog – which doesn't mean it isn't fraught with frustrations for anyone buying it…
This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog – which doesn't mean it isn't fraught with frustrations for anyone buying it. Its very existence is something of a fluke – in the spring of 1972, the five original Simon & Garfunkel albums, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water, were still selling almost as well as they had in the 1960s; indeed, Bridge Over Troubled Water had carved out a seemingly permanent place for itself on the charts for years; and between the continued radio play of the duo's biggest hits, and the inevitable discovery of their catalog by successive new waves of junior high and high school students, those five LPs stood among the most profitable parts of the Columbia Records back catalog, rivaling Bob Dylan's much larger library in sheer numbers.
The three-disc box set Collected Works contains all of Simon & Garfunkel's studio albums, from Wednesday Morning, 3 AM to Bridge Over Troubled Water. Though this is too much material for casual fans, any serious fan of Simon & Garfunkel or folk-rock will need to acquire the set, simply because it presents the albums in their best-ever sound…
Simon & Garfunkel's first masterpiece, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was also the first album on which the duo, in tandem with engineer Roy Halee, exerted total control from beginning to end, right down to the mixing, and it is an achievement akin to the Beatles' Revolver or the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, and just as personal and pointed as either of those records at their respective bests…
Simon & Garfunkel's first masterpiece, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was also the first album on which the duo, in tandem with engineer Roy Halee, exerted total control from beginning to end, right down to the mixing, and it is an achievement akin to the Beatles' Revolver or the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, and just as personal and pointed as either of those records at their respective bests. After the frantic rush to put together an LP in just three weeks that characterized the Sounds of Silence album early in 1966, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme came together over a longer gestation period of about three months, an uncommonly extended period of recording in those days, but it gave the duo a chance to develop and shape the songs the way they wanted them.
Simon & Garfunkel's first masterpiece, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was also the first album on which the duo, in tandem with engineer Roy Halee, exerted total control from beginning to end, right down to the mixing, and it is an achievement akin to the Beatles' Revolver or the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, and just as personal and pointed as either of those records at their respective bests. After the frantic rush to put together an LP in just three weeks that characterized the Sounds of Silence album early in 1966, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme came together over a longer gestation period of about three months, an uncommonly extended period of recording in those days, but it gave the duo a chance to develop and shape the songs the way they wanted them.
The most comprehensive Simon & Garfunkel library anthology ever assembled, The Complete Albums Collection includes the duo's five studio masterpieces (first released between 1964 and 1970), newly remastered from first generation analog sources, and first-time remasters of The Graduate (the groundbreaking motion picture soundtrack album released in 1968) and the long out-of-print The Concert in Central Park (recorded in 1981).
Simon & Garfunkel's first masterpiece, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was also the first album on which the duo, in tandem with engineer Roy Halee, exerted total control from beginning to end, right down to the mixing, and it is an achievement akin to the Beatles' Revolver or the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, and just as personal and pointed as either of those records at their respective bests. After the frantic rush to put together an LP in just three weeks that characterized the Sounds of Silence album early in 1966, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme came together over a longer gestation period of about three months, an uncommonly extended period of recording in those days, but it gave the duo a chance to develop and shape the songs the way they wanted them…
The sixties are looked at with misty eyed nostalgia by many who were there and many who wish they were. It was a time of great change, socially and culturally with the emergence of pop culture being taken as a serious contributor to the arts for the first time…