Simon & Garfunkel: The Biography

Rating:
Summary: Oh, where to begin...
Review: I really had high hopes for this book. So little substantive is available on the career of Simon & Garfunkle. Unfortunately, this childish, fawning tome is almost a waste of time.

It's so hard to determine what the author had in mind. Certainly not the music of this duo. She spends more time on a plot synopsis of an Art Garfunkle movie than she does IN TOTAL on the creative process of the duo's groundbreaking albums. How they made their records, how the songs were created, life on the road - very little on their art is discussed. That seems not to be important to this amateur author.

Since she had such access to Garfunkle, that must be why the focus is on Artie-minutia (and then she should have called it that!). But if one wants insight into the actual career of this duo, to learn about their music, their muse and their legend...look elsewhere. Lord knows where that is...

Rating:
Summary: Fun to read, but Kingston needs an editor
Review: I'm a huge fan of S&G, and this book is very respectful and lots of fun to read. But . . . Kingston (the author) goes through every song on every album and explains what it's about--that uses up about 25 pages in the book. Us fans already know the songs, when she rehashes them it comes off as trite. Also, there are a good many typos and mistakes. She lists Madison Square Garden as being in Pennsylvania (it's in New York) and cites newspaper "The Detroit Times," a paper that went out of business in the 1950's I think. There's a missing word here and there. Also, she's English, and there one or two things she said in the book and I wasn't quite sure what she was talking about. Also, she rehashes interviews published in Rolling Stone and other magazines. Why not just give us the gist of the article. Instead, she gives us verbatim quotes. That uses up about another 25 pages.

It's a fast read, and a fun one, but the book isn't perfect. A good editor could have straightened this book out.

Rating:
Summary: Dropped the ball
Review: There are too many factual errors and fan-mag platitudes here to make this an authoritative biography or analysis. Too bad, since the subjects are such interesting people with such interesting careers. Look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Oh, where to begin...
Review: Victoria Kingston's engaging and informative biography of one of America's most popular duets is a seminal history of the Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel collaboration. Victoria Kingson has created a biographical work of painstaking attention to detail and accuracy. Candid, comprehensive, insightful and poignant, Simon & Garfunkel: The Biography is a "must read" for all Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel fans, and a very highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library music history and biography collections.