The most successful folk-rock duo of the 1960s, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel crafted a series of memorable hit albums and singles featuring their choirboy harmonies, ringing acoustic and electric guitars, and Simon's acute, finely wrought songwriting. The pair always inhabited the more polished end of the folk-rock spectrum and was sometimes criticized for a certain collegiate sterility. Many also feel that Simon, as both a singer and songwriter, didn't truly blossom until he began his own hugely successful solo career in the 1970s. But the best of S&G's work can stand among Simon's best material, and the duo did progress musically over the course of their five albums, moving from basic folk-rock productions into Latin rhythms and gospel-influenced arrangements that foreshadowed Simon's eclecticism on his solo albums.
Simon & Garfunkel's recording history actually predated their first mid-'60s hit by almost a decade. Childhood friends while growing up together in Forest Hills, NY, they began making records in 1957, performing (and often writing their own material) in something of a juvenile Everly Brothers style. Calling themselves Tom & Jerry, their first single, "Hey Schoolgirl," actually made the Top 50, but a series of follow-ups went nowhere. The duo split up, and Simon continued to struggle to make it in the music business as a songwriter and occasional performer, sometimes using the names of Jerry Landis or Tico & the Triumphs.
By the early '60s, both Simon and Garfunkel were coming under the influence of folk music. When they reteamed, it was as a folk duo, though Simon's pop roots would serve the act well in their material's synthesis of folk and pop influences. Signing to Columbia, they recorded an initially unsuccessful acoustic debut (as Simon & Garfunkel, not Tom & Jerry) in 1964, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM They again went their separate ways, Simon moving to England, where he played the folk circuit and recorded an obscure solo album.The Simon & Garfunkel story might have ended there, except for a brainstorm of their producer, Tom Wilson (who also produced several of Bob Dylan's early albums). Folk-rock was taking off in 1965, and Wilson, who had helped Dylan electrify his sound, took the strongest track from S&G's debut, "The Sound of Silence," and embellished it with electric guitars, bass, and drums. It got to number one in early 1966, giving the duo the impetus to reunite and make a serious go at a recording career, Simon returning from the U.K. to the U.S. In 1966 and 1967, they were regular visitors to the pop charts with some of the best folk-rock of the era, including "Homeward Bound," "I Am a Rock," and "A Hazy Shade of Winter."
Simon & Garfunkel's early albums were erratic, but they steadily improved as Simon sharpened his songwriting, and as the duo became more comfortable and adventurous in the studio. Their execution was so clean and tasteful that it cost them some hipness points during the psychedelic era, which was a bit silly. They were far from the raunchiest thing going, but managed to pull off the nifty feat of appealing to varying segments of the pop and rock audience -- and various age groups, not just limited to adolescents -- without compromising their music. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (late 1966) was their first really consistent album; Bookends (1968), which actually blended previously released singles with some new material, reflected their growing maturity. One of its songs, "Mrs. Robinson," became one of the biggest singles of the late '60s after it was prominently featured in one of the best films of the period, The Graduate (which also had other Simon & Garfunkel songs on the soundtrack).It was unsurprising, in retrospect, that the duo's partnership began to weaken in the late '60s. They had known each other most of their lives, and been performing together for over a decade. Simon began to feel constrained by the limits of working with the same collaborator; Garfunkel, who wrote virtually none of the material, felt overshadowed by the songwriting talents of Simon, though Garfunkel's high tenor was crucial to their appeal. They started to record some of their contributions separately in the studio, and barely played live at all in 1969, as Garfunkel began to pursue an acting career.
Their final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, was an enormous hit, topping the charts for ten weeks, and containing four hit singles (the title track, "The Boxer," "Cecilia," and "El Condor Pasa"). It was certainly their most musically ambitious, with "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "The Boxer" employing thundering drums and tasteful orchestration, and "Cecilia" marking one of Simon's first forays into South American rhythms. It also caught the confused, reflective tenor of the times better than almost any other popular release of 1970.That would be their last album of new material. Although they didn't necessarily intend to break up at the time, the break from recording eventually became permanent; as Simon began a solo career that brought him as much success as the S&G outings, and Garfunkel pursued simultaneous acting and recording careers. They did reunite in 1975 for a Top Ten single, "My Little Town," and periodically performed together since without ever coming close to generating albums of new material. A 1981 concert in New York's Central Park attracted half a million fans, and was commemorated with a live album; they also toured in the early '80s, but a planned studio album was canceled due to artistic differences.
Decision: Among the most popular duos of all time, and Paul Simon is considered one of the most influential songwriters ever. HOFers....
Cher
Cherilyn Sarkisian was born in California in 1946; she was 17 when she first met Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, a songwriter and protégé of producer Phil Spector. Sonny brought her to Spector, who used her as a backup singer and produced one single by her, a novelty Beatles tribute record called "Ringo I Love You" issued under the name Bonnie Jo Mason. It disappeared without a trace, but the couple were undaunted -- they emerged as a duo, initially called Caesar & Cleo, later that year, and cut "The Letter," "Do You Wanna Dance" and "Love Is Strange."
Caesar & Cleo didn't trouble the chart compilers with any degree of success, but late in 1964, Cher(then known as Cherilyn) was signed to Liberty Records' Imperial imprint, and Sonny came along as producer. A Spector-ish version of "Dream Baby" managed to get airplay in Los Angeles, becoming a local hit, and they suspected they were onto something. That same month, Sonny & Cher, as they were now known, signed to Reprise Records and released their first single, "Baby Don't Go." The song became a major local hit in Los Angeles, after which the duo jumped from Reprise to the Atco label, a division of Atlantic Records. In April 1965 their first single, "Just You" was released and rose to number 20 on the charts. The duo was on its way, and Cher also had Imperial Records after her for a second single. The couple had seen the Byrds pioneer commercial folk-rock with Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," and had witnessed them performing another Dylan number, "All I Really Want to Do" at a club in Los Angeles. The group intended to issue their own recording of "All I Really Want to Do," but Cher, with Sonny producing, beat them to the punch with her own recording of the song.
She pursued a dual career for the next two years, cutting solo recordings under Sonny's guidance that regularly charted, and duets with her husband for Atco. A month after "All I Really Want to Do," they released "I Got You Babe," which was one of the biggest-selling and most beloved pop/rock hits of the mid-'60s, and the couple's signature tune across two eras of success. Cher's solo career ended up slightly overshadowed by her work with Sonny & Cher, but at the time she was fully competitive on her own terms -- her first LP reached the Billboard Top 20 and was on the albums charts for six months. "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" was another hit, a million-seller that made number three in America and England, and she made the Top Ten once more with her 1967 single "You Better Sit Down Kids." The latter song, written by Sonny (and which was also a hit for Glen Campbell), dealt with divorce, an unusual subject for a 1960s pop record, and was one of a series of releases on which Cher's music broached difficult areas -- others were "I Feel Something's in the Air," which dealt with unwanted pregnancy, and "Mama (When My Dollies Have Babies.)"
Cher's solo career at Imperial, which had created some political problems for the couple at Atlantic, ended with the lapsing of her contract in 1967, and she moved to Atlantic. Ironically, it was this move that contributed the unhappy reversal of the couple's fortunes at the end of the decade.
By the end of the 1960s, Sonny & Cher were no longer selling records. A series of commercial missteps, coupled with a change in public taste, had sharply curtailed their sales, and a pair of movies (Good Times, Chastity) had lost millions. Additionally, they were no longer recording for Atlantic -- though they were still under contract to them -- owing to the label's decision to take Cher's solo recordings out of Sonny's hands and assign a new producer to her.
Coupled with the presentation of a bill from the Internal Revenue Service for $200,000 in back taxes, these events left the couple in dire financial straights at the end of the 1960s. They were forced to play club dates, opening for artists like Pat Boone, and it was there that their second career, and a second career for Cher, took shape. A new contract with Decca Records in 1971, coupled with a chance at a summer replacement gig on the CBS television network, brought them a second chance at success.
The try-out on television was a success, as the couple proved to be as funny as they were musically diverse. It took a little longer to find a new formula for Cher's music -- her initial single on Decca's Kapp label, "Classified 1A," was a failure; a serious song dealing with a girl's feelings for a boyfriend killed in Vietnam; it was topical in all the wrong ways to become a pop chart success. Producer Snuff Garrett was recruited to work with her, and he found a series of songs that were perfect for Cher's maturing talent.
"Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves," a conscious attempt to emulate Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" (which also recalled Cher's own "Bang Bang") was released late in 1971 and became a number one hit and a million-seller. To some listeners, "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" was the epitome of schlocky pop/rock, but the song's subject matter, unusual tempo changes, and an incredibly memorable chorus-hook became a vehicle for a transcendent performance by the singer, marking Cher's maturation as an artist (the B-side, "I Hate to Sleep Alone," written by Peggy Clinger of the Clinger Sisters, curiously enough, managed to recall Sonny's Spector-influenced productions from the Imperial years). A follow-up album, featuring her covers of contemporary hits such as "Fire and Rain," sold well also, and her next single, "The Way of Love," a revival of a mid-'60s Kathy Kirby hit, solidified the image of a new, more confident and powerful Cher. And the debut of the couple's regular network variety series on CBS in January 1972 brought them back to the center of American and international popular culture in a more mature, wittier guise, and one that concentrated much more on Cher as a personality.
Her 1960s music ran the gamut from Spector-style miniature teen-pop symphonies to covers of contemporary adult pop ("It's Not Unusual") and folk-rock. Her voice wasn't very rich or powerful, but it was expressive and surrounded by Sonny's radiant Spector creations, and she could put over an almost inappropriately cheerful sounding version of "The Bells of Rhymney" or "Blowin' in the Wind." By contrast, her early- 1970s material, solo or with Sonny, had a more adult point of view and personality. "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" and the later number one solo hits "Half-Breed" and "Dark Lady" were dramatic, highly intense performances, almost as much "acted" as sung, and very different from her 1960s output.
In 1974, it was revealed that the couple's marriage was coming to an end. Ironically, Cher came out of this split more secure than her husband, despite his having guided her career for a decade and having all of the real training in the entertainment business. She embarked on an acting career, even as she continued to make headlines for her romantic exploits, including an affair with (and two marriages to) Gregg Allman. She became a far better actress than she was a singer, first revealed in Mike Nichols' Silkwood (1983) and then in Peter Bogdanovich's Mask (1985) and George Miller's The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Her acting peers caught on to the worth of her work in time for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Norman Jewison's 1987 romantic comedy Moonstruck.
Since the mid-'70s, Cher has been known more for her acting than for her music, although she has continued to record for numerous labels, including Columbia, and in 1998 scored an international chart-topping smash with the club-friendly single "Believe." She is, by Garrett's analysis, more of a stylist than a singer, and almost as much a personality as an actress, almost a modern-day Helen Morgan(Showboat, etc.) with better luck in life and career.
Decision: With an unbelievable 48 year recording career, 5 #1's, and four successful comebacks, she has become an icon, and a Pop Music HOFer.....
Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits were one of those odd 1960's groups that accumulated millions of fans, but precious little respect. Indeed, their status is remarkably similar to that of the Monkees and it's not a coincidence that both groups' music was intended to appeal to younger teenagers. The difference is that as early as 1976, the Monkees began to be considered cool by people who really knew music; it has taken 35 years for Herman's Hermits to begin receiving higher regard for their work. Of course, that lack of respect had no relevance to their success: 20 singles lofted into the Top 40 in England and America between 1964 and 1970, 16 of them in the Top 20, and most of those Top Ten as well. Artistically, they were rated far lower than the Hollies, the Searchers, or Gerry & the Pacemakers, but commercially, the Hermits were only a couple of rungs below the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
The magnitude of their success seemed highly improbable, based on their modest beginnings. Guitarist/singer Keith Hopwood (born October 26, 1946), bassist/singer Karl Green (born July 31, 1947), guitarist/singer Derek "Lek" Leckenby (born May 14, 1945), and drummer Barry Whitwam (born July 21, 1946) were among the younger musicians on the Manchester band scene in 1963, when they started playing together as the Heartbeats. The city was home to many dozens of promising bands, most notable among them the Hollies, the Mockingbirds, and Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders. Later that year, the Heartbeats got a new member in 16-year-old Peter Noone (born November 5, 1947), who filled in one night when their regular vocalist failed to turn up for a gig. Noone was already a veteran actor, trained at the Manchester School of Music and Drama; he had been a child star on television in the late '50s, on the television series Coronation Street, but he also had musical aspirations. As a vocalist with the Heartbeats, he initially worked under the name Peter Novak. The quintet followed the same path that any other struggling band did, playing shows at youth clubs and local dances, hoping to get noticed, and they picked up a pair of managers, Harvey Lisberg and Charlie Silverman.
Accounts vary as to the origins of the name they ultimately adopted -- some say that their managers remarked on the facial resemblance between Noone and the character of Sherman in the Jay Ward cartoon show "Mr. Peabody & Sherman"; others credit Karl Green with mentioning it. In any case, "Sherman" became "Herman" and the group, in search of a more distinct name, became Herman & His Hermits and then Herman's Hermits. They played a pleasing, melodic brand of rock & roll, mostly standards of the late '50s and early '60s, with Noone's attractive vocals at the fore. Their big break came in 1964 when producer Mickie Most was invited by Lisberg and Silverman to a show in Manchester. He was impressed with their wholesome, clean-cut image, and with Noone's singing and pleasant, non-threatening stage presence, and he agreed to produce them, arranging a recording contract for the group with the EMI-Columbia label in England; their American releases were licensed to MGM Records.
Herman's Hermits' debut single, a Carole King/Gerry Goffin song called "I'm Into Something Good," released in the summer of 1964, hit number one in England and number 13 in America. Ironically, considering the direction of many of their future releases, the group displayed anything but an English sound on "I'm Into Something Good." Instead, it had a transatlantic feel, smooth and easy-going with a kind of vaguely identifiable California sound.
Of course, that statement assumed that the group had much to do with the record -- as it turned out, they didn't. In a manner typical of the majority of the acts that Most produced, the Hermits didn't play on most of their own records; Mickie Most, as was typical of producers in the era before the Beatles' emergence, saw no reason to make a less-than-perfect record, or spend expensive studio time working with a band to perfect its sound -- as long as Peter Noone's voice was on the record and the backing wasn't something that the group absolutely couldn't reproduce on stage, everyone seemed happy, including the fans. Conversely, the group didn't have too much control over the choice of material that they recorded or released. On their singles in particular, "Herman's Hermits" were mostly Peter Noone's vocals in front of whatever session musicians Most had engaged, which included such future luminaries as Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, with the other members relegated to background vocals, if that.
The group was grateful for the hit records that they chalked up, the revenue that those generated, and the gigs that resulted. They charted six Top 20 hits each in the years 1965 and 1966 and were a major attraction in concert, usually in a package tour situation, with the Hermits at or near the very top of whatever bill they were on. Their records were smooth, pleasant pop/rock, roughly the British invasion equivalent of easy listening, which set them apart from most of the rival acts of the period. Their cover ofSam Cooke's "Wonderful World" (which reached number four in America) and remake of the Rays' 1950s hit "Silhouettes" were good representations of the group's releases; on their EPs and early LPs, they also threw in covers of old rock & roll numbers like Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise." They were purveyors of romantic pop/rock just at a time when the Beatles were starting to become influenced by Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Who were redefining the British beat sound with higher volume, greater complexity, and harder sounds.
Most recognized that those acts were leaving behind a huge number of listeners who would still buy songs resembling simple, relatively innocent sounds of 1964 or even earlier. Just how far back he and the group could reach was revealed to them by accident, following the release of Introducing Herman's Hermits on MGM Records in the United States during 1965, coinciding with their first U.S. tour. An American disc jockey heard the song "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" on that album and convinced the label to issue it as a single. The song had been done almost as a joke by the group, its guitar/banjo sound and Noone's vocal performance -- Mancunian accented and laced with a vulnerable, wide-eyed innocence -- deliberately reminiscent ofGeorge Formby, the immensely popular ukelele-strumming British music hall entertainer of the 1930s and 1940s. In England, that record would never have been considered for release by an image-conscious rock & roll group; the parents and grandparents of their audience would have loved it, but it would also have destroyed their credibility. In America, however, it was considered just another piece of British Invasion pop/rock and a pleasant, innocuous, and eminently hummable one at that -- and it shot to number one on the charts, earning a gold record in the process. It seemed to slot in with Americans' image of England's past in a comfortable, cheerful way, evoking a kind of "theme park" cockney image that easily adjoined the contemporary vision of "Swinging London." In the end, "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" sold 14 million copies around the world, making their first film appearance (in the movie When the Boys Meet the Girls), which came off of that same U.S. tour, seem almost an after-thought. In England, however, "Mrs. Brown" was never issued as a single.
After that, a formula was established. Mickie Most got the group to record more songs in the same vein, including the actual Edwardian-era music hall number "I'm Henry VIII, I Am," specifically for release as singles in America. The latter record reportedly made the group members cringe over what it would do to their image in England, but in America it hit number one and chalked up yet another gold record award. Amid all of this American chart action with novelty tunes and albums that easily rose into the Top 30 in the U.S.A., the group's British releases were a whole other story. The Hermits continued to issue current romantic pop/rock, which sold well and kept up their image as a respectable if somewhat soft rock group. At the same time, their British album sales were virtually negligible, only their debut LP ever charting (at number 16). This was unfortunate, as the British version of their second album, Both Sides of Herman's Hermits, was a perfectly respectable pop/rock LP with some very hard, loud sounds (and one "period" standard, "Leaning on a Lamp Post"), mostly solid Brit-beat numbers like "Little Boy Sad," "Story of My Life," and "My Reservation's Been Confirmed," as well as a stripped-down, straight-ahead version of Graham Gouldman's "Bus Stop." That album and its 1967 follow-ups, There's a Kind of Hush All Over the World and Blaze (which never even came out in England), were excellent representations of the full range of the group's sound, including hard rock, psychedelia, and pop/rock, featuring very respectable originals written by Green, Hopwood, and Leckenby.While their record sales remained healthy in America well into 1966, their British singles gradually slackened in sales until the group recorded Graham Gouldman's "No Milk Today," which put them back in the U.K. Top 10; in America, the same song was also a hit paired off with "Dandy," a poppish cover ofthe Kinks song. The group made their second film appearance, this time in a starring role in the comedy Hold On! (1966), which mixed Herman's Hermits in a story about space flight. By the end of that year, however, the stage was set for the gradual decline in the group's fortunes, even in America. Producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, in conjunction with NBC and Columbia Pictures Television, had devised a television series that touched upon a formula for success very similar to what Mickie Most had found with Herman's Hermits: the Monkees -- all about a fun-loving pop/rock group created specifically for the series.
The program debuted in late 1966 and by that winter, the Monkees were selling millions of singles and LPs to the very same young teen audience that Herman's Hermits had cultivated. The presence of English actor/singer Davy Jones in their lineup, as the principal vocalist on their records and the romantic heartthrob of the group, only heightened the resemblance between the two acts. By 1967, Davy Jones and the Monkees were selling millions of copies of "Daydream Believer," a song that surely would have gone to the Hermits had it been written at any time earlier.
"There's a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)," a bright, upbeat pop number, put the Hermits back at number seven in England and number four in America; but an attempt at latching on to the folk-rock and psychedelic booms with a recording of Donovan's song "Museum" never charted in England and reached only number 37 in America before disappearing. They made the American Top 20 just once more with "Don't Go Out Into the Rain," after which everyone seemed to recognize the inevitable. The group made one more feature film, entitled Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter -- the song, which had rocketed them to fame in America, served the group one last time, yielding a movie about dog racing that gave Noone a lead acting role and which was a decent box office success in 1968.
During this period, Noone co-produced a good LP for songwriter/singer Graham Gouldman (with whom he later went into partnership) that never sold well, despite some very interesting sounds. The Hermits, as a group, hewed closer to the pop market after "Museum" and enjoyed another two years worth of hits in England before Peter Noone decided to leave in 1970. The group soldiered on for another three years, cutting singles for RCA in America that were duly ignored and Noone returned briefly to the fold in 1973 to capitalize on the rock & roll revival boom and made an appearance hosting NBC's The Midnight Special, in an installment devoted to the sounds of the British Invasion, that became one of the most collectable shows in that program's run. Thereafter, Noone tried re-entering the rock & roll arena fronting a new band, the Tremblers, in 1980, without much success. He fared much better on stage in The Pirates of Penzance on London's West End, which was a huge hit in the mid-'80s. Both he and the latter-day Herman's Hermits have turned up on the oldies circuit at different times, usually working in the context of a revival of the British Invasion sound. Derek Leckerby passed away in 1994 at the age of 48, but drummer Barry Whitwam was leading a group of Herman's Hermits at the opening of the 21st century. Noone has resumed performing regularly and also became a star VJ on MTV's VH1 channel. In the year 2000, Repertoire Records began the long-overdue exhumation of Herman's Hermits album catalog, issuing state-of-the-art CD editions with bonus tracks that show off the full range of the group's music. Just as Rhino Records had previously done with the Monkees catalog, it seems like Herman's Hermits may finally be getting the recognition they deserved.
Decision: Maybe not as well-remembered as many other British-Invasion bands, but they had amazing success from 1965-1967, with 11 top 10 singles in those 3 years. Enough to qualify for the Pop HOF...
Next: 1966 Nominees: Neil Diamond, The Monkees & Tommy James & The Shondells
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