Mulling over 60 years of media interviews — he appeared on American Bandstand with Paul Simon before even having a driver’s license, Art Garfunkel mentioned up front that amid all the queries about music and his former sidekick and his whirlwind life, writers sadly never ask about the philosophical side of life.
So you take the bait from a guy who is a voracious reader, an inquisitive seeker, and, oh, just one of the most legendary vocalists in pop-rock music history. He brings his latest, 90-minute, stripped-down, guitar-only concert to the new Brown County Music Center on Sept. 12.
“I always think about ‘What is this all?’” he said, speaking by phone from his New York City office. “I know it’s a wonder to be alive. But, what’s next after that? And what are we about? What’s the point of anything? Unfortunately, as soon as you get there with your questions, people want to run away.”
How can you run from a guy who has spent his life ethereally and beautifully singing of the meaning and symbolism wrapped in tunes such as “The Sound of Silence,” “Scarborough Fair” and “The Boxer”?
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He acknowledged that, at 77, advancing age has nudged him to ask these ultimate-meaning questions perhaps more pointedly and more courageously these days (“I certainly feel mortality … and that still infuses my songs and my shows”). And he has long said that the mere act of public singing requires bravery.
And now he is brave enough to lay out his unique tenor pipes nearly a capella, just a few short years after overcoming a two-year layoff from vocal paresis that he feared would steal his career and identity. Such a move to offer his voice as nearly the only stage instrument is daringly different than many other aging rock vocalists dressing their golden-years concerts in a bevy of backup singers and an army of instrumentalists to cover any weakness of unreachable notes.
“Don’t ask any tough questions,” he said with a laugh.
Skip the age-old tough one: Whether another reunion is possible with Simon, whom he last toured with in 2004. He would like it, but has said frequently in recent chats that such a thing probably will not happen again. But he said he is thrilled to still sing the material he and Simon made the soundtrack of the 1960s.
Garfunkel remains ever the in-the-moment analyst, too, as he often has been with media. When asked how on earth his voice remains so strong, especially on the globally famous tunes originally done as a duo, he paused and shifted aloud into that very mode.
“Now, where is he going with this, Artie?” he asked himself, suppressing a laugh but thinking the topic is purely about age. “Watch out for the interviewer. Be very careful here.”
One known for such a unique voice hardly is careful by continuing to travel nationwide and allowing a sometimes-insensitive public to compare the 1960s Garfunkel to the singer of today. Listen to concert segments from this calendar year alone and note that some of his most powerful, hauntingly beautiful moments unfold when he speaks of learning to sing in the Main Street Synagogue in Queens — when he realized he had “a bird in his throat,” as he put it at one show — just before he launched into an a capella Hebrew prayer from his childhood.
One suddenly can understand how, years ago, during his walk across Europe, he stopped and sang before a field of cattle in the country — and suddenly the farm animals came running to the fence to listen.
“All those stories that I share (in concerts) are true,” he said.
In this local show, he will share stories and one-minute, between-songs readings from his meandering, smorgasbord-style 2017 book “What Is It All But Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man,” to be released in paperback in October.
“Paul (Simon) won the writer’s royalties,” he writes in one part. “I got the girls.”
The book also includes the exhaustive, chronological list of nearly 2,000 books he read over nearly 50 years, detailing such widely varied fare as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” to E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Gray.”
There are little shades of gray in his relationship with technology, however.
He has long acknowledged little use for a computer, and never has had one. But he does finally use a Blackberry for email. However, he still owns no cell phone, which he considers simply a personal preference.
“There is a real world out there,” he said. “I worry that too many people are spending a lot of time looking into their lap. For example, I love trees myself. I walked across two continents. I look up when I do it. And I see things like wonderful arcades of trees in Toulouse, France. That’s quite a far distance from merely looking at a computer.”
He stopped and chuckled at himself.
“I guess I’m just a misfit,” he said.
He saves some of his most important notations, from observations to prose poetry, for a small notebook normally tucked into his back pocket. Many of those notations are what shaped his book.
Much of what shaped him is family, and he specifically offered a salute to his dad.
“I am my father’s son,” he said.
His father worked as a traveling salesman of coats. Maybe today the son is traveling salesman, too, allowing his customers of sorts to wrap themselves in another kind of warmth — his signature sound of yesterday.
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Who: Pop-rock singer Art Garfunkel, formerly a member of Simon and Garfunkel and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall Fame, singing everything from the duo’s biggest hits to his own material and more. He also will include brief readings from his 2017 book during the planned, 90-minute show.
When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 12.
Where: The new, 2,000-seat Brown County Music Center, 200 Maple Leaf Boulevard in Nashville.
Tickets: $25 to $45.
Information: 812-988-5323 or browncounty.com/bcmc/
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