portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Thursday, October 11, 2018

So from yesterday's posting over at Behind The Grooves, Jeff Harris' wonderful blog (if a tad America-centric) comes this. . . . Now I didn't buy this when it came out but I think my brother did and through the folk club circuit we realised 'Homeward Bound' was written whilst sat on Widnes railway station (there was even a plaque!) and while Steve my brother found this exciting it made me angry
If ever there was a claim to fame for a place, it is written in a song where someone wishes they are almost anywhere else. A working class suburb of Liverpool, we lived there when I was about 5 or six before moving down south but it holds a special place in my memory, tough uncompromising and grim in certain aspects, I have visions of the back garden greensward that looked like a Monet painting! (sic) That it wasn't anything like that is now a given and that Simon sat on the little railway station in the urban sprawl outside Liverpool wishing he was on his way home rather than a solo tour of the folk clubs of Britain haunts me still . . . . . the rest of the album was mesmerising and astonishing vocally, listen to 'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme' and wonder at the purity of the voices . . . . . 

On this day in music history: October 10, 1966 - “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme”, the third album by Simon & Garfunkel is released. Produced by Bob Johnston, it is recorded at Columbia Studios in New York City from December 1965 - August 1966. Their first full album since breaking through with the revamped and remixed version of “The Sound Of Silence” in late 1965, many of the songs are written while Paul Simon is traveling through the UK by himself in the Fall of 1965. Several are re-recorded by the duo (including “I Am A Rock” and “Patterns”, and later “Kathy’s Song”) after Simon records his solo project “The Paul Simon Songbook”, not released in the US until 1981 on the box set “Collected Works” and reissued again on CD in 2004. The album is proceeded by the single “Homeward Bound” (#5 Pop), also written during Simon’s trip to England in 1965. The full length is met with critical and commercial success upon its release, and is widely regarded as one of Simon & Garfunkel’s best albums. It yields several classics including “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” (#11 Pop) (released as a single belatedly in 1968 when it is featured in “The Graduate”), “The Dangling Conversation” (#25 Pop) and “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)”. The album is remastered and reissued on CD in 2001 with two bonus tracks. An exhaustive search through Sony Music’s archives is conducted for the original first generation master tapes, which had been misfiled and lost for years. The classic title is also reissued on vinyl by Sundazed Records in 2008. “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme” peaks at number four on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified 3x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.
thanks Jeff . . . .

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