Simon and Garfunkel: The Biography

Like a smartly written fanzine that has been expanded to book length, Kingston's biography of Simon and Garfunkel seems interested mostly in how the stars have related to each other, even in the years since the duo broke up in the wake of the release of Bridge over Troubled Water, their creative and commercial apex. Kingston's irresistible thesis is that Simon and Garfunkel, the phenomenally successful and achingly short-lived pop sensation, is merely one aspect of the lifelong friendship shared between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, kids from Queens who grew up as neighbors and remain close to this day. Not surprisingly (because Kingston is British), the most intriguing passages deal with Simon's lean and hungry solo days in England, after the duo first incarnated as Tom and Jerry and before ""The Sound of Silence"" shot them to stardom. Kingston spoke to people Simon stayed with and performed for in England on his ""tour of one-night stands"" that he immortalized in ""Homeward Bound,"" and these folk reveal the aspiring American singer-songwriter as a serious businessman, convinced of his eventual success. Garfunkel wrote a letter to Kingston describing his early days with Simon; passages taken from this letter provide compelling insights, as well. As the story progresses, Kingston relies more heavily on less-privileged sources of information, like Rolling Stone, for her analysis, but this distancing doesn't really matter, for it's the very public music of the duo that drives her book. Kingston's bio is like one of Simon and Garfunkel's great singles--deceptively simple, devoid of pretense, extremely charming. 8 pages of b&w photos. (May)