Maps of Music

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966)

Where the lyrics of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme take you, and where it was really made.

The album's title comes from a traditional ballad that opens the record, and the duo's own album-making is what turned their rushed second release into a turning point.

Key places

Subway station in the lyric of 'A Poem on the Underground Wall' (1966)

In the lyrics Record Plant Studios — The song is set in a subway station, where a man creates graffiti on a sign. The source does not name an exact station, so the point is marked only at city level. Google Maps · Apple Maps

Album story

Overview

• Third studio album by the American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel
• Produced by Bob Johnston; released 10 October 1966 in the US by Columbia Records
• Largely acoustic pieces, mostly written during Paul Simon's period in England in 1965
• Includes the Garfunkel-led 'For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her' and '7 O'Clock News/Silent Night'

Background

• Followed the success of the re-release of the debut single 'The Sound of Silence'
• Columbia had issued the rushed second album Sounds of Silence in the meantime
• The duo regrouped after a time apart before making this record
• Some songs were recycled from Simon's debut solo album The Paul Simon Songbook

Recording

• Duo was given four months to record and spent almost three months in the studio
• Simon insisted on total control in some aspects of recording for the first time
• First album the duo recorded on an eight-track recorder
• Vocal takes were overdubbed because of difficulty separating Simon's voice and guitar
• Bulk of the album recorded over one week in June 1966, with more dates in July and August

Cover

• Shot by photographer Bob Cato, showing the duo in a flower garden

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel met in school in Queens, New York City, in 1953, where they learned to harmonize.
• As teenagers they performed as Tom & Jerry; their 1957 single "Hey, Schoolgirl" sold more than 100,000 copies.
• They regrouped in 1963 and signed to Columbia Records as Simon & Garfunkel.
• Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964), sold poorly.

Members

• Paul Simon: singer-songwriter and guitarist.
• Art Garfunkel: singer, with occasional percussion.

Career

• "The Sound of Silence" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 after a rock remix in 1965.
• The Graduate (1967) and Bookends (1968) made them the biggest rock duo in the world.
• Bridge over Troubled Water (1970), their final studio album, became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
• They split in 1970 and reunited several times, including the 1981 Central Park concert attended by more than 500,000 people.
• They won seven Grammy Awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
• They have sold more than 100 million records.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Bruce Eder of AllMusic called it the duo's 'first masterpiece'
• Eder said the album's youthful exuberance and alienation stayed popular with high-school and college audiences across generations
• Andy Fyfe of BBC Music wrote in 2009 that the record carried a sense of timelessness
• Fyfe said the record reflected the social upheaval of the mid-60s and played a substantial part in folk rock's evolution
• Disc jockey and author Pete Fornatale wrote that few others had come close to the album's intelligence, beauty, variety, creativity, and craftsmanship

Reappraisal

• Many critics consider it a breakthrough in recording for the duo, and one of their best efforts
• Andrew Gilbert, in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, called it their first great album
• Gilbert pointed to a sense of impending doom and Simon's insistence on emotional connection as reasons for its lasting appeal

Records

• Peaked at number four on the Billboard Pop Album Chart
• Certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999
• Rolling Stone placed it at number 201 on its 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and at number 202 in the 2012 revised list

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The title comes from the lyric of the opening traditional ballad 'Scarborough Fair', which the duo arranged with Canticle
• Studio time raised the budget to an unusual cost for albums of the time, around $30,000 by Simon's estimate
• Columbia executives took notice of the longer production time
• Garfunkel considered the recording of 'Scarborough Fair' the moment the duo stepped into the role of producer, since they stayed beside Roy Halee while he mixed the track
• Martin Carthy, who had first introduced Simon to 'Scarborough Fair' in England, was never credited

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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