Iconic singer ART GARFUNKEL has announced a nine-show tour of Finland, Denmark, Germany and Holland, running November 24 through December 7. He also continues to add dates to his in-progress U.S. performances, which kicked off last month in southern California and continued this weekend (full itinerary below).
For his In Close-Up tour dates, Art brings along a guitarist and keyboardist, performing Simon & Garfunkel songs, solo hits, select covers, as well as reading excerpts from his autobiography What Is It All But Luminous: Notes From An Underground Man. He recently told Nashville Scene, "I don't look at it as a tour. I just look at it as: 'This is what I do.' I go out on the road and I do shows, usually on the weekend. Are they tours? They're mini-tours. This is my life. I sing; I have a booking agent; he finds me stages; and I go all over the world and I do my shows. I love it. And you do these famous songs, you earn your pay and move on to the next town - I like this."
Of his recent sold-out Costa Mesa, CA show, the Los Angeles Times said, "Garfunkel sang not with the same beauty but with a satisfying richness and poignancy of character...and it was an intimate affair, just Garfunkel, accompanied by two musicians (Tab Laven on guitar and Paul Beard on keyboard), with entr'acte singing (and occasional harmonies) from Garfunkel's son Arthur Jr... Garfunkel is a bard in the strolling troubadour manner. The music business today confounds him. (He riffed on his reaction to a publicist trying to convince him to tweet.) But from his earliest days making grown men cry with his singing in synagogues in Queens, N.Y., he knew he was born to perform. Pretty melodies are irresistible to him, and he revels in following his independent bliss."
Last year, the paperback version of his acclaimed autobiography What Is It All But Luminous: Notes From An Underground Man (Vintage Books) was issued. First published in hardcover in 2017 by Alfred A. Knopf (available everywhere books are sold), the Huffington Post praised the book as "charming and poetic." Of his very personal and unique memoir, friend James Taylor said, "Art Garfunkel has seen it all. He has surveyed it from the heights and lived it at street level. He has walked the world. A deeply thoughtful man whose voice has made an indelible mark on his time, he is a friend and a colleague for half of my life and is still a mystery. He opens his mind to us in this delightful diary. I wish you the joy of it."
In What Is It All But Luminous, Art writes about his life before, during, and after Simon & Garfunkel...about their folk-rock music in the roiling age that embraced and was defined by their groundbreaking sound. He writes about growing up in the 1940s and '50s (son of a traveling salesman), a middle class boy, living in a red brick semi-attached house in Kew Gardens, Queens, a kid who was different-from the age of five feeling his vocal cords "vibrating with the love of sound"...meeting Paul Simon in school, the funny guy who made Art laugh; their going on to junior high school together, of being 12 at the birth of rock 'n roll, both of them "captured" by it; going to Manhattan to make a demo of their song, "Hey Schoolgirl" (for $7!) and the actual record (with Paul's father on bass) going to #40 on the national charts, selling 150,000 copies. He writes about their becoming Simon & Garfunkel, taking the world by storm. Touring; reading or walking to calm it down (walking across two continents-the USA and Europe). He writes of being an actor working with directors Nicolas Roeg (Bad Timing) and Mike Nichols ("the greatest of them all")...getting his masters in mathematics at Columbia; choosing music over a PhD; his slow unfolding split with Paul and its aftermath; learning to perform on his own, giving a thousand concerts worldwide, the loss of his voice in 2010 and a full recovery. Art is a lover, a husband to Kathryn (Kim) and father to sons Arthur Jr. (29) and Beau (14).
Fri 2/7 |
Vienna, VA |
Wolf Trap SOLD OUT |
Sat 2/8 |
Vienna, VA |
Wolf Trap SOLD OUT |
Sun 2/9 |
Vienna, VA |
Wolf Trap SOLD OUT |
Tues 2/11 |
Rocky Mount, VA |
Harvester Performance Center SOLD OUT |
Fri 2/14 |
Easton, MD |
Avalon Theatre SOLD OUT |
Sat 2/15 |
Easton, MD |
Avalon Theatre SOLD OUT |
Sun 2/16 |
Easton, MD |
Avalon Theatre SOLD OUT |
Tues 3/10 |
Melbourne, FL |
King Center For The Arts |
Thurs 3/12 |
Coral Springs, FL |
Center For The Arts |
Sat 3/14 |
Clearwater, FL |
Capitol Theater |
Sun 3/15 |
Ocala, FL |
Reilly Arts Center |
Wed 4/1 |
Depart Miami, FL |
On The Blue Cruise |
Wed 4/8 |
Return to Miami |
|
Sat 4/18 |
Ridgefield, CT |
Playhouse |
Sun 4/19 |
Red Bank, NJ |
Count Basie Theater |
Tues 5/19 |
Milwaukee, WI |
Pabst Theater |
Thurs 5/21 |
Green Bay, WI |
Meyer Theatre |
Fri 5/22 |
Wausau, WI |
Grand Theater |
Thur 11/26 |
Copenhagen, DEN |
Falkoner Theater |
Fri 11/27 |
Vejle, DEN |
Musikteater |
Sun 11/29 |
Berlin, GER |
Admiralspalast |
Tues 12/1 |
Amsterdam, HOL |
Carre Theatre |
Wed 12/2 |
Dusseldorf, GER |
Mitsubishi Electric Hall |
Fri 12/4 |
Stuttgart, GER |
Liederhalle |
Sun 12/6 |
Nurnburg, GER |
Mesitersingerhalle |
Mon 12/7 |
Erfurt, GER |
Messehalle |