Art Garkunkel - Breakaway


From Break Out to Breakaway. I'm somewhat astonished that people feel the need to point out that the cover of Art Garfunkel's second solo album is a staged photograph. 'Cause you know, i was under the impression that that's just how he rolls and a random guy in a bar with a camera said "say deadpan," gave the polaroid to Art as a fan pic, but instead of signing it and getting back to the Art life he asked "can i use this as the cover of my next album?" 

I might have been known to apologize to the Legion of Garf a time or two, but tonight we're just gonna let him speak his mind. Wikipedia tells me this is unadulterated Soft Rock, this is his best selling album, a random dude at Allmusic implied that one Art Garfunkel vocal take is basically the same as any other, but you can ignore that because the songs and arrangements are good. I say as long as you don't sound as much like Petula Clark as Petula Clark does you're doing ok. Plus, none of the lyrics were written by James Seals, so we don't have to worry about that. That's the bar Garf, jump into it (a Pointer Sisters reference? How totally strange and out of nowhere that is...). 

Nah, this is great. The only thing i don't like about the first couple tracks is the doubled vocals. They don't sound good. I also can't neglect to mention that i hear my friend Steven Stark singing. He doesn't do Art's warbling and stuff, but the timbre and pronunciation is crazy identical. Steve Crapper plays electric guitar on the title track. I don't know if anyone told him you can call yourself whatever you want to in the album credits, or maybe they did and he replied "Nope, I'm a Crapper, born and raised, and damned proud of it!" Waters of March is quirky and out of nowhere, i love it. Yeah, for at least side A, i was right. He doesn't sound like Petula Clark or James Seals. I'm good. Quite lovely. I need to take a break to see how horribly complicated this new above-ground pool we bought will be to set up. Hopefully we'll get to Side B before tomorrow... 


... ok pool is slowly filling. Hello, Paul Simon. Morbid fact, Laurie Bird (on his left) ODed on valium in Art's apartment 4 years later. Regardless of the fact that i'm going to wash it down with an album that has a chrome plated skull on the cover, this is quite an enjoyable album. What else could you call it but Soft Rock, i guess, but in this case it's fine. Yeah, i like it. Good stuff.


Oh, wow, crazy, the actual invoice from Columbia House is inside. $8.78 back in Feb. '79. Neato.

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