Art Garfunkel has such amazingly beautiful voice that it's almost a curse - not unlike Joan Baez or Judy Collins (who also made albums full of artsy, lovely music) this can sometimes overshadows the material and songs, when everything sounds so pretty,lush and romantic that its actually almost too much. I listened "Down In The Willow Garden" several times until it dawned on me that its actually a murder song - Garfunkel croons it so gently and sweetly that you wouldn't even notice. The one exception is upbeat,happy Van Morrison's "I Shall Sing" that shows how album could turn out much more accessible and poppy if Garfunkel wanted so. It was deservedly a big hit, along with typical Garfunkel stately ballad "All I Know" that safely plays on "Bridge Over Troubled Water" sound. The rest of the album is more of the same - sweetly crooned by sensitive, urban intellectual who cleverly mixes Bach and traditional Haiti song, centuries old "Barbara Allen" and a Randy Newman's song completely stripped of any composer's irony and done as a straight ballad, making you wonder did he actually get the meaning of it at all.
It IS very pretty, romantic collection of music - as a expression of artist's taste and choice it definitely shows where Art Garfunkel was and what he had to say before industry turned him into just another ballad crooner. Perhaps this is the best thing he has ever done as solo artist - if occasionally it sounds overcooked and too soft in its loveliness, well what else did you expect from a guy who was vocal centerpiece of legendary soft-rock duo? Compared to the rest of his discography this definitely stands head & shoulders above everything else.
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