Modern Art: Maturing Garfunkel focuses on tour and family

Kirk Baird

Friday, May 3, 2002 | 10:27 a.m.

Who: Art Garfunkel.

When: 8 p.m. today, through Sunday.

Where: The Orleans Showroom.

Tickets: $44, $55, $66.

Information: 365-7075.

When asking Art Garfunkel about his relationship with Paul Simon, you might as well be asking the singer, "So, how's the ex?"

Forming the most successful folk-rock duo of the '60s, until they broke up in 1970, Simon and Garfunkel were the perfect couple whom fans never wanted to break up.

And today all fans want to know is when they are reuniting.

It's sad to say, but don't look for a Simon and Garfunkel reunion anytime soon. The two former best friends from sixth grade have grown "distant these days," Garfunkel acknowledged.

"In the last few years I don't see very much of (Simon)," Garfunkel said in a recent interview from a hotel room in Sandusky, Ohio. "He's busy raising his family and me, mine."

Regardless of the status of their friendship, Garfunkel said, the two will always be fans of each others' work.

"We remain impressed with each other all through life. He's been to me a very musically fascinating cat, with a great sense of humor and an interesting mind and vice versa," he said. "We're both very strong audiences for each other, so we bring out good stuff."

And, more importantly to Garfunkel and his fans, the singer with the trademark tenor voice is in a good place with his own career.

The 60-year-old is on tour and performs today through Sunday at The Orleans.

Garfunkel also recently finished an album. Although it has no title, it is due to be released in the coming months. Garfunkel even co-wrote several of the CD's songs a first for him since his high-school years in a doo-wop group with Simon.

"(Writing songs was) very big for me," he said. "You have dreams of flying at night, it's such a fantastic inner breakthrough. There's something wonderful about it."

As for the motivation to try and write again, Garfunkel credits record producer Billy Mann, "a very savvy studio guy who's kind of a brilliant psychologist with me."

"(Mann) envisioned me and my sound with these other two people (singer-songwriters Buddy Mondlock and Maia Sharp), and he brought us together in Nashville," Garfunkel said.

"He said, 'I think you're a songwriter even though you haven't written a song since your teenage life. I think I can get the songs out of you because I know how literary you are.'

"And he was absolutely right. It took me a while to trust him, and when I did, we met in Nashville and we were off and running."

As liberating as writing his own material has been, Garfunkel said he harbors no regrets over not penning his own material during his career.

"I never think that way, I never regret what I did," he said. "I don't look back at the past and look to replay it."

Except, of course, when it comes to performing. The singer recognizes that his work with Simon remains as popular today as when it was released -- perhaps more so, with many Simon and Garfunkel fans not yet born when the duo were performing.

"My career is a lot about all that great fortune in the '60s, me and Paul, creating those records and having them catch on way beyond our wildest expectations," Garfunkel said.

But his career has been more than "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Sounds of Silence," "Mrs. Robinson," "I Am a Rock" and the many other Simon and Garfunkel classics.

The singer charted his solo career in the '70s with the albums "Angel Clare" and "Breakaway," his most successful record with the hit singles "I Only Have Eyes For You" and "My Little Town," which also featured Simon.

Garfunkel also has had a brief but successful movie career, starring in director Mike Nichols' "Catch 22" in 1970 and "Carnal Knowledge" in 1971, which also starred Ann-Margret, Jack Nicholson and Candice Bergen.

But now Garfunkel is concentrating on his family -- his wife, actress-singer Kim Cermak, and son James, 10 -- and touring. For years the singer said he dreaded performing, suffering from fear and nervousness onstage.

"But only in the '90s did I take to the stage and develop a show and learn how to talk to the audience and not be nervous," he said.

"You finally get to the point where you go, 'It's not terribly crucial if it's right or wrong based on my design because wrong is very entertaining to people.' So you start thinking mistakes have a charm of their own and that people love that. I don't fill my show with mistakes but I no longer fear them.

"I'm somewhat new at this and am kind of coming into my prime as a live performer, is the way it feels. So, I (continue to tour) because I love it; otherwise, I'm lucky enough not to have to do whatever I don't love."