Friday, Nov. 7, 2003 | 8:42 a.m.
Emily Morris has heard the joke around the Fox 5 television studios for weeks.
Whenever this weekend's Simon & Garfunkel concert comes up in conversation, Morris gets it from one of her co-workers: "You better hope they don't break up."
But for Morris, and thousands of other fans of the duo, Saturday's concert at the MGM Grand Garden Arena is no laughing matter. Many have been waiting their entire lives for this show.
"As a kid I watched their special in Central Park on HBO, and I remember telling myself that if I was ever in a city near where they're playing, I'd go," Morris, a 29-year-old in the KVVU sales department, said. "So this has been a building dream for me.
"Since the tickets went on sale, I've been holding my breath, hoping they wouldn't get in a fight."
Morris' concern might seem ridiculous, but given the rocky history of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, she's probably not the only one with her fingers crossed as showtime approaches.
Since releasing their last studio album, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," in 1970, the pair have performed together only sporadically. In fact, the current "Old Friends" tour marks their first full-fledged excursion as Simon & Garfunkel since a short-lived 1983 reunion.
In the 33 years since the two officially split, it has become apparent that Simon & Garfunkel were more in tune in the studio than out of it. The two have publicly traded barbs, reportedly bickered before February's Grammy Awards show appearance and have passed on countless opportunities to reunite.
Yet Saturday night at 8, the two will stand side by side onstage, harmonizing on such classics as "The Boxer," "The Sound of Silence" and "Mrs. Robinson" as if it were still 1969.
"I'm ecstatic," Morris said. "I really didn't think I would ever see this." Michele Tell-Woodrow is another Las Vegan counting the minutes until Saturday's main event.
"You can't bring the Beatles back together, so this is the last concert. There's no one else I need to see," said Tell-Woodrow, owner of Preferred Public Relations and Marketing and a former MGM employee.
"This is a huge entertainment coup, not only for the MGM but for the entire city."
Tell-Woodrow plans to bring her mother, Rita Tell, to Saturday's show. That's fitting, since Tell-Woodrow's interest in Simon & Garfunkel dates back to her days listening to their albums on family trips to Southern California.
"My mom raised me on Simon & Garfunkel music," Tell-Woodrow, 36, said. "We vacationed in Laguna Beach every summer, and we listened to Simon & Garfunkel in the car every time. We had all their albums on 8-track."
By seventh grade, Tell-Woodrow was such a big fan of the duo that she wrote an essay for English class comparing Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock" to the Walt Whitman poem "Song of Myself."
"I feel like I'll be in the room with royalty," Tell-Woodrow said.
Rita Tell said she has always felt a certain closeness with the two musicians.
"They are just about my age," Tell, 60, said. "One was from Newark (N.J.), and the other was from Long Island (N.Y.) and I'm from New Jersey, so I really had a kinship.
"My husband, who passed away three years ago, took Michele to her first concert, and now she's taking me. So it's a special type of occasion for us."
Groundbreaking act
Simon & Garfunkel established their chapter in music's history book almost as soon as they began playing together as childhood friends in the mid-1950s.
From 1964 to 1970, the duo released five albums, two of which (1968's "Bookends" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water") reached No. 1. The pair also contributed songs to the 1968 soundtrack to "The Graduate," another chart-topping record.
Twelve Simon & Garfunkel songs climbed into the Top 10, and many more have become standards of the 1960s folk-rock movement, the subject of countless cover versions by other acts over the years. Just this summer, Clay Aiken rode his rendition of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" to a second-place finish on "American Idol."
Simon & Garfunkel's 1972 "Greatest Hits" compilation ranks as the best-selling album by a duo, ranking 33rd all-time overall.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted the duo in its fourth batch of performers, along with the Who, the Four Tops and others in 1987.
"Even at the time, I think people realized this was something different," said Tim Bonenfant, who teaches UNLV's History of Rock course. "It wasn't Fabian singing processed tunes. It was something worth checking out."
Bonenfant includes some of Simon & Garfunkel's music in his class, including two distinct versions of "The Sound of Silence."
One, from debut album "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.," is stripped down, featuring just the voices of Simon and Garfunkel and acoustic guitars.
The other, from 1966's "The Sounds of Silence," finds the duo backed by a full band, including drums.
For Bonenfant, it provides a clear example of Simon & Garfunkel's shift from pure folk music to something featuring aspects of rock 'n' roll.
"They were taking the idea of what (Bob) Dylan was doing and expanding on that," Bonenfant said. "It was amazing to me how much of the folk sound they were able to hold on to. They didn't turn into a rock band as much as the Byrds did."
Troubled waters?
"I don't think that Simon and Garfunkel as a live act compares to Simon and Garfunkel as a studio act."
Those words were spoken by Simon himself during a 1984 Playboy magazine interview, soon after 1983's Simon & Garfunkel reunion tour came to a halt.
By Simon's own admission, the duo worked best as a recording unit, even during their heyday.
Yet excitement about the project may be at an all-time high as the "Old Friends" tour reaches week No. 4.
"It's certainly the marquee tour of the fall," said Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of Pollstar, an industry publication and website specializing in tour information.
"We haven't started picking up specific box office reports yet, but it's selling well and evidence of that is that they keep adding shows. The general buzz on the tour has been quite good."
As of Wednesday, Saturday's Las Vegas show was nearly sold out, with about 1,000 of 13,500 tickets remaining. Ticket prices ranged from $75 to $250.
Bongiovanni said that, in part, the hype surrounding the Simon & Garfunkel reunion stems from the infrequency of the duo's public appearances.
"You can certainly make a case for pent-up demand, because very few people have seen Simon & Garfunkel live," Bongiovanni said. "Even in the old days, unless you lived in New York City, you probably didn't see them live."
Indeed, Simon & Garfunkel performed almost exclusively on the East Coast during the 1960s.
Their 1981 concert in Central Park marked their first major return to the stage, and it was followed by a set of dates in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Israel in 1982 and '83.
The duo played 21 sold-out shows at New York City's Paramount Theater in October 1993 and a handful of concerts in Japan later that year.
On their own
Those rare occurrences aside, Simon & Garfunkel have been dormant over the past three decades while both pursued solo careers.
Simon has flourished, with 1975's "Still Crazy After All These Years" and 1986's "Graceland" earning Grammy Album of the Year recognition.
Garfunkel has spent less time in the public eye, reaching the Top 20 with just one single since the 1970s (1988's "So Much in Love").
But Bongiovannni points out that even for Simon, the financial windfall from a Simon & Garfunkel tour might have been too much to ignore.
"They can do business on an exponentially greater level than either Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel can do individually," Bongiovanni said. "Paul Simon on his own would not be selling out arenas the way the Simon & Garfunkel tour is doing."
For diehard fans, though, the motives behind this year's long-awaited reunion are not important. All that matters is that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel will be together at last, playing the songs that ensured the two would be famous forever.
"I always felt the Eagles would regroup, I always felt that Fleetwood Mac would regroup, but I never thought Simon & Garfunkel would," Tell-Woodrow said.
"Never in my lifetime did I ever think I would see Simon & Garfunkel perform on the same stage."
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