(Rock / Soft Rock / Folk Rock / Psychedelic) Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water {40th Anniversary Edition Columbia 2011} - 2011, MP3, 320 kbps

Bridge Over Troubled Water has sold over 25-million copies worldwide and was one of the biggest-selling albums of its decade, topping the charts world-wide including 33 weeks at #1 and six years in the chart in the UK alone. Perhaps the most delicately textured album to close out the 1960s from any major rock act, Bridge Over Troubled Water, at its most ambitious and bold, was a quietly reassuring album; at other times, it was personal yet soothing; and at other times still, it was just plain fun.
It was certainly their most musically ambitious, with "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "The Boxer" employing thundering drums and tasteful orchestration, and "Cecilia" marking one of Simon's first forays into world music rhythms. It also caught the confused, reflective tenor of the times better than almost any other popular release of 1970. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of this remarkable record, this is a brand new 2CD/DVD configuration. On the DVD is Songs Of America (originally broadcast on CBS, this TV special is comprised of footage of the 1969 tour. Songs of America has never before been commercially available since it’s 1969 broadcast which TV sponsors refused to endorse because of its distinct anti- Vietnam War message) and a brand new documentary about the making of Bridge Over Troubled Water, featuring new 2010 interviews with Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Roy Halee and more key principles involved with making of the album.

The massive commercial success of Bridge Over Troubled Water -- it topped the charts for ten weeks, won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, included four hit singles, and has sold more than five million copies in the U.S. -- tends to exaggerate its significance in the Simon & Garfunkel catalog. Actually, it's a step down from the masterpiece of Bookends, containing some filler, such as the comic if slight "Baby Driver" and the pleasant if inessential live cover of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love"; it also lacks the previous album's musical and thematic unity. Still, one is admittedly splitting hairs when talking about an album that contains such classics as the title song and "The Boxer," as well as such notable tunes as "Cecilia," "El Condor Pasa," and "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright." This is Simon & Garfunkel's most popular album because it legitimately spoke to its audience, and much of it continues to set standards in thoughtful pop music decades later. [The 40th Anniversary Edition of Bridge Over Troubled Water adds little in the way of music -- indeed, it strips away the two bonus tracks (“Feuilles-O” and an alternate “Bridge Over Trouble Water”) added to the 2001 remaster of the classic -- but there is a handsome booklet and an additional DVD that contains the CBS television special Songs of America, a documentary of Simon & Garfunkel’s 1969 tour never rebroadcast since its original airing, as well as a new documentary about the making of the album.]

Paul Simon — lead vocals, guitar
Art Garfunkel — lead vocals
Los Incas — Peruvian instruments
Joe Osborn — bass guitar
Larry Knechtel — piano
Fred Carter, Jr. — guitar
Hal Blaine — drums
Pete Drake — Steel guitar, Dobro
Jimmy Haskell and Ernie Freeman — strings
Bryan Beck - flute, saxophones, horn section