Acclaimed singer and author ART GARFUNKEL will embark on a national book tour in support of the September 26 release of his new memoir, What Is It All But Luminous: Notes From An Underground Man (Alfred A. Knopf). Garfunkel will be speaking at book stores across the country about the new book, which (all meticulously written in his own handwriting) covers his upbringing in Queens, NY, life as half of the Diamond-selling Simon & Garfunkel, his solo career and his beloved wife and two sons.

 

Garfunkel is also busy with his In Close-Up touring show, having performed over 40 concerts so far in 2017, with six U.S. shows left, plus a seven-date run through Japan set for November (all book tour and concert dates below).  Garfunkel also has several U.S. dates booked well into 2018.

 

In What Is It All But Luminous, Art writes about his life before, during, and after Simon & Garfunkel...about their folk-rock music in the roiling age that embraced and was defined by their groundbreaking sound. He writes about growing up in the 1940s and '50s (son of a traveling salesman), a middle class Jewish boy, living in a red brick semi-attached house in Kew Gardens, Queens, a kid who was different-from the age of five feeling his vocal cords "vibrating with the love of sound"...meeting Paul Simon in school, the funny guy who made Art laugh; their going on to junior high school together, of being 12 at the birth of rock 'n roll, both of them "captured" by it; going to a recording studio in Manhattan to make a demo of their song, "Hey Schoolgirl" (for $7!) and the actual record (with Paul's father on bass) going to #40 on the national charts, selling 150,000 copies.  He writes about their becoming Simon & Garfunkel, taking the world by storm. Touring; reading or walking to calm down (walking across two continents-the USA and Europe). He writes of being an actor working with directors Nicolas Roeg (Bad Timing) and Mike Nichols ("the greatest of them all")...getting his masters in mathematics at Columbia; choosing music over a PhD; his slow unfolding split with Paul and its aftermath; learning to perform on his own, giving a thousand concerts worldwide, his voice going south (a stiffening of one vocal cord) and working to get it back...about being a husband, a father and much more.

 

In an exclusive excerpt in BILLBOARD magazine, Art talks about being captivated and inspired by the early rock disk jockeys of the 1950's: "I was captured. So was Paul. We followed WINS radio. Paul bought a guitar. We used my father's wire tape recorder, then Paul's Webcor tape machine. Holding rehearsals in our basements, we were little perfectionists. We put sound on sound (stacking two layers of our singing). With the courage to listen and cringe about how not right it was yet, we began to record."  You can read the full excerpt here.

 

Book tour dates

 

Mon, 9/25/17	Doylestown, PA	Doylestown Books at Lenape Middle School
Tue, 9/26/17	New York, NY	Barnes & Noble
Wed, 9/27/17	Cambridge, MA	Brattle Theater
Thur, 9/28/17	New York, NY	92nd Street Y with Barnes & Noble.
Mon, 10/2/17	Washington, DC	Politics & Prose at St. Paul's Church.
Wed, 10/4/17	Dallas, TX	Highland Park Public Library
Fri, 10/6/17	St. Louis, MO	Friends of the St. Louis County Library Foundation Author Series
Mon, 10/9/17	Seattle, WA	Seattle Theatre Group with Elliott Bay Bookstore at the Neptune Theatre
Wed, 10/11/17	San Francisco, CA		Commonwealth Club at the Castro Theater
Fri, 10/13/17	Los Angeles, CA		Scripps Institute @ Grand Performances
Sun, 10/15/17	Miami, FL		Books & Books at Chapman Conference Center, Miami Dade College

Mon 9/11	Chicago, IL	City Winery
Tues 9/12	Chicago, IL	City Winery

Thur 10/26	Boston, MA	City Winery
Fri 10/27	Boston, MA	City Winery
Sat 10/28	Woonsocket, RI	Stadium Theater PAC

Mon, 11/6	Sapporo, JPN	Shi Kyoiku Bunka Kaikan
Wed, 11/8	Morioka, JPN	Kyra Hall
Fri, 11/10	Sendai, JPN	Tohoku Gakuen Kawauchi Hagi Hall
Mon, 11/13	Hiroshima, JPN	Aster Plaza Hall
Tues, 11/14	Osaka, JPN	Archaic Hall
Thur, 11/16	Tokyo, JPN	Orchard Hall
Fri, 11/17	Tokyo, JPN	Orchard Hall