Bookends is the fourth studio album by American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Produced by Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel and Roy Halee, the album was released on April 3, 1968, in the United States by Columbia Records. The duo had risen to fame two years prior with the albums Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and the soundtrack album for the 1967 film The Graduate.
Bookends was recorded at Columbia's Studio B at the CBS Studio Building in Manhattan.
Paul Simon, the album's primary songwriter, seen here in 1966.
The original release of Bookends included this poster, which Columbia chairman Clive Davis used to justify increasing the price of the LP.
Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. One of the best-selling music acts of the 1960s, their most famous recordings include three US number ones: "The Sound of Silence" (1965) and the two Record of the Year Grammy winners "Mrs. Robinson" (1968) and "Bridge over Troubled Water" (1970). Other hits include "The Boxer" (1969), "Cecilia" (1970) and the four 1966 releases "Homeward Bound", "I Am a Rock", "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" and "A Hazy Shade of Winter", as well as the 1968 album track "America".
Art Garfunkel (left) and Paul Simon performing in Dublin, 1982
1957 publicity photo of Simon & Garfunkel as Tom & Jerry
Simon & Garfunkel at Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands, in 1966
The group performing in the Netherlands in 1982