Legacy RecordingsSimon & Garfunkel‘s classic fifth and final studio album, Bridge over Troubled Water, hit stores 50 years ago this Sunday. In celebration of the anniversary, a new digital EP featuring previously unreleased live versions of four songs from the record has been made available exclusively via streaming services.
Live at Carnegie Hall 1969 features performances from a two-night stand the folk-rock duo played at the famous New York City venue in November 1969. The songs on the EP are renditions of the album’s enduring title track, as well as “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright,” “The Boxer,” and “Song for the Asking.”
Bridge over Troubled Water the album spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, while the title song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks. The record also yielded three other top-20 hits — “Cecilia,” “The Boxer” and “El Condor Pasa (If I Could),” which peaked at #4, #7 and #18, respectively.
In addition, the album and its title track garnered Simon & Garfunkel six Grammy Awards in 1971, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
Bridge over Troubled Water was Simon & Garfunkel’s most diverse collection of tunes, featuring elements of roots rock, pop, folk, gospel, South American music, Caribbean music and jazz.
The album has sold more than eight million copies in the U.S. alone. Meanwhile, “Bridge over Troubled Water” the song has been covered by artists including Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Aretha’s version won a 1972 Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
Unfortunately, tensions between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel led to the duo’s breakup after they completed a tour in support of the album in 1971, but Bridge over Troubled Water remains among their crowning achievements.
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