The Sound of Silence in Billboard Hot 100

How did the first hitsingle of Simon & Garfunkel 'behave' in the Billboard Hot 100? It entered the Hot 100 on the 21st of November on position 80 and moved upwards until January 1st of 1966 when it reached Nr. 1. But just for one week!
Then it went back to position 2 for the next two weeks. On January 21st it reached Nr. 1 once more. From then on it was 'down hill'........

BillBoard HOT 100
The Sound of Silence
Date Chart#
19651121 pos. 80
19651126 pos. 65
19651204 pos. 34
19651211 pos. 26
19651218 pos. 16
19651225 pos. 5
19660101 pos. 1
19660108 pos. 2
19660115 pos. 2
19660122 pos. 1
19660129 pos. 12
19660205 pos. 20

1965 Advertisements

I was able to find two Columbia ads to promote 'The sound of silence'. Also see that the title still has a 's' too much in 'sounds':


Published in Billboard of November 13th 1965


Published in Billboard of December 18th 1965

Wednesday Morning 3 A.M

Late 1963 Simon & Garfunkel did some demo-recording at Columbia Studios in NYC. The engineer was Roy Halee. In March 1964 the he recording sessions for Simon & Garfunkel's first album for Columbia Records started. With Tom Wilson as producer. One of the sessions musicians was Jim (later: Roger of The Byrds. The album was called 'Wednesday Morning 3 AM'. Released in October the same year.

Here's an advertisement for Columbia's releases in Novemer 1964 in Billboard:

Advertisement of 1963

In 1963 AMY Records put an advertisment to promote Paul Simon's aka Jerry Landis 'The lone teen ranger'
This one was published in Billboard of March 13th 1963.

Art Garfunkel Second Avenue

During his solo-recording career it often happened that singles were released that became a hit in various countries but not included on an album. In 1977 CBS/Columbia released '(What a)Wonderful world' with James Taylor & Paul Simon, in 1979 'Bright eyes' became a hit. Both songs were rapidly included on later pressings of both 'Watermark' and 'Fate for breakfast'. Which also meant that songs were taken off of the album:
- 'Fingerpaint' was included on the initial Dutch release of the lp Watermark, but this one was quickly withdrawn and replaced by one with '(What a) Wonderful world'.

But another one that became a hit was 'Second Avenue'. Was it a 'left-over' from the wonderful Angel Clare-album? It is a very nice song. Maybe someone can tell more about this recording?

Here a view of the covers of the single CBS 2672:



Portugal

Sweden

Spain

USA Radio Station Copy

Concerts

For an overview of all the Simon & Garfunkel shows over the past 54 years, take a look here:

www.roboud56.wordpress.com

Another Japanese release....1966

CBS SONY released the single 'The sound of silence' b/w 'We've got a groovey thing goin' in January 1966. Catalogue number LL-864-C. Japanese releases are always very nicely packed, with beautiful covers, pictures, lyrics.
For this release they also included an English version of what they thought might be correct.....

The 4th verse goes:

"Fools say I did do not know
Silence is like a catch of gold
Hear my words and my, I'll teach you
Take my arms and mine'll reach you
Put my words like, "Silent raindrops fell"
Echo a welds of silence.

The 5th starts with:

'And when people doubt the things
To the neon got they may
And side by side it's morning......

The same goes for the flip-side:

'Bad throughs, bad throughs,
I heard you jacking to leave

Unfortunately I cannot read the added Japanese translation, wonder what became of the lyric there.