Why did Bob Dylan laugh through Simon & Garfunkel’s live debut in 1964?
Simon and Garfunkel’s live debut took place the night before their final recording session for Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Recorded over three sessions in March 1964 and released the following October, the album solidified the duo as Greenwich Village’s folk act par excellence, partly thanks to continual plugging by Columbia Records’ Tom Wilson, who asked the duo to perform at Gerde’s Folk City as part of a promotional showcase for the label. Looking to whip up some excitement for the duo’s forthcoming album, Wilson invited his hippest friends and colleagues to attend the concert, including Bob Dylan, who had made his 1961 live debut on the very same stage.
The folk singer arrived late and quickly pinned himself to the bar, where he was joined by influential New York Times music critic Robert Shelton. They were both already slightly drunk and, having smoked a little grass on the ride over, struggled to compose themselves. Paul and Artie took to the stage and sat themselves under the spotlight. With just a single guitar underscoring their dual vocals, Dylan’s laughter bubbled up out of the shadows. At first, he tried to hide it, but that nasal wail was always going to be impossible to ignore.
At this time, Bob’s every word, movement and action was being dissected for meaning. His music carried immense political, literary and spiritual weight, and he could scarcely sneeze without someone regarding the innate reflex as a comment on something or someone. As such, Dylan’s supposedly innocent laughter was transformed into the folk equivalent of Emporer Nero condemning a gladiator to death with an upturned thumb.
While he never revealed what had made Dylan laugh, Shelton always maintained that it had nothing to do with what was happening on stage. That being said, Bob and Paul may have got off on the wrong foot, having met just a few days earlier and struggled to find any common ground. Despite coming from similar backgrounds, they occupied polar ends of the folk spectrum, moved in separate circles and perceived the world in radically different ways. In the end, they barely spoke two words to one another, suggesting that Dylan’s laughter was not quite as innocent as Shelton would have us believe.
Dylan’s perception of Paul Simon changed a lot over the years. In 1966, he simply refused to acknowledge the musician’s existence, claiming that he’d “never heard of him” at a London Press conference, even though they’d been introduced many times. By 1984, Dylan was willing to accept that “Paul Simon’s written some good songs,” describing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ as “excellent” during a Radio interview on Westwood One. “He’s written a lot of bad songs, too,” he added. “But everybody’s done that.” Then, in 1999, Dylan and Simon embarked on a co-headline tour, with the former describing the latter as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Perhaps time really does heal all wounds.
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