30 | JANUARY 30 • 2019
Arts&Life
music
Song
&
Story
Duo brings Simon & Garfunkel’
s
history and music alive on stage.
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A
s the singing-songwriting duo of Paul
Simon and Art Garfunkel step back
from stage work, Taylor Bloom and
Benjamin Cooley step forward to perform
some 30 of their folk-rock hits and tell about
their high-powered careers and personal
lives.
The Simon & Garfunkel Story, North
American Tour, has a single performance
Saturday evening, Feb. 8, at the Fox Theatre
in Detroit, where a full live band joins in the
concert-style theater piece enhanced with
state-of-the-art video projections.
The story is told chronologically from their
beginnings as New York school buddies who
were known as Tom & Jerry, and then moves
through their success in the 1960s before
their breakup in 1970.
The show, seen in 50 countries, culmi-
nates with recollections of the Concert in
Central Park reunion in 1981, when the two
performed for more than a half million fans.
Hit numbers include “Bridge Over Troubled
Water,
” “Mrs. Robinson,
” “Homeward
Bound,
” “The Sound of Silence” and
“Scarborough Fair.
”
“It’
s a privilege to play this music, and I
love the band that’
s up on the stage,
” said
Bloom, who plays Simon. “These musicians
are absolute pros, and to be with them is an
absolute pleasure.
“What Ben and I do in telling the story to
the audience is to explain, with each song,
what was going on in their lives or what was
going on in the world at the time each song
first was performed,
” he said.
“The nice thing about Paul Simon is that
there is a fair amount of footage of him with
a lot of information to be gleaned from that
footage — whether it’
s tracking him as a
young and sort of naïve performer or later as
a legend with the excitement
that goes with that. I try to
emulate that evolution in my
performance.
”
Bloom did not have the
opportunity to meet Simon in
preparing for the role. Instead,
his core information about
career and private life was taken
from a Simon biography.
“Paul Simon and I have a similar gui-
tar-playing style,
” Bloom said. “When I was
first learning all the music, I thought it was
kind of complicated. I soon realized that
Simon was doing what was based on chord
shapes and techniques. They require a little
less effort but give more freedom for the fin-
gers to do other things.
“From night to night, my favorite song to
play is ‘
The Boxer.
’
It’
s about someone who’
s
trying to follow a dream and is struggling, not
just with following a dream but with having
to give everything up to try to get it. The song
is a celebration of fighting for something.
”
Bloom, 24, realized a step forward in his
quest for a performing career soon after
earning a bachelor’
s degree in fine arts from
Shenandoah Conservatory in Virginia, the
state where he grew up learning to play dif-
ferent instruments and acting in school pro-
ductions. He was chosen for this tour and has
been on it for three years.
“
Any of my friends will tell
you that I’
m fairly energetic,
boisterous and loud,
” he said.
“Theater was the first place that I
found acceptance of that level of
energy that could be shaped into
different characters and used to
entertain.
”
Although Simon and
Garfunkel are both of Jewish descent, the
show does not discuss their heritage. Bloom
was not raised in Jewish traditions, but he
says he knows of Jewish heritage on his
father’
s side and would like to explore that.
“My paternal grandfather is where our
Jewish heritage comes from,
” he said. “I
believe his family came to the United States
to escape Germany. I’
m curious to find out
more about my heritage.
”
.
details
The Simon & Garfunkel
Story begins at 8 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 8, at the
Fox Theatre in Detroit.
Tickets start at $30.
313presents.com.
LANE PETERS
Benjamin Cooley and Taylor
Bloom perform the songs of
Simon and Garfunkel on stage
with a full band and give
information behind the songs.