Art Garfunkel doesn't mind going against the grain

Art Garfunkel says that he's always taken risks, whether it's in the studio or on the concert stage. Garfunkel told Britain's The Telegraph that even as far back as the '60s, he was comfortable going against the grain, explaining that, "'Bridge Over Troubled Water' is five minutes long, incredibly slow and super-soft when it starts on the radio. A guaranteed failure... I've always thought the game in life is to stay interesting to yourself. If everybody's doing something, swim the opposite way."

Garfunkel just kicked off an extended European tour in support of his latest standards set, called Some Enchanted Evening.

He says that he pays great attention to how his live show ebbs and flows each night: "I don't do enough with the structure of my show. Unfortunately it's a kind of a song-applause, song-applause, song. As I make up the setlist, I think of, 'What's the line running through the night, feeling-wise?' If I'm the audience and here comes the sequence of the tunes, I use various indexes. If the ear has heard three 'guitar-y' songs in a row, I want the next song to maybe be an acoustic piano song -- give them an up-tempo. If you're heavy on Simon & Garfunkel (songs), that's a statement, now what else?"

Art Garfunkel performed on Wednesday, March 14th, in Bournemouth, UK. He'll kick off his next set of U.S. dates on April 7th in Philadelphia at the Kimmel Center.
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