Blessed with a beautifully ethereal voice, Art Garfunkel has suffered in his post-Paul Simon career because of a choice of songs and musical settings that mistake preciousness for subtlety. Happily, his new album remedies that problem. Nine of the 16 songs on Across America, which was recorded live last year, are Simon and Garfunkel classics, and the singer renders them with grace and a characteristically sublimated passion. If the album offers few new pleasures, hearing songs like "Scarborough Fair" and "Homeward Bound" in this context delivers the reassuring joy of running into old friends in a new place.

The title Across America refers to the walk across the country that Garfunkel completed during the course of 12 years, though it also derives meaning from the fact that these performances were recorded on Ellis Island. Beyond that, Garfunkel keeps his ambitions on this album aesthetic and personal. Small band arrangements, which include Michael Brecker's tenor saxophone and Eric Weissberg's guitar, mandolin and bass, provide sensitive support. Garfunkel's wife, Kim Cermak Garfunkel, sings background vocals, and his young son, James, coos his way through "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)." James Taylor duets with Garfunkel on a lovely reading of Gerry Goffin and Carole King's "Crying in the Rain."

The high point, of course, is "Bridge Over Troubled Water," a song that Garfunkel has, uniquely in the Simon and Garfunkel canon, fully defined as his own. It's not just the high note at the end, which Garfunkel handles easefully. The song's themes of reconciliation and transcendence suit Garfunkel's soul and lend his gentle virtues as a singer all the virtue and dignity of conviction.

“Ambling Alp”

The "Ambling Alp" was the nickname of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Primo Carnera. Though the song is named after the Italian-born 1930s heavyweight champion, Yeasayer are actually paying tribute to boxing legend Joe Louis with this first-person psychedelic dance-rock tune. “I was always interested in writing a song that had boxing mythology in it,” Yeasayer’s Chris Keating said. “It’s pretty fascinating: There were so many amazing characters, and it was so closely entwined with 20th century history.” Yeaseyer also invokes German champ Max Schmeling and hints at the historical significance placed on the historic bouts between the Nazi-era boxer and the African-American Louis.