Art Garfunkel Plans Return of Simon & Garfunkel As His Voice Mends

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Last summer Simon & Garfunkel postponed their North American tour indefinitely when Art Garfunkel was diagnosed with vocal cord paresis. But Friday the singer told Rolling Stone exclusively that he's on the mend and hopes to reschedule the dates next summer. "My voice is coming back slowly, too slowly," he said. "In my bones I feel healthy. I know it's coming back. I just have to be patient."

Two and a half months ago Garfunkel quit smoking to help his voice recover. "Two weeks ago my doctor put a camera down my nose into my throat," he said. "He said 'I really like what I see. You're in good shape, basically. All the apparatus is right. You will definitely be a singer and just fine again. You just have to have patience. You just irritated it with the heat of smoking until two and a half months ago.'"

Read Rolling Stone's review of Simon & Garfunkel's concert at JazzFest

As of now Garfunkel has pulled all solo and Simon & Garfunkel dates, but in the spring he plans to be begin rehearsing again. "That means that our tour of last summer will have taken a one year pause," he said. "Think of me like Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies. In print I saw him say, 'I expect to be fully better around February or March.' When he said that I thought, 'Maybe my vocal chord is like Jimmy Rollins' hamstring.'"

Simon & Garfunkel reunited in 2003 for the highly successful Old Friends tour, and resumed it last year in Australia and Japan. "I'm delighted in 2009 that Simon & Garfunkel was alive and well," said Garfunkel. "I was touched. I really feel we've led a charmed life."

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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