Bridge over Troubled Water

Bridge Over Troubled Water is the fifth and final studio album by American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. The album was released on January 26, 1970 through Columbia Records. Following the duo's soundtrack for The Graduate, Art Garfunkel took an acting role in the film Catch-22, while Paul Simon worked on the songs, writing all tracks except Felice and Boudleaux Bryant's "Bye Bye Love" (previously a hit for the Everly Brothers).

With the help of producer Roy Halee, the album followed a similar musical pattern as their previous album Bookends (1968), partly abandoning their traditional style to incorporate elements of rock, R&B, gospel, jazz, world music, pop and other genres. It was described as their "most effortless record and their most ambitious." After Bridge Over Troubled Water was released, several re-releases followed. The album was mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic. Columbia Records released a 40th Anniversary Edition on March 8, 2011, which includes two DVDs, including the politically themed TV special Songs of America (1969), the documentary The Harmony Game, additional liner notes and a booklet. Other reissues contain bonus tracks, such as the 2001 version, which covers the demo tapes of "Feuilles-O" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Contemporary critical reception to Bridge was initially mixed, but retrospective reviews of the album have been laudatory, and it is considered by many to be the duo's best album.

Bridge Over Troubled Water topped the charts in over ten countries and received six Grammy Awards at the 1971 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. The album has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time and at the time of its release, the best-selling album ever. It has been ranked on several "greatest" lists, including number 172 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2020. Despite the accolades, the duo decided to split up, and parted company later in 1970; Garfunkel continued his film career, while Simon worked intensely with music. Both artists released solo albums in the following years. Bridge includes two of the duo's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful songs, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "The Boxer", which were listed on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."

Simon & Garfunkel were already successful in the music industry. Their Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, the soundtrack album for Mike Nichols' film The Graduate and Bookends peaked at number four, one, and one in the US Billboard 200, respectively, with the former selling 3 million copies and the latter two selling 2 million copies each in the United States. Art Garfunkel took the role of Captain Nately in another Nichols film, Catch-22, based on the novel of the same name. Initially Paul Simon was to play the character of Dunbar, but screenwriter Buck Henry felt the film was already crowded with characters and subsequently wrote Simon's part out. The unexpectedly long film production endangered the relationship between the duo; Garfunkel later stated in a 1990 interview with Paul Zollo in SongTalk magazine: "Our way of working was for Paul to write while we recorded. So we'd be in the studio for the better part of two months working on the three or four songs that Paul had written, recording them, and when they were done, we'd knock off for a couple of months while Paul was working on the next group of three or four songs. Then we'd book time and be in the studio again for three or four months, recording those . . . . Rather than wait for Paul to write the next bunch of songs, I went off and did this movie."

Garfunkel was involved in the filming of Catch-22 from January 1969 – this would continue for about eight months. Simon had not completed any new songs at this point; the duo planned to collaborate when the filming was finished. Roy Halee would produce the album; and, as was the case with their most recent studio album, Bookends, they wanted a new sound, moving away from typical folk rock.

Bridge over Troubled Water was the duo's first album to credit the backing musicians in the liner notes. The credited musicians, in addition to Simon, were Fred Carter Jr. on guitars, Hal Blaine on drums, Joe Osborn on bass, and Larry Knechtel on keyboards; all of whom were studio session musicians – later known as members of the Wrecking Crew. Because the duo were involved in recording the album, they declined invitations to perform, including at the Woodstock Festival.

Simon wanted a gospel piano sound on "Bridge over Troubled Water", so he hired session musician Larry Knechtel. The song was initially two verses long, but Garfunkel felt the song was too short and asked Knechtel to play a third verse, to which Simon would write more lyrics. Osborn played two bass guitar parts, one high and the other low. Blaine recorded the drums in an echo chamber, to achieve a hall effect. A horn section rounded off the track. Due to a series of factors, the duo had to work on a new tape; an arranger falsely labeled the song as "Like a Pitcher of Water" and wrote Garfunkel's name incorrectly (GarFunkel), and the string part was unsatisfactory.

The duo then returned to New York to record the vocals. The vocal style in "Bridge over Troubled Water" was inspired by Phil Spector's technique in "Old Man River" by the Righteous Brothers. After two months the song was finalized. Simon himself admitted that it sounded like the Beatles' "Let It Be", stating in a Rolling Stone interview: "They are very similar songs, certainly in instrumentation ..." The song has been covered by over 50 artists since then, including Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.