Saturday 21 May 2011

Simon and Garfunkel - Bookends (1973)

Simon & Garfunkel,Bookends + Poster,Japan,Deleted,LP RECORD,529230

Bookends is the fourth studio album by Simon & Garfunkel, released on April 3, 1973. It was produced by Paul Simon, Roy Haylee and Art Garfunkel.

Bookends was Simon & Garfunkel's concept album, with the first side following the views of age, while the second side contained unused songs intended for The Graduate soundtrack, the soundtrack from Mike Nichols' 1967 hit film The Graduate.

Bookends was a No1 hit on Billboard's (North America) Pop Albums chart, as well as in the UK. Four singles charted: "A Hazy Shade of Winter," "At the Zoo," "Fakin' It" and "Mrs. Robinson," which peaked at No13, No16 and No23 and No1, respectively.

In 2003, the Tv Network VH1 named Bookends the 93rd greatest album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 233 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Grteatest Albums of all time.

Simon & Garfunkel,Bookends + Poster,Japan,Deleted,LP RECORD,529230

1. Bookends Theme
2. Save The Life Of My Child
3. America
4. Overs
5. Voice Of Old People
6. Old Friends
7. Bookends Theme
8. Fakin' It
9. Punky's Dilemma
10. Mrs Robinson
11. Hazy Shade Of Winter
12. At The Zoo

The real Crossroads Motel!

Story Image
This was what passed for the Crossroads ­motel in the Sixties television soap. Behind these utilitarian walls, viewers were told, illicit affairs were two-a-penny, arson was rife, an old First World War bomb blew up ­reception and motel cleaner Amy Turtle was ­unmasked as a Russian spy who had changed her name from Amelia Turtlovski.

The location of the motel’s real-life exterior of was kept secret for 45 years, for fear that fans would turn up and cause disruption. Only months ago the Crossroads Appreciation Society discovered that the “real” motel was this teaching block at Walford and North Shropshire College in Baschurch, Shropshire.

The block was used as the exterior title shot from 1965 to 1981, when it was still known as the Shropshire Farm Institute. Now, in a twist ­worthy of the soap itself, it turns out members identified it in the nick of time ­because it is just about to be bulldozed to make way for an engineering college. Fan John Drury, from Sheffield, said: “The Crossroads society has spent a long time ­researching the locations and once I found it, the site manager showed me round. It’s a shame it is going.”

Crossroads, which revolved around the lives of owner Meg Richardson and her family, pulled in 18 million viewers at its peak and ran from 1964 to 1988, being briefly revived on ­Carlton in 2001.