Prosen also managed to get Tom and Jerry a spot on Dick Clark's seminal afternoon music program, American Bandstand. Variety gave the tune its "Best Bet" seal of approval, and Cash Box made it their "Sleeper of the Week." Soon it entered regular rotation on AM playlists across the country. ![]() "Hey Schoolgirl" hit shelves less than a month later in early November, backed by another original, "Dancin' Wild." Prosen, no stranger to less-than-legal tactics, reportedly slipped DJ Alan Freed $200 to play the song on his influential radio program, where it quickly gained traction. Simon christened himself "Jerry Landis," after the surname of then-girlfriend Sue Landis. ![]() Garfunkel settled on "Tom Graph," a reference to both his love of mathematics and habit of marking the chart position of favorite pop songs on graph paper. "Tom and Jerry" served as a starting point – borrowed from the cartoon series – which they had already used for local gigs. It was feared that their given names were "too ethnic-sounding" to play in Middle America, so the boys commenced the time honored showbiz tradition of picking flashy pseudonyms. Contracts were drawn up, their parents consulted, and in days they were officially artists on Prosen's Big Records label. In a move straight out of Hollywood fantasy, a promoter named Sid Prosen happened to overhear the session and offered to sign the pair on the spot. In early October of 1957, they ponied up $25 and crammed into the photo-booth-sized live room at Sanders Record Studios on Seventh Avenue and West 48th Street. So they decided to record a demo that they could hand out to executives, thus eliminating the need for awkward in-person recitals. Together they banged on doors throughout the famous Brill Building, desperate to perform their tune for anyone who would listen. The relentlessly upbeat number kicks off with a slew of nonsense syllables in the mold of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" ("A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-lomp-bom-bom!") before settling into harmonies that would do the Everlys proud.Ĭonvinced of the song's potential, the boys ventured into Manhattan to pitch "Hey Schoolgirl" to the Tin Pan Alley publishers centered in the heart of midtown. Written in under an hour, "Hey Schoolgirl" became their party piece, performed at amateur stages across their home borough of Queens, New York. One afternoon while trying to recall lyrics to the Everly Brothers' "Hey Doll Baby," the 15-year-olds accidentally stumbled onto words that would give them an early taste of their future fame. Long before there was Simon and Garfunkel, there was just Paul and Artie – two high school seniors bonded by a passion for rock & roll. In honor of Simon’s 75th birthday, we take a look at 10 early musical efforts that provide a fascinating insight into his creative development. His feelings toward these primitive efforts appear to have softened over the years, and he even performed several in recent concerts as an affectionate tribute to his past. ![]() Some may be corny, but the best show flashes of Simon’s future brilliance. Though the sensation is understandable, the songs are nothing to be ashamed of. He even went to court in 1967 to successfully block their release. Simon eventually started recording music under his own name, and when stardom followed, he became increasingly embarrassed by these early songs, viewing them as the audio equivalent of compromising baby photos that could surface at any moment and torpedo his new reputation as a mature songwriter. For years after, he toiled in relative obscurity, releasing a string of derivative but catchy songs under a whole Rolodex of impractical stage names. Few knew of his secret past as a one-time teenage pop star in the late Fifties alongside his schoolmate Art Garfunkel, when the two were known as Tom and Jerry. Paul Simon – the critically acclaimed hitmaker, the sophisticated composer, the folk-rock poet who gave voice to the hopes and anxieties of a generation – seemed to enter the world stage fully formed with the release of Simon and Garfunkel’s debut single, “The Sound of Silence,” in the fall of 1965.
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