Art Garfunkel Album: “Watermark”

SONY - Please Remaster and re-release this brilliant record. By far the best of Art's mostly mediocre solo output. The production and the songwriting - ah, yes - the sublime songwriting by Jimmy Webb - at the top of his game - is fantastic. Art perfectly capture's Jimmy's angst- ridden lyrics and his voice is never better. This a stone classic that has never aged. I'd love to hear it using the best of today's mastering technolgy. Sony - I can guarentee you one sale right here.

Watermark is one of the most intelligent, lovely albums made in the 1970s, a reminder that not all was disco or sappy ballads. Garfunkel joins Linda Ronstadt as one of the great interpreters of Webb's pensive and often demanding songs. Webb was involved in this production and it shows: the arrangements are classy and never intrusive. The CD's best cuts include the first song, "Crying In My Sleep," with wonderful wordplay (watch Webb toy with the various meanings of "ran" in one of the verses), the Celtic "All My Love's Laughter" (with a little musical help from the Chieftains), and "Mr. Shuck and Jive" with its jazzy arrangement and embittered lyric. The title track features haunting imagery (Webb is an imagist like Dylan and Joni Mitchell--he tends to think in pictures), and there's a surreal quality to the arrangement on "Wooden Planes," a great song best done by B.J. Thomas.

Jimmy Webb is a fine songwriter.

Art Garfunkel is a fine singer.

The time and thought that has gone into this album makes it a truly memorable combination.

Has anyone, even Richard Harris or Webb himself, interpreted these songs better?

Who cares?

They are fine songs and great interpretations.

It is hard to know where to begin with accolades.

Even an early Webb song like 'Marionette' or 'All my love's laughter' shine like a diamond in this collection.

Listen to songs like 'Shine it on me' or the deceptively simple 'Someone else' to know that you are in the presence of someone who knows everything there is to know about the human condition and can express it so well in the confines of a 3 minute song.

Great songs, thoughtfully sung.

Watermark is a great album. It is, by far, the best release of Art Garfunkel's solo career. It's one of those overlooked musical gems that never got the attention or recognition it deserved.

Unfortunately, a lot of Art Garfunkel's subsequent work was, well, mediocre. But in 2002, Art released an excellent collaboration with Maia Sharp and Buddy Mondlock entitled "Everything Needs To Be Noticed" which, quite deservedly, seems to have brought him a lot of very favourable attention.

Check out "Everything Needs To Be Noticed." It's excellent. And if you like it, check out "Watermark". It's excellent as well. If you like one, you'll like the other.

This wonderful album, along with Paul Simon's "One Trick Pony", is on my 10 favorite albums to take to a lonely island. I first bought it on it's first release week (I was 13 year old), and since than, never met anyone in my hometown [Tel-Aviv, Israel] which has it. Without question, Garfunkel's finest work. The Jimmy Webb compositions are wonderful, the band Is great and the sound also. One of the best Albums ever! a forgotten masterpiece and a real gift!