Paul Simon and Arthur Garfunkel grew up in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Forest Hills in Queens just three blocks away and attended the same schools. When still young, they developed a fascination with popular music. Both were taken with rock and roll as it emerged, particularly the Everly Brothers. When Paul first noticed Art, he was singing in a fourth grade talent show, and Paul thought that was a good way to attract girls. (In the fourth grade, no less! What a man!) They appeared together in the sixth grade in a school play. That first stage appearance was followed by their forming a street corner doo-wop group with three other friends and learning to harmonize. They began performing for the first time as a duo at school dances.
In 1956 they wrote their first song with Paul's father sending a handwritten copy to the Library of Congress to register a copyright. While trying to remember the lyrics to an Everly song, they created "Hey Schoolgirl," which they recorded for $25 in Manhattan. While recording, they were overheard by a promoter who signed them to his independent label. At age 15, Paul became Tom Graph, and Art became Jerry Landis.
The guys released that song, and their promoter paid Alan Freed $200 payola to get the single aired on his radio show on a nightly basis. It hit #49 on the national charts, and they landed a gig on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand," then based in Philadelphia. They earned a mere $4000 from that song, and the remaining 98% of the money went to their promoter. After that there were no more hits from Tom & Jerry.
Here is a bonus track.
They went to separate colleges but stayed in touch. Paul got into the Brill Building and did some work with Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Both recorded separately, but their individual work went nowhere.
They rejoined in 1963 during the great folk music revival that was spurred by ABC's "Hootenanny." They renamed themselves Kane & Garr and performed in Greenwich Village. One song, "The Sounds of Silence," got the attention of CBS Records producer Tom Wilson, who worked with Bob Dylan. Paul successfully talked Wilson into an audition. House engineer Roy Halee recorded the audition, and at Wilson's urging, Columbia signed the duo. Re-branded Simon & Garfunkel, they recorded an acoustic folk-oriented album, which did not sell, and their first gigs booked under their new name did not do well either.
Paul moved to England in 1964 and had some success there, believing that his future was in the UK. Art continued his studies at Columbia University.
In Boston, late night WBZ disk jockey Dick Summer aired "The Sounds of Silence," and the tune caught on. CBS Records was in the middle of the whole folk-rock trend with Dylan and the Byrds, and Wilson decided to re-mix the song with a folk-rock bed. But Wilson didn't bother informing the guys as to what he had done, and Paul was horrified when he heard the result. Art was headed for graduate school and didn't think that anything would come of it. After breaking out in Miami and one Gold Record later, CBS demanded a new folk-rock album from the boys. Purists condemned it for the same reasons that they had criticized Dylan -- "They sold out!" -- and the disk was something of a mishmash.
Their next disk in 1966 had Paul taking creative control, and their quality improved.