In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water album, Art Garfunkel shed some light onto the duo's career heights and sometimes tenuous partnership.

Garfunkel was asked if as Paul Simon's work became full of more profound imagery, he ever asked Simon to explain what the songs literally meant. Garfunkel explained, "No, our friendship doesn't work that way. My sense of an artist at work does not allow for such feedback. I give him his province. If he's the writer, he's allowed to be inscrutable without me challenging him and saying, 'I can't sing it if I don't know what I'm singing about!' Never mind that stuff. He's a first-rate writer. I give him the right to be difficult or easy or whatever."

He went on to explain the pure joy of record making -- a concept which has seemingly lost it's luster with the younger digital-age musicians: "I was so wildly in love with the making of those things. If you think they were fun to buy and collect, you should've made one. The day you finish it and then you listen in the control room at the console to your hard work over the many months . . . you have fussed over every detail of every minute of all of the songs, and you go, 'Okay, there it is,' and you love it, and then they send you the jacket, and you color approve it. . . the liner notes are done, and you say, 'Send me a box of 25 copies, so I'll get 'em before the retailer gets it,' and you open the box, and there's your hard work. It's such a fabulous American invention, the record album."

We caught up with Garfunkel and asked him why in all of the years, he never did a covers album featuring Simon's solo songs -- which would undoubtedly be a smash: "Just because Garfunkel did Simon? What if I out-did Paul's version -- wouldn't that hurt the friendship? Y'know, real life is more important than hits. Mind you, he gets the writer's royalty and the publishing."

Simon & Garfunkel tour dates (subject to change):
April 24 - New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fairgrounds Racecourse
April 29 - Vancouver, BC - GM Place
May 1 - Edmonton, AB - Rexall Place
May 2 - Calgary, AB - Saddledome
May 4 - Saskatoon, SK - Credit Union Centre
May 5 - Winnipeg, MB - MTS Centre
May 7 - Fargo, ND - Fargodome
May 8 - Saint Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center
May 9 - Madison, WI - Kohl Center Arena
May 10 - Detroit, MI - TBA
May 12 - Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre
May 14 - Ottawa, ON - Scotiabank Place
May 15 - Montreal, QC - Bell Centre