Superior's 2002 release Tom & Jerry is an abridged reissue of the 2000 album Two Can Dream Alone released by Burning Airlines, containing early recordings by
Paul Simon and/or
Art Garfunkel. It omits two tracks, "I Love You (Oh Yes I Do)" and "Soldier and a Song (Light Your Way)," which probably were included erroneously, since they did not sound like
Garfunkel, to whom they were credited. The music bears little resemblance to
Simon & Garfunkel's
folk-rock recordings of 1964-1970. "Hey, Schoolgirl," originally released on Big Records, is in an
Everly Brothers/
Buddy Holly mold, and the duo's unsuccessful follow-ups, "Our Song" and "That's My Story," are in that style, too, while
Simon's first solo single, "True or False," released under the name
True Taylor, finds him aping the hiccupping
rockabilly sound of
Holly and
Elvis Presley. On songs like "Shy" and "Just a Boy," released on either side of a Warwick Records single in 1960,
Simon clearly was aspiring to be another
Frankie Avalon. In keeping with the more gimmicky sound of the early '60s, he moved on to up-tempo novelties like "The Lone Teen Ranger," which actually made the charts in early 1963. The material on this album is likely to fascinate as well as flabbergast fans of
Simon & Garfunkel's later recordings. No small part of the fascination will be that
Garfunkel wrote a lot of this material as well as singing it, since he dropped out of songwriting later on. It would be nice to have a complete collection of
Simon & Garfunkel's juvenilia sequenced in chronological order, but this partial selection may be the best to be expected, and the duo's fans may enjoy hearing their youthful efforts, as long as they don't buy it expecting work of the caliber of "The Sound of Silence." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
