But for the grace of Garfunkel

Did I have doubts about hearing what voice came from a 70-plus Art Garfunkel? Quite a few actually.

As the tender sound of April Come She Will escaped his throat, I had to fight off the tears. Nancy had the same experience. Then he did it again with The Sounds of Silence.

Fifty years on, Garfunkel still has the voice. He may not have written most of the songs, but it’s hard to imagine Paul Simon’s early tunes without Garfunkel’s harmonies and leads. He has had the less-storied post-Simon & Garfunkel career, but he is an important figure in folk-rock's greatest pairing.

On a Sunday night, with the rest of Nashville consumed by NHL All-Star fever, Nancy and I watched Garfunkel cover plenty of favorites from Simon and Garfunkel's magnificent run, a few solo tracks and some standards. Garfunkel has always been Nancy’s favorite of the two and he was playing at the Ryman Auditorium, so a night under his spell seemed like a good date.

I cannot remember as emotional a performance in ages. He eased through Kathy’s Song and Scarborough Fair. Even The Boxer, which Paul Simon used as a post-9/11 rallying cry, remained a delicate gem well-handled by Garfunkel.

Garfunkel cut up the singing with his prose poems, from the death of his father to acting with Jack Nicholson. He told stories from a wooden stool, pacing the Ryman stage when the stages demanded movement.

Within moments of his emergency onstage, the gulf between performer and crowd evaporated. He and his small band (acoustic guitar and piano only) could have played for 10 people and been just as engaging.

The missing half of the duo held lots of sway over the proceedings Despite their legendary disagreements, he kept any disparaging words about Simon to himself, only peddling in the positive and mentioning that one time they were gathered with other famous folk and he mused that whoever died first would have the other speaking at their funeral. That only seems fair.

Garfunkel’s storytelling and breaking the show into two sets served another purpose. Four years Garfunkel encountered voice loss, and it showed on a few songs.

As he reached Bridge Over Troubled Water, he cautioned the audience that the show was over, that this was only a rehearsal and that his voice could fade at any time. But he easily passed the audition.