Simon & Garfunkel-"The Sounds Of Silence"

I have just acquired a red vinyl (actually a somewhat common practice for
high-priority, mid-60's Columbia releases) promo 45 for this song,
(Columbia 43396) and I discovered something unexpected. While one side
of it, as expected, features the "later electric guitar overdub" hit 45
version, the other side of this promo 45 features the original LP version of
the song, without the electric guitar. I never realized until just now that
Columbia had opted to give radio their choice of versions, back in late
1965. Someone wrote "OK" in magic marker on the label for the side of
the promo which included the electric guitar. My deadwax info for this
side is exactly the same as what I'd posted above for my stock 45, while
the original LP version side has deadwax of "ZSP111384-1D". Does
anyone here ever remember either playing or hearing on the AM radio the
original LP version of "The Sounds Of Silence" in late '65/early '66?

Edited by jimct

This may have been a market choice. I have never to my knowledge ever heard this "Original" version. As Yah said, "Always the electrified 45."

However while looking over some of those TM Century GoldDiscs today, I stumbled upon this in two forms. The "Rock" version and the "Original" version. Both
are 3:06 and appear to have the same vocal track. The "Rock" version is the one we all know, but they decided to include the "Original" version for some odd
reason. It has only the acoustic guitar and no drums. I guess they must have put it on the disc for somebody somewhere. (GoldDisc 538)

jimct wrote: Does anyone here ever remember either playing or hearing on the AM radio the original LP version of "The Sounds Of Silence" in late '65/early '66?

Guess I missed this thread first time around, but I do recall hearing the original version on some
stations back in the day, though not in regular rotation. Can't say with 100% certainly, but I
believe WABC was one of those (admittedly, that sounds out of character for them). I didn't listen
to them that often, but could've sworn I heard a different version played as an oldie. I wonder if
someone carted up the wrong side of the promo by mistake, it later got caught then re-dubbed?

Rich:

The two versions on CD are the original version (with no electric guitar and labeled above as the "acoustic" version). Pat in the online database has this one labeled as original non-hit acoustic version.

The other later version is the one with the electric guitar overdub labeled above as "rock" and/or "electrified" version. Pat has this one labeled as LP mix.

It is the hit mono 45 mix that has never appeared on an official CD release (and you might want to thank Paul Simon for that). I'm sure some of the experts can point out the mix differences between the stereo LP mix and the mono 45 mix.

I'll add this info:
I have 4 mixes of this.

1) Original acoustic Wed. Morning 3am LP Stereo
2) Original acoustic MONO LP version which is a different mix.
3) The electric (with drums and elec. guitar overdubs) Stereo LP mix
4) The electric hit 45 mono mix- the hit 45 has substantial reverb added to it
that is not on the stereo "The Sound Of Silence" LP.

It's the 2 mono mixes that have never been on CD.

MM