I was traveling back from a gig somewhere in London on a night bus in 1997 with a South American guitarist I was working with at the time. He was reading the newspaper and mentioned that Art Garfunkel was doing a show later in the year at the London Palladium. I had no idea Garfunkel was still touring, and so being a massive fan I busked like crazy the next day to buy a ticket. The big day finally arrived, the show was brilliant and I launched a letter I had prepared onto the stage at the end of the concert. I watched Art stoop down to pick it up as he walked off stage into the wings. I waited at the stage door where he eventually exited from and he began signing some albums and concert tickets. Suddenly it was my turn to greet him, he was in front of my with his Philadelphia Phillies cap on signing my concert ticket. He looked at me and said “I got your letter, gonna read it in the bus”. A few days later he called me out of the blue and asked to meet up. I traveled to Nottingham to meet him at his hotel and we instantly began a long discussion about music and life in general and quickly realized we had quite a lot in common particularly our love of melody and beautiful songs. He offered me a room in the hotel and I stayed the night to watch the show again, only this time I had backstage access and a front row seat!