Let's not insult Art Garfunkel by pretending he needs any introduction. We know him, of course, as the sensitive actor who debuted in Mike Nichols' Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge. That latter role earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Then came an over-40-year acting career, with roles in Laverne & Shirley, Boxing Helena, Frasier, Flight of the Conchords, and The Rebound. Or maybe you know him as the gifted poet whose 1989 collection, Still Water: Prose Poems, earned solid reviews. No, surely you're aware of his 1998 Grammy win for a children's music album, Songs From a Parent to a Child, not to mention his 15 other solo albums since 1973. His LPs Breakaway and Watermark went platinum.

Oh, but first there was that thing he did with Paul Simon. Their collaborative songbook rivals anything in the English language. The duo had their first hit while still in high school: "Hey Schoolgirl," under the band name Tom & Jerry. Simon & Garfunkel broke up for the second time after their first studio album sold only 3,000 copies - but then producer Tom Wilson added drums and electric guitar to "The Sound of Silence," and the rest is music history. The next four albums earned Simon & Garfunkel's reputation as all-time greats. Meanwhile, Art Garfunkel quietly earned his master's degree in math from Columbia University.

It's certainly true Paul Simon wrote most of those songs. That's the joke, of course, behind Kate Micucci and Riki Linkhome naming their comic duo Garfunkel and Oates. But it's also true that even back in the late 1960s, Simon kept trying to find a way to go solo and it didn't work. It's true as well that Simon was cast in Catch-22 alongside Garfunkel, but Nichols left Simon's performance on the cutting-room floor. That happens for a lot of reasons, but Garfunkel's resumé before the camera speaks for itself. Furthermore, Garfunkel was already writing and selling his own songs under the alias Artie Garr. He was vocal arranger for all those classic Simon & Garfunkel albums, and his solo performance of Simon's "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" spent seven weeks on the Billboard chart in 1972. Then and now, it's unfair in the extreme to think of Art Garfunkel as anybody's sidekick.

If Garfunkel never had his Graceland-popular solo album, it might be because his girlfriend committed suicide a few years before his father passed away. That and declining interest in folk music incited a decade of depression. Vocal cord paresis disrupted a 2010 concert reunion tour. But by all accounts, the "bird in Garfunkel's throat" - his term for that luminous tenor - is back in full warble, accompanied by his poetry and 50 years of show-biz memories.

Say, did you know Art Garfunkel has literally walked across the United States? Driving to the Pantages to see him perform is the least you can do.

ART GARFUNKEL: IN CLOSE UP, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, $29-$85, 253.591.5894, broadwaycenter.org