Monday, July 11, 2016

Beach Boys Catalog Projects by Peter Reum

Roughly 4 years ago, I published an article in this blog advocating for an active catalog program that would do The Beach Boys music justice, but that would not include tapes  that would prove embarrassing for Brian and the group. In that time, we have seen an excellent boxed set, plus numerous downloads available through ITunes and Amazon. Nearly all of the studio projects I mentioned in the article have been released, as copyrights expire each year. The clan at Omnivore Records has licensed the Hite and Dorinda Morgan sessions for release in the next few months. After all of the false starts, the sessions will be released in their entirety, according to Brad Rosenberger of Omnivore. This fills a hole in the timeline for Beach Boy music that was historically empty.

As consumers of Beach Boys music, those of us who go beyond a casual interest have had a satisfying if not sequential opportunity to fill in the missing titles in the list of tracks that we know are around due to Capitol having paid for the sessions. The first seven years of the Beach Boys' recording history are generally either available now or will available be as each year's work needs to be released to save exclusive rights to those recordings. What was available from those 1962 to 1969 sessions was already in circulation due to the various Sea of Tunes sets from the late Nineties and early 2000s. In many ways, the Sea of Tunes sets showed the sheer volume of takes for major Beach Boys studio work for each song. Listening can be maddening. Personally, an example that drove me nuts was the 50+ takes of Christmas Day on the first Christmas Album. Alan probably was weary after trying to please Brian so many times.

For myself, the jewel from this program was the vocal sessions for The Beach Boys Party Album without the party noises. This reissue truly altered many people's opinion regarding the Party album. For myself, I found the package a delight. It helped me see how much planning went into making Party an informal sounding recording. That the sessions were so productive may rest in the less directive tone Brian took as producer with the other group members, relaxing them and thereby helping them REALLY relax and enjoy the informality the Party project demanded.

The restructuring of the Pet Sounds Box was probably inevitable. We know that the notation on that project unfortunately caused a negative reaction on the 1993 Box, thus delaying its release for several months. This is unfortunate because those notes were outstanding. The current box is a beautifully designed book form set, that somewhat brings a few new ideas content wise to the project this year.  The live tracks are an excellent addition to the set, and help the discerning listener understand how the Beach Boys' approach to live presentation of the Pet Sounds songs evolved through the years. I'll cover this in more detail in another article.

Conceivably, there could be an issue of sessions from Good Vibrations as it hits 50 years this Autumn. The vocal session tapes have never been found. It is scary to say, but they could either be in a very quiet collector's home, or worse yet, deteriorating in a land fill. The set from Sea of Tunes is instructional, but the sheer repetitiveness of that sort of unauthorized set makes listening a difficult task due to redundancy. The Smile material was issued in many formats in 2011, and this makes reissuing such a huge set of tapes daunting. There are a number of shows from 1967 that could be put together to supplement the Lei'd In Hawaii shows and also more from the Autumn of 1967.

Obviously, there are ways of helping people dive into the Wild Honey, Friends, and 20/20  periods. These recordings could be presented as tracks and vocals just like Pet Sounds. Both shows from the Live in London tapes would be a great addition to the late Sixties Beach Boys live scene.

Moving into later work, Sunflower as mixed by Carl and Stephen Desper would be a great addition to the reissue program, perhaps with some illustration as to how the track lineups changed through 1970.  The first Add Some Music lineup could be contrasted with the final track lineup. There are demos from Brian for the Sunflower and Surfs Up sessions that need to be released. This could be accomplished by reworking the existing releases into a format with  bonus tracks. Session tapes from the 1972 sessions for Carl and the Passions and Holland would be intriguing. There was a single album version of the Beach Boys Live in Concert album that had a number of songs that were removed from the double album we know and love from 1973. Similar albums could be put together from the 1971 New York television show. There are numerous live shows from this period that could be issued as downloads.

A few other things that are welcome begin with the addition of We Got Love to the Holland Acoustic Sounds cd. This is an excellent move. Blondie and Ricci's Flame album is owned by Brother Records, and needs to be rereleased. Carl produced the album with Flame, and it is a nice recording. There is a second Flame album in the can that should be released. The release of Dennis's albums as a double set years ago cries for addition of the earlier Seventies Dennis material. Thankfully, one of the requests from my article three years ago has come to pass. Carl's two solo albums are now available on cd for the first time in many years, and though uneven, are well worth a careful listen. 

With respect to The Beach Boys' concert presentations, I will step out on a ledge and say that the group would make money on concerts they played throughout their 50 year history if they are made available as downloads. The bootleggers are currently making money selling cd-rs of this stuff, and I would like to see the artists make money on their  live show tapes instead.

There is probably more I could say, but that will happen another day. It's summer, I'm sleepy, so I'll head for the park and take a nap.

Copyright 2016 by Peter Reum-All rights reserved

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