ESQ Roundtable Contribution

ESQ Round Table Contribution

Peter Reum:

SURFER GIRL  

"Surfer Girl" - I know one rock critic who thinks 'Your Summer Dream' is transcendent -- do you agree?

Songs like In My Room, Your Summer Dream, and The Surfer Moon address a prime need most young people have, a need to belong to someone, to be significant and have a loving relationship. It was these songs that expressed the soul of Brian Wilson. It was him at his most personal. "Do you love me, do you, Surfer Girl?"”Make it real…your summer dream…”

"Surfer Girl" - Is it the first fully realized Beach Boys album?

As is well known, Brian Wilson's production credit on the Surfer Girl album as it's producer made him the first major producer outside of the direct supervision of a major record company. This is not to say other artists did not produce themselves, but Brian broke the glass ceiling with respect to a group having autonomy from direct major label supervision. Murry Wilson was helpful in this regard, a point often lost. What this freedom gave Brian was to craft an album free of record company interference with respect to how much an album cost, who played on such an album, and what songs were chosen from the repertoire available to be recorded.

Surfer Girl:  Do you agree that "Catch A Wave" was a watershed moment for Brian and the group in terms of arrangement & production?

Catch a Wave presents a sophisticated use of harp from Maureen Love, and layered production. This "stratification' of the Beach Boys' production sound was something that very few groups could duplicate. Perhaps the only other producer in pop music circles doing this was Jan Berry. Brian and Jan together brought layered production into pop music at a time when perhaps Sinatra records were the only ones that had it.

Surfer Girl: What do you think of the “deep tracks” “The Surfer Moon” and “Your Summer Dream”?

Brian had a gift for singing ballads, like The Surfer Moon and Your Summer Dream, which became a contrast to the more uptempo numbers that Mike Love and occasionally Dennis would sing. As Carl Jung would say, one needs to address the muscles and the soul in creative artistry.  The Surfer Girl album's repertoire presents a quality not usually seen in 'teen' albums. It has the animus-surfing and hot rod music, and the anima-ballads expressing love and belonging

Surfer Girl: Are the instrumentals on this album filler or do they stand up next to the other tracks?

In one respect, Surfer Girl was quite strong, in that the album tracks were for the most part all potential singles or 'B' sides, excluding the instrumentals, yet in Sweden and Japan, the instrumentals were selected as singles. They were hits in those countries.

Do you believe that the Surfer Girl LP shows a noticeable improvement in production ability compared to the two previous LPs?

A common criticism of the first two Beach Boy albums is that they tend to have a lack of continuity with respect to songs and their lyrical content. This is particularly true of Surfin' Safari, their first album, and to some degree true of their second, Surfin' USA, due to the large number of instrumentals that are on it. With the guidance of veteran engineers like Chuck Britz and Larry Levine, at Western and Gold Star Studios, a young Brian as producer was allowed to experiment as needed to find the sounds he wanted, and to record the songs he believed were most commercial without interference. The result of this experimentation was the Surfer Girl album. In listening to the track order of Surfer Girl, it becomes apparent that Brian alternated a ballad with an uptempo tune on the first side, with the exception of the transition from The Rocking Surfer to Little Deuce Coupe. Yet, the next tune beginning side 2 is a ballad, In My Room. This is followed by the more uptempo Hawaii. The album order then shifts to two mid tempo numbers, Surfers Rule and Our Car Club, followed by another ballad, Your Summer Dream, and an instrumental, Boogie Woodie. The two instrumentals bow to the Surf Music trend of guitar virtuosity, but use keyboard virtuosity instead of guitar runs.

Surfer Girl - Why do you think it took so long to get the title track re-recorded and on an album considering its long history prior?

Perhaps the reason it took so long for Brian to share Surfer Girl with a larger audience was that he did not feel safe enough to share such personal feelings until he was the man in charge of recording his group's sounds. From Surfer Girl on through Pet Sounds, personal ballads were Brian's way of sharing his deepest creative feelings as a musician.

WILD HONEY:

"Wild Honey" - An essential work or a creative misfire? 

I will let Brian Wilson himself answer this question….In a January 2013 interview in Uncut Magazine, Brian shared that "It was always a challenge for me to live up to my name. It was a really big thing for me. People expected me to come up with great orchestral stuff all the time and it became a burden. I was getting tired of it. It still happens, too, but you just learn to live with it.  So the other guys started getting more into the production side of things. Carl [Wilson] really got into that. And we decided to make a rhythm ’n ’blues record. We consciously made a simpler album. It was just a little R’n’B and soul. It certainly wasn’t like a regular Beach Boys record. It was good to go back to the boogie-woogie piano I’d grown up with. Dear old Dad [Murry Wilson] taught me how to play that stuff when I was young. In its way, it’s very nostalgic. And we used the theremin again for 'Wild Honey'. Carl had fun singing on that." So Brian saw it as it turned out, to be a chance to let the other Beach Boys, particularly Carl, channel their creative energy in the studio, and to let Brian’s role be mainly singing and songwriting.

"Wild Honey" - can white boys sing R&B ? Well, can they ?

Carl and Brian both understood the roots of Rhythm and Blues, the basic boogie woogie piano that Brian refers to in the quote above...hence the track 'Boogie Woodie' from the Surfer Girl album. Carl, Brian, Dennis, and Mike had been sing rhythm and blues from the radio airwaves since the days at Mount Vernon and Fairway. There was Johnny Otis on the airwaves in LA. The production values in the released Wild Honey album reflected a desire to showcase the new major lead vocalist in the group...Carl Wilson. His prominence on the released Wild Honey is a bow to the need to let Brian take a rest.

Wild Honey:  Is "Aren't You Glad" a great "lost" song that deserves to be performed live nowadays?

It is no coincidence that Beach Boy album tunes began with Wild Honey to be jumping off points for killer live arrangements that Carl played a major role in facilitating. Wild Honey was a perfect album for live repertoire. Songs like Aren’t You Glad, Darlin’, and Let the Wind Blow became staples for years to come. Carl the road leader became Carl the studio facilitator. The days of Brian as the authority and final arbiter of what The Beach Boys were supposed to sound like were over until 1976. From that standpoint, the group would have to agree that some of the deep songs from the late Sixties albums like Aren’t You Glad are worth reviving.

Wild Honey: Do/did you see Wild Honey as a radical change in the group’s sound?

Wild Honey became an album different than perhaps what Brian originally conceived. Brother 9003, the first "Wild Honey,' had some quite personal music of Brian's begun and then left behind. In my travels, I turned several Capitol memoranda which revealed that 9003, the great lost Wild Honey album begun by Brian, had the following track lineup: Wild Honey, Here Comes The Night, Let The Wind Blow, I Was Made To Love Her, The Letter, Darlin', A Thing Or Two, Aren't You Glad, Cool, Cool Water, Game Of Love, Lonely Days, Honey Get Home. 

It is apparent that this aborted album, for the most part, was an album about love and being in the cycle of a relationship. Consider that Wild Honey is a discussion of a woman who is viscerally attractive....a woman who turns you on. This feeling is also expressed in A Thing Or Two, Here Comes the Night, and I Was Made to Love Her. The invitation into a true sexual and emotional relationship may be expressed by The Game of Love. Love in full bloom, perhaps marriage, is addressed in Darlin' and Aren't You Glad. They are both expressions of feelings of beneficence, that is, the rewards of being in a reciprocal loving relationship. While the relationship is in bloom, all is well and balanced. When things begin to crack, perhaps Lonely Days and Honey Get Home are expressions of the feeling of fear of loss of the intimacy, both emotional and sexual, that can be lost in a relationship. The Letter potentially expresses the confrontational moment when one partner in the relationship expresses the feeling that the relationship is broken, and the other person rushes to his partner's side to try to salvage what is lost. Finally, Let the Wind Blow is that moment when the partner who didn't sense his partner's unhappiness pleads with fate to save the relationship. It is no wonder that Cool Cool Water was shelved....it had no topical relationship to the rest of the songs on the original album's theme. Thus, the released Wild Honey bears more resemblance to an album of 11 songs, not necessarily connected by an overriding theme. The  “new songs’ Country Air, I’d Love Just Once to See You, How She Boogalooed It, and Mama Says (from Smile) change the feel of the overall album to more humor, less focus on the relationship theme, and replacement of Cool Cool Water with a song focused on Country Air.

Wild Honey: Are these songs better on the album or in a live setting?

It is hard to discuss live versus recorded performance without considering the psychology of musical experience. As with Smile, there will be those who argue that Wild Honey as a complete multisensory live experience would transcend any passive listening experience to these songs, even with headphones. For me, hearing the entire Wild Honey album live would be a more complete experience….if Brian was present.

Is Wild Honey’s recent critical re-appraisal deserved?

As a production transition album, Wild Honey often is thought to be slight, with good songs that were underproduced. Taken on its own merit, Wild Honey offers a new Beach Boy experience, as did every Beach Boys album up through Beach Boys Love You. That is, it is the same group, but there are new and exciting twists, turns, and blind curves that make each new Beach Boys album that one hears for the first time a revelation. That is the joy of exhilaration that comes when you see your first Georgia O’Keefe painting in person, or discover a novel that takes you to a new world like Dune or the Harry Potter series.

Wild Honey - I've always felt this great collection of songs could have benefitted from a harder guitar and drum sound...am I an idiot?

I think that on the all out rockers…Wild Honey, Darlin’, How She Boogalooed It, and Here Comes the Night, that a harder guitar and drum sound would have added an edge that would enrich the album.

15 BIG ONES:

'15 Big Ones' - Can you analyze the spoken/shouted word intro to 'TM Song'? (I know you can)?

Well….I find the song to be a fairly normal exchange in a summer family barbecue where the inhibitions were loosened by John Barleycorn…..perhaps if they meditated they would alter their mood ‘naturally” or maybe their hemrrhoids were just acting up….

'15 Big Ones' - should Carl & Dennis stuck out for adhering to the original game plan ?

1975 brought more demand for a new album, and the period from Holland to 15 Big Ones saw only one studio record, a Christmas single produced by Brian called Child of Winter. The public flocked to Beach Boys concerts after Endless Summer, desirous of hearing Brian's music from the pre Smile period. Brian was therapeutically entrusted to Eugene Landy, who promptly introduced milieu therapy, essentially moving psychiatric aides into 10452 Bellagio Road. Brother Studio and the home piano became "work stations' that were part of Brian's daily milieu therapy. The group was persuaded to allow Brian to again assume the role of producer of the Beach Boys. 

What followed was a mixture of inspiration and music from the milieu therapy work stations. Somehow, it was conceived that Brian would find the new recording technology frightening, and a session was held at Western where the old equipment was brought out for Brian to use. He did Palisades Park in one take and left.  The rest of the group were supportive of Brian, as they understood from Eugene Landy what his therapeutic goals were designed to accomplish….to “normalize” Brian. Carl and Dennis had tunes that were inspired and beautiful, but deferred them to make room for Brian's work. The eventual release of many songs from those Mid Seventies years that Dennis and Carl recorded while in the midst of Brian’s creative desert, with no new music from Brian, led to Pacific Ocean Blue, Dennis's solo album.

15 Big Ones:  Do you think "Pacific Ocean Blues" would have worked as a track here, or was Dennis right holding it back for his solo album?

Due to the long period from In Concert to the 15 Big Ones sessions, it was imperative that The Beach Boys have more music released. The longer they delayed after the release of Endless Summer and Spirit of America, the more the public demanded a new album. But it was hard to reconcile the democracy The Beach Boys had become with the benevolent autocracy of the “Brian as producer” period from 1962 to 1967. The Beach Boys in Time Magazine in 1976 described the transition back to Brian as “ A little bruising….”  If you have Carl produce, you have the democracy, if you have Brian produce, you have the field general. It would likely be more bruising to have Brian try to produce a Dennis tune. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

15 Big Ones: After “Rock and Roll Music,” what oldie do you think works best?

On 15 Big Ones, Brian's productions innovatively used Moog Bass in a manner that influenced several 70s and 80s recording artists. On Just Once In My Life it was majestic. There is no question it is the pinnacle of tunes from the oldies sessions. If it were 45 seconds shorter, Michael Row the Boat Ashore would be a close second. 

15 Big Ones: Do you think, as Mike has suggested, that if "It's OK” had been released at the beginning of the summer it would have been a bigger hit?

Late that summer of 1976, It's Ok was released to modest commercial success, reaching number 30 on Billboard's Singles Chart. There is some conjecture that it might have gone higher had it not been released so late that summer.  It was an incredible instrumental track, somewhat derived from the same melodic idea as the 1974 Christmas single, and with an inspired lead vocal. I can only say that the Beach Boys didn’t get the album done in time for a double summer single release.

Was 15 Big Ones a major misstep for the group?

They say that hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to look back from 2013 and say what could have or should have been done. That is immaterial. What happened was after 15 Big Ones, Brian recorded his most personal album of the 70s, Beach Boys Love You, and we might not have that jewel had we not mined for gold on 15 Big Ones.

15 Big Ones - Big commercial success, but what was the long term impact in your opinion?

Creatively, after Love You…there was general stagnation with infrequent occasions of incredible creative inspiration. It would be easy to blame the producers….Brian, Carl, Bruce…..but the group dynamics after Dennis’s solo album were toxic, and it is hard to breathe creatively in the middle of a forest fire.

BEACH BOYS CLASSICS SELECTED BY BRIAN WILSON:

'Beach Boys Classics' - What does it represent in Brian's latter day attempt to put his stamp on the band's legacy?

It is an often spoken truism that if you ask Brian Wilson a question about what his favorite album is that he wrote and recorded, he will tell you the truth that day. The next day could be a different answer. This was the challenge facing EMI Toshiba when they asked Brian to compile a list of his favorite Beach Boys tracks. In the end, Brian's instincts for his best work on individual songs has remained fairly steadfast in interviews through the years.  EMI Toshiba asked Brian for his favorites. It is natural for him to choose songs from his oeuvre.

'Beach Boys Classics' - Who do you think **really** selected these tracks ?

The list of tunes Brian chose, probably with input from friends and family, represents a who's who of Beach Boys lyricists, including Brian himself. Brian's most popular lyricists were Mike Love, Van Dyke Parks, and himself! Second most selected were Tandyn Almer, Tony Asher, and Jack Rieley. Also named were Gary Usher, Roger Christian, Carl Wilson, Stephen Kalinich, and Ray Kennedy. Why is this illuminating? Perhaps because Brian named some of the songs that most personally represented not only the best of his songwriting and studio craft, but also touched him personally. As many songwriters say, songs are like children to their creators. The fact that Busy Doin' Nothin', In My Room, Til I Die, and Surfer Girl join this list is that they represent major parts of Brian...his love of home, feeling safe, feeling at sea with life, and the innocence of young love.

Beach Boys Classics: Selected by Brian Wilson:  What do you think of this version of "California Feelin'" (the first commercially-released appearance of this legendary song)?

California Feelin' is especially legendary, having been lauded by the late Timothy White in a 1976 article about Brian's music. The Beach Boys have taken stabs at it a few times, but it never sounded quite like the 1974 demo that Timothy White heard in 1975. The version Brian recorded is a latter day recording, done with his marvelous band. It showcases the song gently, and allows it to showcase it's intrinsic optimism, courtesy of Brian and Stephen Kalinich. It is a celebration of California, perhaps a foreshadowing of his Lucky Old Sun album.

Beach Boys Classics: Selected by Brian Wilson. Why do you think he chose the Smiley Smile version of "Wonderful"?

It is also very interesting to note that Brian chose the Smiley Smile version of Wonderful, rather than the Smile version, probably because he considers it to be the finished version of that song.  As far as songs chosen from albums represented on this collection, Smile/Smiley Smile is the clear favorite of Brian’s.

Do you think “We’re Together Again” (From Selected by Brian Wilson) would have fit well on 20/20?

The only enigma is We're Together Again, a tune written by Ron Wilson, with whom Brian did a 1968 single for Columbia which did not chart. Perhaps the sentiment expressed by the song's lyrics touched Brian. It is from around the Friends period roughly. It is on that album that I see it fitting the best.

BB's Classics - Do you find any of Brian's selections surprising or find anything glaringly missing?

There are beautiful tunes that are left out, most notably Wouldn't It Be Nice, something from the 'slow side' of Beach Boys Today, and tunes from 15 Big Ones and Beach Boys Love You being ignored.  Smile could easily have contributed Cabin Essence or Our Prayer. In the end, our list will differ from Brian's, but isn't that apropos? Brian's instincts for his best work remain sound. In his solo career, there are another half dozen tunes which could easily make the list, if not more. In this case, Brian and whoever worked with him to select this repertoire of his work were inspired. This is a most listenable compilation.

Answers Copyright 2013 by Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved