Adult Child-An Album Lost by Peter Reum

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Adult Child-An Album Lost by Peter Reum

Cover Art of 1981 Adult Child Bootleg lp-Photo by Jasper Dailey

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Side 1:

1. Life Is For The Living

2. Hey Little Tomboy

3. Deep Purple

4. H.E.L.P. Is On The Way
5. It's Over Now

6. Everybody Wants To Live

Side 2:

2. Shortenin' Bread

3. Lines

4. On Broadway

5. Games Two Can Play

6. It's Trying To Say

7. Still I Dream Of It

Bonus tracks:

Side 1

7. Mony,Mony

8. Ruby Baby

9. Be My Baby

Side 2

1. You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling

8. Calendar Girl

Label Art for 1981 Adult Child Bootleg

The period of roughly late 1975 to December 1976 was a period where Brian Wilson wrote a number of songs for therapeutic purposes during the first period of Eugene Landy's treatment regimen, as well as afterward in 1977. A number of cassette tapes from those sessions emerged in collectors' circles, and a few unscrupulous recipients made the tapes available to music bootleggers, who pressed the initial vinyl bootleg  issues. Collectors did not have immediate access to these types of records, unless they "knew someone who knew someone."  Suffice to say that this album retailed for a higher amount than the usual legal Beach Boys albums of that time, perhaps 4 to 5 times as much. What made these types of records so irritating to artists was that they heard from fans that such records existed, and in some cases had them brought to autograph sessions. It was only human for recording artists to ask how much the autograph seeker paid for the bootleg, and when the owner said $20 or $25, the artists were justifiably upset. Most artists did not realize that such bootlegs were very limited, and assumed that they were losing thousands of dollars in royalties.

The Adult Child tapes were relatively good fidelity compared with other studio material circulating among collectors at the time.  It was most likely inevitable that the bootleg would be issued. The early 1980s  Beach Boys bootleg market was terribly small. It is likely that this particular lp was an edition of 500 or 1000 copies. The cover was taken from the Jasper Dailey photos, and given that I owned them, was mildly distressing to me to see. Adult Child was a combination of Brian Wilson 1976 and 1977 compositions and productions, oldie covers/productions, and "cold tracks," which dated back to the 1970  period, also produced by Brian back then. Dick Reynolds, arranger of the traditional Christmas Music side of the Beach Boys Christmas Album, reunited with Brian to perform his magic on 4 songs on the projected track lineup, Deep Purple, Life Is For the Living, It's Over Now, and Still I Dream of It.

 

Where to begin when speaking about Brian Wilson's music and health? My first personal proximity to Brian was backstage at the Beach Boys' 15th Anniversary Concert. I had not attended a Beach Boy show in Los Angeles before. I was head of the Colorado BBFUN Chapter, and happened to sit behind Ginger Blake, Diane Rovell, and Marilyn Wilson. I was able to wangle a backstage pass, and immediately felt extremely out of place when I went back. I did get to shake hands with Brian, Dennis, and Carl. To say I was thrilled was an understatement.  The apparel Brian wore was a bathrobe. He was open and speaking with people, but seemed somewhat subdued. What I couldn't miss was his eyes. They were very blue and darting around the room quickly. Brian was obviously uncomfortable, and like many introverts, kept to himself. Brian's  facial expressions reflected high stress, and I couldn't help but  wonder why his presence here was needed. There was some tension in the backstage area, but people tended to huddle with the Beach Boys they knew the best. I felt like I was violating Brian's personal space and left quickly. Onstage, Brian seemed more uncomfortable. He seemed overwhelmed.  I remember so many articles from that period....Brian's interview with David Felton from Rolling Stone, the initial optimism and then puzzled feelings that Timothy White expressed in Crawdaddy, but most especially the anger and compassion that Paul Krassner expressed in a Crawdaddy editorial that took Landy to the woodshed for a very obvious use of Saturday Night Live for so called therapeutic purposes in November 1976 when Brian's illness was so pervasive that he looked more like a carnival bear rather than a person with mental illness while singing two tunes and appearing in a sketch. This was a man lost at sea, with the very person who was supposed to rescue him telling him to tread water or sink. The Beach Boys' then Manager, Steve Love, fired Landy in early December 1976 after complaints from the group that he tried to exceed his therapeutic authority by trying to make artistic decisions with the band, and by trying to double his fee for treating Brian.

Despite the exploitation of Brian's illness, 1976 and 1977 were periods when Brian's songwriting muse came out to create from time to time. There were a few highlights on 15 Big Ones, Of the oldies, Just Once in My Life stands head and shoulders above everything else. It's OK and Had to Phone Ya were compositions from 1974 and 1973 respectively that had a Brian touch of magic that many of the rest of the oldies and original compositions lacked. Brian began work on a new album shortly after the release of 15 Big Ones, and composed a number of original tunes that were unusual at times, and brilliant at other times. There were several titles mentioned through that year from summer of 1976 through mid-Spring of 1977, among them were Brian Loves You, Adult Child, and New Album. Brian 's work in late 1976 and the first half of 1977 was extremely varied, with real masterpieces mixed with more pedestrian types of compositions . It is clear that the release of Beach Boys Love You on April 11, 1977 dates most of Brian's work on this album in late 1976 and early 1977.


There is a tape that circulates among collectors which features Brian playing a number of new songs for the group in demo form at a piano. Reactions to the songs Brian played ranged from enthusiasm to dislike. The collection of songs that were culled from Brian's work during the first Landy period ranged from sublime to quirky. The Beach Boys chose to release Brian's Love You album as The Beach Boys Love You, and the album received the most mixed critical reaction a Beach Boys album ever had. Several collectors tossed in the towel and sold their collections. Other fans were delighted by the album, happy to hear Brian creating music again. Today it is regarded as the album that separates casual Beach Boys fans from serious Beach Boys fans.

For a brief time, in 1977, Brian had a competent therapist, Stephen Schwartz, who tragically died roughly 6 months after first seeing Brian. The impact on Brian was devastating. During the Schwartz period, Brian composed some memorable songs which are regarded as highlights of his late Seventies work.


The proposed sequel to Beach Boys Love You was entitled Adult Child. This is a fascinating title from the standpoint of the double meaning of the title. Brian Wilson is well known as somewhat childlike in his approach to music thematically, with a thread of innocence running through his work. At the same time, the term "Adult Child" is a term used in the field of substance abuse therapy to refer to children raised in the chaos of a family with one or both parents being chemically dependent. The 1981 Adult Child bootleg was comprised of a combination of Brian Wilson 1976 and 1977 compositions and productions, oldie covers/productions, and "cold tracks," which dated back to the 1970  period, also produced by Brian back then.

Brian's work on Adult Child commenced in February 1977, with Still I Dream of It. This was a full bodied, heartbreaking Brian Wilson ballad that saw a hope, perhaps in the future, when his life would be more happy, and he could fall in love again. Recorded at Brother Studio on February 9, 1977, the tune feels like a stretch into the sound Frank Sinatra had on the albums he recorded for Capitol and Reprise in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. Brian retained Dick Reynolds, of Beach Boys Christmas Album fame, to conduct and arrange the strings. Later, on February 25, 1977, Brian held a session at Brother Studio for another heartbreaking ballad, It's Over Now. The arrangement of the strings and Brian's production make the song itself another composition that placed Brian's deepest feelings in front of his listeners. Deep Purple was also cut as a track that day, and although somewhat of a return to oldies, it fell in thematically with Brian's mood of the time. Further sessions were held on March 11th, but the song recorded that day is not known with certainty. It  probably was Life Is For the Living, given the presence of brass and string instruments listed on the session sheet. Life is For the Living is a full-bodied swinging jazz arrangement that, given less unusual lyrics, might have been played on progressive FM and College radio formats at the time. Lines was cut on April 11th, a tune which is thematically about a day in the life of a person and the love interest in his life. The song is more upbeat and less emotionally painful than some of the previous songs cut for Adult Child. A version of Shortnin' Bread was cut on June 3, 1977. This is the more primitive sounding version, with Brian handling the lead vocal. The arrangement had been around since 1973, with Brian driving Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper out of his Bellagio home after singing it for several hours without stopping.

The Adult Child album was mastered on June 23, 1977. It was submitted to Reprise with two Beach Boys archive tunes appended to the songs listed above, H.E.L.P. Is On the Way and Games Two Can Play. The remaining songs appear to date from 1976, including Hey Little Tomboy, Everybody Wants to Live, It's Trying to Say (Baseball), and On Broadway.  Collector's tapes of the album began surfacing in the late summer of 1977, and the stronger selections on the album, Still I Dream of It and It's Over Now, began to be cited by fans as evidence that Brian still had his ability to cut powerful music when he was inspired. Many fans loved It's Trying to Say for Dennis's great lead vocal and the bounciness of the tune. Everybody Wants to Live was mentioned by Carnie and Wendy Wilson in the 1995 Don Was produced Brian Wilson documentary I Just Wasn't Made For These Times. They quoted their dad saying he was going to write a song about a cigarette butt, and that he disappeared into his music room for 3 minutes and came out and sang Everybody Wants to Live Just Once to them. On Broadway preceded George Benson's airwave hit by about a year, and showed that Brian still had the ability to find a well written song and interpret it to his audience. H.E.L.P. Is On the Way is a song that was recorded in the late Sixties to honor a favorite Beach Boys health food restaurant and food store, ala Wild Oats, which they patronized frequently. Those of us who lived through that era no doubt had our own favorite health food café. Games Two Can Play appears to be a Brian tune inspired by Joe South's hit from the late Sixties. The melody is infectious, but the tune suffers from underdeveloped lyrics. It's Trying to Say is a love song to Brian's favorite sport, baseball, and is performed with brotherly love by Dennis Wilson. It is a track which should have been on Beach Boys Love You, but was left off.  Hey Little Tomboy was written by Brian affectionately to his oldest daughter Carnie. She was then at that awkward age when girls are still tomboyish, but have begun to take interest in their attractiveness to boys.

That Adult Child still has a few tunes that remain unreleased is somewhat interesting. Life Is For the Living, Deep Purple, Everybody Wants to Live, Shortnin' Bread (Brian Lead Vocal), Lines, On Broadway, and It's Trying to Say (aka "Baseball") are still officially unreleased. Also unreleased are the bonus tracks Mony Mony, the 1976 Ruby Baby with a Brian lead vocal, and Be My Baby and Calendar Girl, both from 1978.  Mony Mony is a personal favorite of mine that rocks. It is a 15 Big Ones outtake. The 1976 Ruby Baby is Brian cutting a rocking version of the Dion DiMucci version, with a great bassline and wacky guitar solo. His vocal is edgy here. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' was released on the superb Made In California boxed set. A catchy and delicious arrangement of Neil Sedaka's Calendar Girl was cut by Brian during his brief production time on L.A. Light Album before he called Bruce Johnston citing exhaustion. Be My Baby is most likely an L.A. Light Album outtake as well, and is a Brian Production.

When I returned to Los Angeles a year later in 1977 for the "Sweet 16" Anniversary Concert, I again got backstage, but the Brian I saw was dispirited, saddened, and scared. It appeared to me that he was detached from most if not all of what was going on around him, and this made me wonder if he had a psychiatrist who was able to work with him and manage his mental health concerns. I said hello to him and he said hello back, but only made fleeting eye contact. I later heard that he was being supervised day by day by Mike Love's brother Stan and a guy named Rocky. There did not appear to be an attending psychiatric physician who was helping Brian's handlers understand his condition. Both men appeared to be trying to do their best in a difficult medical terrain with few cairns to mark the correct trail.

The saga of Adult Child is a story of chimerical moods, loneliness, divorce, occasional inspiration, and several "if only" situations. It was the effort of a very talented but scared, anxious, and depressed musician to meet his group and audience's demands. In the same era, several marriages were ending, and the demand for the Beach Boys' most famous songs to be performed live was at a peak. In mid 1977, a Rolling Stone reporter was present at a New York concert when the band fractured into two intransigent parts, and one group member told the reporter that he had just witnessed the breakup of The Beach Boys. Dennis Wilson's Caribou masterpiece Pacific Ocean Blue was released a few months later, to glowing reviews and group frustration. The time was also difficult because Reprise had rejected Adult Child, and then rejected a new 1970s Christmas album submitted after that. They then changed the rejected Christmas album into a collection of 12 songs, but we'll save that for another story at another time.