Good Vibrations- Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective by Peter Reum

Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective
Philip Lambert, Ed.

 by Peter Reum

Introduction

With the growing presence of American Popular Music as a research topic, and as the topic of a graduate or undergraduate course in many United States colleges and universities, it is a thrill for me to see serious musical analysis and history books by researchers in Music, 20th Century Culture, and also Music History. There are many music scholars and popular music authors working in these areas of research and scholarly music history.

They are writing about  a certain musical style (e.g. Blues), biographical articles and books about prominent musicians and record industry pioneers (e,g, Sam Phillips), or regions of North America, Europe, and other locations that have been hotbeds in the development of unique musical styles such as  (San Francisco Psychedelia), and so forth.

Certain universities have used their academic presses to underwrite more esoteric areas of music research or to bring awareness to readers of significant forces, musicians, musical styles, and regions. The University of Michigan Press has sponsored a topic that is neither esoteric or trivial with respect to popular music. They have published a group of books that treat popular music as seriously as jazz, blues, motion picture music, and Broadway plays and shows. As late as twenty years ago, probably less than 200 books had been devoted to pop music. Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective carries on a trend of seriously researched books that are footnoted, with proper credit given to the authors whose work is being used in music history and biography. In the Tracking Pop series, in addition to Good Vibrations, subjects of origins of hip hop, German Metal and Dance Music, and several more are available.

Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys In Critical Perspective

Philip Lambert - Editor

Published 2016

Inside the Music of Brian Wilson by Philip Lambert

Published 2007

Part One

The first three chapters that comprise formal musical topics are together under a large umbrella, yet would easily selected for a music scholarly journals focus upon different aspects of the structure of Beach Boys music. For example, how would a person who listens to music might intellectually internalize Brian Wilson's compositions. Then there is the process of how listeners emotionally connect with Brian's music, arrangements, and lyrics, and why Brian's life outside of music might be important in the subjective aspect of how his music transformed listeners. The third essay in this opening section of the book is written by Mr. Lambert himself. I found Mr. Lambert's opening essay to be a key to musical growth that Brian Wilson experienced through learning the possible juxtaposition of various chords, both major and minor. I especially appreciated Mr. Lambert including the lyrics to the section of whatever song he was addressing which enabled people like myself who know Brian's melodies well, but know the song being discussed through memorization of the melodic changes and lyrical content from literally thousands of plays of records, tapes, and cds.

Daniel Harrison's analysis of various sounds and spaces in numerous Brian Wilson songs is the second of the three essays in this first section of the book. Daniel enumerates and shows how even short stops (no pun intended) of a 16th of a note change the flavor and the commercial value of a given tune. The obvious sounds and stops are presented, but there are numerous breaks in Brian's songs. The most obvious of these which nearly everyone would know are numerous instrument and vocal stops in the single The Little Girl I Once Knew, the dogs and train passing at the end of Pet Sounds, and the chirping guitar birdlike sounds in Diamond Head. I found Mr. Harrison's insight into a subtle form of record production and songwriting an illuminating.

Kirk Curnett presents a personal history of how his view of Brian Wilson changed through the years. He documents the forces that may have shaped the lyrical aspect of his songs, then cogently analyzes the slow evolution of the public Brian Wilson in various books, articles, and television coverage of Brian from roughly the Capitol promotion magazines (1964-67), through the Jules Siegel's Cheetah magazine article which created the Smile fervor, through the video of Brian singing a section of Surfs Up in the 1967 David Oppenheim tv special. Next came Paul Williams and Crawdaddy trying to figure out why Smile was shelved which then moves into the influence of Rolling Stone from 1967 to 1971, especially Tom Nolan's extensive two part article in 1971. David Leaf is mentioned as a strong influence on public perception of Brian over against the other Beach Boys, especially Mike Love. Three elements of this article I found astute and insightful....first the interactions of Eugene Landy in Brian's life, and second, Garry Trudeau's masterful chronicle of Andy, sick with AIDS, living long enough to hear Pet Sounds in stereo, and finally David Leaf's interview with Paul McCartney, who cites Pet Sounds as a major influence on Sgt. Pepper, and says it is one of the most important albums ever record in Rock Music.

If these topics strike you as esoteric with respect to subject selection, I would caution you as reader to keep an open mind

Part Two

The second of three sections of this book addresses history regarding Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. In the first of four essays in this section, Kier Knightley addresses some sociological aspects of the early career of The Beach Boys. The second essay by Ms. Jadey O' Regan discusses the early history of The Beach Boys, and attempts to construct a  model  of musical development that lays out the artistic periods the Beach Boys experienced in the Sixties. The third essay, by Dale Carter, is entitled The Undergrounding of Brian Wilson 1964-67. This piece addresses the growing musicianship of Brian Wilson as he makes contact with a number of people who were considered to be the cream of Los Angeles hipsters. The fourth essay, Good Reverberations, is Philip Lambert's second essay in this book.  He uses the song Good Vibrations to explore how this composition evolved through the process of adaptation of the song for live performance or was altered lyrically for inclusion on several occasions. An example of how this happens is the process of using a version that was recorded earlier that the edit that was used for release as a single. It follows the life of Good Vibrations, arguably Brian's most famous and successful composition, from its early development during Pet Sounds through the adaptation of the song for live performance by The Beach Boys, into its iconic status as a song in the Library of Congress's Register of American Recordings. Mr. Lambert also discusses several covers of Good Vibrations by various artists through the last fifty years.

Mr. Knightley's essay, entitled Summer of '64, places the fulcrum point of the evolution of Brian's songwriting and producing on The All Summer Long album. He takes the position that  there was no Rock Music Culture as of 1964, that its developments came later. Brian's essay on the back cover of All Summer Long mentions developing a feeling of sociological superiority, which Mr. Knightley deconstructs and interprets as the beginning of a Rock Music sensibility which is superior to ordinary "pop music." Mr. Knightley cites theory developed by David Riesman in 1950 which posits two types of music listeners. The first is the majority listener, and the second is the minority listener. The latter sits at the edge of new trends in popular music, with a somewhat hostile attitude toward common popular music. Mr. Knightley quotes Paul Williams in an essay defending the quality of music recorded by The Beach Boys after the Smile Sessions. Brian's music in 1964 "toed the nose" through the various elements of Southern California youth culture and was an incredible musical and lyrical snapshot of all the affluent and not so affluent youth of the Southland. Brian's unprecedented success, at least in Los Angeles Recording Studios, essentially moved the center of American Music Recording Culture from New York City to L.A. Not only was Brian's music popular in the United States, but all over the developed world.

Mr. Knightley seems to feel that the cover design of the All Summer Long album had subtle elements of Piet Mondrian's art. Personally, I think it was just another excremental Capitol album cover. The photos on the cover do show the group having fun "all summer long." Mr. Knightley goes on to address Brian and The Beach Boy's artistic expansion to movies and television. He mentions Karen from a television program that stiffed in 1964 and a tune entitled Things We Did Last Summer which was a prominent movie tune in a teenage film of the era. Having lived through those days of network tv and teen movies, I would say that Karen was a career appendix of a tune that did nothing for the career exposure of the Beach Boys, and Things We  Did Last Summer was in the vault and remained unreleased until The Beach Boys' 1993 Good Vibrations Boxed Set. I personally remember the incredible number of tv appearances they made on the most popular programs of that time, such as Red Skelton, Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan, Jack Benny (with Bob Hope), Kraft Music Hall, and most importantly Shindig. These were the shows that allowed exposure of the group to millions of households. The All Summer Long lp is mentioned by Mr. Knightley as having "no filler." Personally, there is no doubt in my mind that Carl's Big Chance was a filler track designed to get Carl some song royalties. Our Favorite Recording Sessions was clever, but again a track quickly cooked up to finish an album. Mr. Knightley's summary of Brian's place in the pantheon of musicians who changed American Music is well stated, and his essay is easily one of the more thought provoking pieces of writing about Brian and The Beach Boys in recent years.

The second essay in Section 2 is by Ms. Jadey O'Regan. In her chapter, she suggests a conceptual theme by identifying Surfin"Safari and the Surfin"USA Albums in the craftman category which include Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Volume 2, and All Summer Long. The Artist category includes Today, Summer Days, and Pet Sounds. Ms. O'Regan then provides what could be seen as a songwriting model which she uses to display the frequency of the types of song which are prevalent on each of the nine albums in the study. The chart in which she displays her results is a good analysis of the various song structures identified in her article.

Ms. O'Regan goes next to an interesting section which displays the use of songwriting structures that appear on each of the nine albums in this article. Finally, the lyrical content of each of the nine albums in this study is analyzed based upon the apprentice-craftsman-artist model introduced earlier in this article. A frequency analysis using a display called "wordle" is employed on three themes heard in Beach Boys albums from 1962-66. Quite candidly, the word frequency display results for songs in the surfing period are in the apprentice category. These results would be intuitively expected based upon the lyrical content upon reading the lyrics for Surfin' Safari and Surfin' USA. After exploring other lyrical themes (e.g. cars, girls, reflective songs) in the Craftsman and Artist levels, the article moves into the three levels for vocal performance. With regard to the use of falsetto vocals,  Ms. O'Regan seems to equate them with vocal sophistication. A chart shows that excluding the Surfin' Safari album, Brian's use of falsetto vocals was fairly constant through albums up to and including Pet Sounds, if a scatter plot were to be used to illustrate the high and emotional sounds of his falsetto. An informative appendix helps the reader answer any questions that might arise from reading the chapter.

The third article by Dale Carter is a very well researched narrative which is concerned with the period leading up to and including the period of time in which Brian and a group of friends of Van Dyke Parks introduced Brian to the underground scene in West LA and Santa Monica. High school friends of Brian's tried to keep in touch with Brian for the first five years after graduation. In interviews with three of them, the high school pals of Brian said all made the observation that Brian was different personality wise after he dropped acid and used marijuana. What was never discussed was Brian's growing use of a form of amphetamine called "cross tops" in order to maintain a schedule where his time was in demand nearly every day week after week, month after month.

Brian has told friends of mine that he was in a creative frenzy which he has indicated to mutual friends made him overtired and more susceptible to the nasty voice hallucinations which he feared. The sheer fatigue he felt was somewhat relieved by cannabis, but the creativity he had felt using cross tops turned into an inability to sleep and a form of paranoia that ensued which caused him to have a form of hypersensitivity, which caused friends to think that might be trying to sabotage his music.

As the article by Mr. Carter points out, Brian studied a number of new forms of spirituality that he or his new friends experimented with. As a friend of Brian from high school said, "the drive from West LA to Hawthorne might as well been one thousand miles."

This essay by Mr. Carter in twenty pages is tightly written and is the most succintly written summary of Smile and how the events surrounding its history came to pass that I have read for a long time.

The last article in this second part of this book is again by Philip Lambert. The original Good Vibrations single is one of the most amazing examples of using the studio as an instrument itself of that era. Of special note is the discussion of a plethora of cover versions by over 100 different artists.
There is a wonderful appendix to this article which lists over one hundred versions with dates listed. This is invaluable.

Mr. Lambert goes into detail in his description of Brian Wilson's mixdown of various segments of Good Vibrations into the classic single we all know. The results of over 50 hours of tape recorded in five separate studios are boiled down to a single 45 rpm 'A' side. Mr. Lambert goes on to outline how various versions by Brian evolved over time and were modified to meet the purpose needed. He goes on to show how his daughters changed the tune to sound plausible when sung from a female perspective in the group Wilson Philips.

In my years of collecting I came across dozens of covers of Good Vibrations from the sublime to the ridiculous. But....Mr. Lambert wins the gold medal for identifying over 100+ versions. Some of them are close versions, e.g. Todd. Rundgren. Some are in a foreign language, such as the Quebecois group Les Eccentrique. There are numerous imitations by other imitation or tribute groups, such as Papa Doo Run Run. Then there are the quasi symphonic versions, versions sung by chorale type groups and so forth. Some are just plain hilarious, such as Little Joe Shaver and the Devil Dog Band.

Mr. Lambert's work here is encyclopedic and instructive. For lifelong Brian Wilson/Beach Boys fans, this article takes us to a place where we decided to spring for a Good Vibrations cover version....only to find out what we had bought was a miserable piece of sh*t! And so it goes...and so it goes, and where it ends no one knows.

Part Three

The last section of this book centers around Brian Wilson's Smile Project. Andrew Flory's contribution, entitled Fandom and Ontology in Smile, centers around the impact of unofficial people and events which kept Smile alive for 37 years until Brian Wilson felt safe enough to take a look at his most imaginative and mysterious music.

The final chapter is by Larry Starr, and is a survey of Brian Wilson/Beach Boys music done after the shelving of Smile in 1967. Entitled A Listener's Smile, the essay asks many of the same questions that have been posed by Beach Boys fans, record companies, and curious fellow musicians over the 37 year span between shelving and revival of Smile.

A personal note--As some Brian Wilson and Beach Boys fans know, I have personal history with Smile going back decades. I need to mention this because early on in my Brian and Beach Boys history, I ceased being a person outside Smile, and became part of the story.

Beach Boys fans were quite insular when this story began. Brian was the recipient of a Derek Taylor publicity campaign when the Smile album was in development in 1966. Excitement grew on both sides of the Atlantic as various articles ran in music media. As Brian grew more involved in the entire Beach Boys scene, his attention was diverted from Smile. Already stressed from the praise of the Pet Sounds lp across the world, he tried to top Pet Sounds with Smile.....a difficult task at best. Good Vibrations was a great start and showed the world how his modular style of production could succeed, but Brian is one of those people who needs unqualified positive feedback around him, from which he catapults to the next level of amazing music.

When things began to unravel was when David Anderle told Brian that Capitol needed a single in December 1966. Work on Smile stopped cold, and Brian went to work on the single Brother Records planned to be the lead single, Heroes and Villains. Brian had numerous sessions through January and February 1967, and kept working on Heroes to the point of exhaustion. Recording, which had always been a positive experience and a tension reliever for Brian became onerous. Brian had no activity to replace making records as a positive compulsion. Soon, the Heroes and Villains single had to be set aside to deal with the Capitol Records lawsuit Brother Records had filed. Heroes, which Brian contemplated as a dazzling tour de force, became another unfinished task as February 1967 ended.

March 1967 was when Brian first set aside Smile. He had some film projects in mind he was planning, oversaw the lawsuit against Capitol, and as time passed, he became more and more rattled by some of the people in his Smile entourage. Van Dyke Parks, whose lyrics so eloquently complemented Brian's Smile music, was frustrated with some of the Beach Boys complaining about his lyrics and asking what they meant. He left in February, only to return in April to help with the newest planned single, Vegetables. In early May 1967, Brian recorded some music related to water, presumably for Smile's Elements Suite. Van Dyke Parks left again in late April, and signed a deal with Warner Records for solo albums. Without Van Dyke's able presence and willingness to help Brian defend Smile as a concept and Van's lyrics as being necessary for the project, Brian, finding that he had given his all for people who carped about his musical intuition, threw in the towel on Smile and had a breakdown of sorts that sidelined him.

The beautiful Smile music and lyrics were shelved. Brian, in a fragile state of mind took part of May to just rest and recover. When he met with the Beach Boys later in May, he told them that he could no longer produce the group by himself, and that if he were to record with them that the project replacing Smile would have to be low key and fun. Heroes and Villains was simplified, still clocking in at roughly 3 and a half minutes in length. In Tom Nolan's 1971 Rolling Stone article Terry Melcher said that Brian took the Heroes single to an LA radio station to give them the exclusive chance to premier the single, and the dj told Brian he couldn't play singles not on the approved for broadcast list. By the time the station manager screamed "put it on, you idiot!" the damage was done. It was the last excrement sandwich Brian had to swallow in a year of nothing but them being served.

Smiley Smile was completed in July 1967, and is still the first album recorded and completed using modular recording techniques. Pieces of Smile were used by The Beach Boys against Brian's wishes to help complete albums due at Capitol. The second half of 1967 and all of 1968 and 1969 were devoted to completing the Capitol Records contract. That was accomplished and the Beach Boys won their Capitol Records lawsuit, only to have their entire catalog deleted in 1971. 1972 brought a possible bonus of $50,000 from Reprise Records to The Beach Boys if Smile was presented completed. Carl Wilson and an engineer went through the shelved Smile tapes, and discovered that they had no way to finish it without Brian, who was struggling with voices in his head and trying to silence them with anything that altered his mind.

Fast forward to 1982, and while working with some authors on a book project that a Beach Boys discographer and I assisted, some folks inside the Beach Boys extended family proposed a tape trade by exchanging some unreleased songs for roughly 25 minutes of Smile music. The discographer sent me the cassette, which I listened to without bathing for a week (just kidding). It was in good but not great sound quality.  Some folks I thought I could trust were given a copy of the tape, and just to make things interesting, I put several different Smile soundalike tunes on their tapes. One schmoo was sent a copy of the tape with Here Come De Honeyman from Miles Davis and Bill Evans Porgy and Bess album labelled air "Air" from the Elements. In the interim, about 30 more minutes of Smile had been found by other Beach Boys collectors and sent to myself and a few other Beach Boys wingnuts deserving copies. We NEVER intended to have this material put on a bootleg and went to great lengths to prevent that eventuality. The schmoo who got the Porgy and Bess "Air" track pressed vinyl copies of about 35 minutes of Smile and was vilified in the tape community for his greed and stupidity.

As time went by, more and more Smile surfaced from crazy places, and the little cassette community had more Smile to listen to. Little did we know that a person working on a Beach Boys documentary had dubbed every bit of unreleased Beach Boys music he could find, and somehow gave that material to some Europeans who did a bootleg series called Sea of Tunes. Perfect quality recordings of all kinds of Beach Boys material surfaced, and diehard Beach Boys fans heard this stuff for the first time. Because the Smile material had surfaced originally in piecemeal fashion, each person with the various cassettes before Sea of Tunes emerged could put together their own track lineup in excellent quality sound. There was also a Japanese bootleg that offered a few tracks not otherwise available.

The reaction in the musician community was nothing short of spectacular. Bands listened to the Smile material and were thrilled and awed by the imaginative and no holds barred manner Brian Wilson gave his muse full freedom and recorded the most imaginative and original music ever recorded. There are too many to name...but a friend of mine who knew Fleet Foxes well said that Smile inspired them to cut their own revolutionary music.

My friend David was doing the notes for the Capitol 2fers in the early Nineties and asked me to contribute some facts for the booklets accompanying them. Later, he did the amazing notes for the Good Vibrations 1993 Capitol boxed set. The set included some 30+ minutes of Smile music, and was heralded as one of the best boxed sets ever done.

In roughly twelve years, we had gone from 25 minutes of Smile music to 6 unofficial hours in excellent sound quality AND more importantly, the first official release of Smile music done with Brian Wilson's approval. The respect and adulation the Good Vibrations set's Smile music received showed Brian that his most personal and creative music DID receive a tremendously positive response, despite Brian's fears that Smile would be rejected.

In 1995, Van Dyke Parks asked Brian to sing on a song called Orange Crate Art that he had written with Brian doing vocals in mind. After that studio date went well, Van Dyke asked Brian to sing lead vocals on ten additional tunes for the album, also entitled Orange Crate Art.  As the album was generally well received, some pain from the Smile album sessions was relieved.

As time went on, the young musicians who loved Smile would come up to Brian and tell him how much they loved Smile, and tell him that he should put it together. After Carl Wilson's sad demise in 1997, Brian began to consider playing live himself. He played a longer type of set with his newly assembled touring band. He released a live double cd set, and played the entire Pet Sounds album live to rapturous acclaim. His reception at Royal Festival Hall in London moved him deeply. He vowed to come back at "the right time."

In 2003, Brian announced dramatically that he and his band would premiere Smile in London's Royal Festival Hall in February 2004. With the performance a year away, Brian, with Darian Sahanaja identified crucial Smile segments. I spoke via email with Van Dyke Parks and asked after his health. He assured me that he was in good health. I inquired if Brian had gotten in touch with him about Smile. He indicated that he hadn't. Not wanting to. appear nosy, I left it there. About a week later, word came through some friends that Brian had called and asked Van Dyke to work with him.

As time marched on, I was asked to assist with research on a film being shot concerning Smile. I eventually flew to London with my friend Dave. We helped where we could, and attended all of the shows. The film was excellent.

In 2005 I drove to Eugene, Oregon to see Smile one last time. My dear friend of 30 years, Bob Hanes, and his wife and I drove to Portland and got there early enough to catch a short show with Brian and a few band members for a Portland radio station. Brian said hello to both of us. We were happy that he remembered us. The show that evening was incredible.

Things settled down for several years. In early 2011, I made original Smile artwork available to Capitol. It turned out that they showed it to Brian and his wife to prove the art they had in their own files dated to 1966. I was asked to provide photos for the Capitol Smile boxed set slated for release that year. I was also asked to write an essay for the deluxe boxed set book. My long 45 year association with Smile ended with the Smile boxed set. It was Brian's triumph. The deluxe 5 cd box won the Grammy for best historical release of 2011.....and Smile and the wonderful work Brian did was vindicated.  The second article in the last section of Good Vibrations by Larry Starr. He traces the history of the Smile tapes from the early work on Good Vibrations through the cannibal type use of the Smile material by The Beach Boys from 1967 through the Surfs Up album in 1971. Each of these uses of the Smile tapes to fill out various albums bothered Brian. Brian considered the Smile tapes to be some of his best work. To have the group use the Smile material after some members of the group dissed it when it was being recorded felt like the ultimate betrayal. Brian eventually vindicated himself and his instincts with Brian Wilson Presents Smile, voted by several publications as the album of the year for 2005. The video presentation of the performance in Los Angeles showed a happy Brian who loved the way his band performed with him as a tight unit.

The Beautiful Dreamer documentary fearlessly followed Brian through the months he spent wrestling with the idea of exposing himself and his highly personal music to public opinion. The rapidly moving emotions Brian felt were there for all to see. The adulation was there on film as well. In the end, Smile was a performance piece in three movements...not a Beach Boys album. Mr. Starr's observations echo many of my personal feelings regarding Smile. Now it belongs to the future as generations newly discover the dazzling beauty of Brian Wilson's most personal work....the music the angels gave him, as a close friend of Brian's learned from Brian himself.

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum -- All Rights Reserved

Fellowship by Peter Reum

He thought he had life by the tail
Every question he answered
There were no mysteries that paled
One would think he could cure cancer

Reliance upon his own intellect
Was his usual modus operandi
He treated loved ones with disrespect
While seeking every honor to collect

Friends and family went away
The result of ego gone astray
In grieving, he tried to see the cost
Silence deafening, his soul was lost

When things looked to him the bleakest
He took inventory of his whole life
People he never knew talked with him
Showing him new ways to lose strife

Old behavior is not easily changed
We need help to avoid falling back
Friends don't know why he acted strange
But fellowship kept him on the tracks

Making amends was quite frightening
He would rather be struck by lightning
There is peace in getting life balanced
Getting rid of shame was enlightening

Keeping things honest is essential

Walking the line humbly is best

The fellowship is always confidential

Changing your life is a noble quest

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - All Rights Reserved

Favorite Albums #9--The Raspberries Starting Over by Peter Reum

Somewhere, a long time ago, I saw a promotional film which introduced to listeners of Rock Music by the Raspberries. Serious Rock listeners in the Sixties and Seventies often relied upon guidance about new albums from reviews that ran in magazines like Creem, Rolling Stone, and Crawdaddy along with articles in local papers, and advice from friends. The Raspberries had had singles with modest to excellent chart success, and good to great reviews of their first three albums. The group seemed to have excellent musicianship that was influenced by contemporary bands such as The Who, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles, both as a group and solo.

Cover Art for the Raspberries Starting Over (1974)

Rolling Stone Magazine named Starting Over as one of the top 5 lps of 1974, and I bought it, based upon their short but favorable review of the album. I had heard Raspberries singles on the radio, and once in awhile they would show up on progressive FM stations as well. Their leaders, Eric Carmen and Wally Bryson, were joined by a new pair of musicians, Michael McBride, a drummer, and Scott McCarl, a bass guitarist, them being two musicians who shined as a new rhythm section for the band.

After the end of the Raspberries, Eric Carmen signed a solo contract with Arista Records. He was to have a better type of success with Arista. It appeared that Capitol Records really had no idea how to promote the Raspberries. That said, there were four albums that pioneered power pop, with the crown jewel being Starting Over.

The album's tunes were all excellent. Starting Over opened with a tune called Overnight Sensation. The production by Jimmy Ienner enthusiastically creates the sound of a new band lineup which enthusiastically sought to put out a single which would be a hit, and which upon release, would be picked up by radio stations across the USA, and take the nation by storm. The lead vocal by Eric Carmen pulls in the listener with a confession by Carmen that he "knows it sounds funny, but I'm not in it for the money" and eases into the wish that "I want a hit record, yeah...number 1." The record goes into the song's bridge sounding like an old fashioned car radio and then turns into the regular bridge of the tune. Overnight Sensation is a brilliant track, and shows the trust that the group had with their producer.

For me, Cruisin' Music is another incredible tune which melds the Beach Boys' best car songs with the feel of their summer themed surf music. The bass and drums carry the feeling of Californa Summer Music along with lyrics that complement the picture that the instrumental track contributes. The group vocals are excellent, reflecting the shimmering feel of Brian Wilson's vocal arrangements.

The title track, a gorgeous ballad that foreshadows Eric's solo albums, offers a sweet and romantic ballad. Ballads were offered on each of the Raspberries' first three albums, as well as his first three solo Arista albums. In 1975, Eric Carmen signed with Arista.

It has often been said that the Raspberries' harder rocking tunes reflect the strong influence of The Who. This is very accurate with respect to I Don't Know What I Want. Theme wise, this tune releases The Raspberries inner id......in that the song's vocalist roars that he doesn't "know what he wants, BUT I WANT IT NOW!!!! The tune reveals the petulant side of being a rock star, and it seems to pay tribute to Keith Moon.

The album's second song, Play On, also shows a British influence. The tune is a bit whiny, with the lead vocalist moaning about touring. He reflects that
seemingly homesick feeling that even the best bands experience on those long tours. The music rocks on Play On, which erases some of lyrical complaining herein.

All Through the Night is another vigorous hard rocking tune that explores the groupie phenomenon. There is no doubt in my mind that this band never lacked for young women to sleep with. This tune again shows the brilliance of the power pop that they seemed to compose and play so easily.
The song, like Cruisin' Music, shows some Beach Boys influence, along with solo Paul McCartney.

No Hard Feelings is a song that reflects the split in half of the guys that made up the Raspberries for the first three albums. On November 26, 1973, the split occured. Scott McCarl seemed to need to speak with the former members in order to move on with the new Raspberries lineup. The song rocks, and with the new members aboard, there is nothing lost from the first band to the new lineup that made Starting Over.

The album's entire song lineup will show listeners where American Power Pop had its beginning. I would suggest the Raspberries 4 cd set on Caroline, which may be obtained online. All four Raspberries albums are well done, and demonstrate how bands like The Knack and Cheap Trick inherited the urge and the quality that the best American Power Pop exemplified.

Text copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - All Rights Reserved

Chuck Berry: The Fountainhead of 20th Century Rock by Peter Reum

Chuck Berry: The Fountainhead of 20th Century Rock by Peter Reum

Chuck Berry died today. His 90 years were lived on his terms. Almost any form of rock and roll, and later, rock music, owes a debt to him. Most rock groups, including such behemoths as The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones absorbed his music, and in a few cases directly, retitled it and said it was their own.

Mr. Berry absorbed all of the ugly drama of Jim Crow, responding to the pain with quiet dignity. His response to this most horrible experience was to fight it with a subtlety that undercut segregation.  Chuck Berry tunes brought White kids to listen to African-American music that helped many kids of all races and ethnicities to be more at ease with people from other races.

Songs like Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Promised Land, and others became the story of pride of being African-American and dignified over against White prejudice. As a child, Chuck Berry had been told to sit in the segregated theater balcony of the most beautiful theater in St. Louis, with the White kids sitting in the best seats on the main floor. He then reflected that he was asked to play a concert 50 years later in the same theater as an integrated show. He shook his head with a grimace, but also with a look of irony and a half smile.

Chuck Berry, like many African-Americans, was deeply scarred by his experiences with segregation.  It led to some time in prison right when rock and roll became Whiter. He saw that white men with similar convictions were being given probation without setting foot in prison. He traveled to gigs himself, without anyone else, with his electric guitar and perhaps a change of clothes. His list of demands in his standard contract specified that he must be paid in cash before he played a note. If things didn't look right to him, he would hop back in his rental car, and drive back to the airport post haste.

He did not pay a band to travel and play behind him. The concert promoter was responsible for that. If the band couldn't keep up, he would tell them to leave. He and his guitar would finish the show. He had an amusement park for a few years, and had detailed plans for it. For reasons that are often contradictory, the plans never got done.

As a family man, he was quietly protective. He adored his wife and treated her as a partner. They celebrated their 68th anniversary a few days before his death. There is so much to celebrate in Chuck Berry's life. His catalog of songs is the gold standard of rock.  His influence on other artists is unmatched. If Rock Music could be seen as a massive tree, Chuck Berry would be the roots.

Hail Hail Rock and Roll......Hail Hail Chuck Berry!

The reader is suggested to find The Great 28, a compilation of his hits.
For hard core Berry fans, Bear Family Records has a boxed set which includes his entire recorded output. I have it and love it!

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - All rights reserved

Lei'd In Hawaii: The Further Cooling Out of Brian Wilson by Peter Reum

Lei'd In Hawaii: The Further Cooling Out of Brian Wilson

by Peter Reum

Despite the avant-garde minimalist approach to recording Smiley Smile, sales of the album in the United States did not come close to the anticipated sales volume as projected by Capitol Records. The Smile period Brother Records employees had jumped ship throughout the first half of 1967, leaving a void that placed the business decisions for Brother Records with The Beach Boys themselves without being able to bounce ideas off Brother employees.

Contributing to the relative chaos that ensued after Smile was shelved, the legal discord between The Beach Boys and Capitol/EMI soured the company and The Beach Boys on trying to negotiate a new recording contract. The Heroes and Villains single rose to number 12 on the national music surveys, only to disappear much faster than previous Beach Boy hits. The disappointment of the group and Capitol in Smiley Smile led Capitol to suggest releasing Smile as an album with ten tracks following Smiley Smile.

Jon Hunt's Brilliant Art Workup for an Imagined Lei'd In Hawaii Front Cover

Brian Wilson's emotional stability was eroding. The rest of the Beach Boys group were witnesses to his mental health unraveling. It was evident that he had exhausted himself and had a nervous breakdown which continued to manifest itself symptomatically through the summer and fall of 1967, and winter of 1967/68. After the group submitted Smiley Smile to Capitol, the Heroes and Villains single did not make the top ten singles charts nationally. This was a severe disappointment to Brian, and his exhaustion and deteriorating emotional state gave the other Beach Boys some cause to take over the production duties faster than they anticipated. Also complicating the situation was the group's affection for mood altering chemicals, which at times clouded their judgement regarding song selection in live performance and in selection of newer tunes for future albums.

As was  the group's habit in the mid-Sixties, the group understood that the hype regarding Smile and the incredible success of Good Vibrations worldwide, had made their situation post-Smile-being -canned period seem like a broken wagon wheel on Donner Pass in a snow storm.

Given the numerous circumstances and the group's disaffection with Capitol, it is quite possible that The Beach Boys began to see that their remaining time on the contract with Capitol Records was best completed quickly, perhaps giving the group a chance to seek a new beginning with another record label. The decision to record Lei'd In Hawaii was  one way to partially fulfill the frequency of single and albums submissions to Capitol Records more quickly,  and also to conserve possible songs for a post Capitol album.

The history of Beach Boy live concerts in Honolulu, Hawaii was excellent historically for them, and the opportunity to perform two shows on successive nights to promote Smiley Smile was also attractive to the group.  The shows would inject needed income to Brother Records, at a time when the group's overall Stateside concert revenue had not met the success of the group in Asia, Australia, and Europe.

Lei'd In Hawaii Front and Back Covers-Spank Label Boot

The concert venue, Honolulu's International Center, was sold out for both nights-August 25 and 26, 1967. The five original Beach Boys made the trip, sans Bruce Johnston. Bruce's reason for not coming was later quoted that "it all got a little weird" with the Beach Boys. (Bellagio 10542-Andrew Doe, ESQuarterly.com) Given the recreational pharmaceuticals the group used during the Smiley Smile sessions, perhaps Bruce didn't want to imbibe, and bowed out gracefully. The Beach Boys had previously headlined a KPOI show at the Center in 1964. As in Europe, The Beach Boys were universally adored in Honolulu, having made reference to Hawaii in a number of their recordings.

The group had a rehearsal before the August 25th show, and it was taped. It was clear that Brian was enchanted by the Baldwin Organ that had been given to him as a gift by Murry Wilson.  They began with a stunning version of Their Hearts Were Full of Spring in a rehearsal for the first night of the 1967 Honolulu shows displays Carl, Dennis, Mike, Al, and Brian playing together in a manner that suggests that the group had not played the material they were presenting enough to be their usual seamless selves playing live. The group played a few tunes for the first time live, such as Heroes and Villains, Gettin' Hungry, and the Box Tops huge hit, The Letter. They also resurrected their first single 'A' side-Surfin', which they indicated they wanted to play to observe their fifth anniversary as a band. Brian's vocal presence was somewhat scattered during the first show, as the Beach Boys had not had him along for a show in roughly two and a half years. The screams of the doting audience seemed to mess with his being able to hear the rest of the group. He had brought his new Baldwin organ with him, electing not to play bass as was his wont. Thus, Carl and Alan were shifted at times to bass guitar, which was not their usual instrument. The shift in assignments for the Hawaiian shows seems to have impacted the effectiveness of the group playing live.

An Example of the "Tiki" Craze in the Sixties

Note the Name of the Club

After the opening group for the first show, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Beach Boys took the stage.The group's first show had some unusual tunes included. The vocals recorded for this show were muffled and at times asynchronous. The audience was extremely enthusiastic, and did not care whether the group was playing well or not on certain tunes. Girls would scream loudly, as if The Beatles were playing instead of The Beach Boys. It was very evident that the Hawaiian crowd was partial to The Beach Boys. There were times when it sounded as if the Beach Boys were not hearing each other well over the monitors. The concert opener, The Letter, seemed to surprise the crowd, and the group played and sang it well. The song "Hawaii" seemed to fire up the crowd, and they were incredibly loud for the rest of the first show. The group did a nice, if somewhat ragged version of You're So Good to Me next, with Brian's lead vocal coming through clearly for part of the song and almost off mike for other parts.

The crowd's enthusiasm was undoubtedly energizing for The Beach Boys, with the screams from girls in the audience being so loud that it distorted the group's mix coming live from the monitors. There were mistakes made by the group, but crowd enthusiasm was a needed and important factor in the group's ability to calm nervous feelings and deliver a solid concert. A pair of songs that were so-called "surf music" tunes followed. Surfer Girl was beautifully sung by Brian despite the loudness of the crowd. The Beach Boys' first single followed, which was pre-Capitol Records material. The first 'A' side by the Beach Boys, Surfin', was rendered respectfully and loved by the Hawaiian audience. The first live performance of the last tune cut for Smiley Smile, Gettin' Hungry, was well performed by a nervous group who wanted to sing the tune, but were not sure how well they would be received playing it. The group's worries  were allayed by the audience's reception, which was very enthusiastic.

Double Exposure-Brian Wilson First Show Honolulu Hawaii

The Beach Boys at The Lagoon Salt Lake City Utah 1968

After debuting Gettin' Hungry live, the group explained that the single's performers on the Brother Records label were Brian Wilson and Mike Love. A version of California Girls followed, with the introduction to the song being a bit ragged, with the group relaxing into the tune's middle and end, but being done more cleanly harmonically. Wouldn't It Be Nice was the first of two Pet Sounds tunes done in this show. The tune requires an almost athletic form of singing from the lead vocalist. Brian had some hiccups in the tune, which was workmanlike, but not as spectacular as the group's later performances through the years. Heroes and Villains was next, with Brian performing a demanding lead vocal clearly and in tune. The background vocals were still being worked out as of this first Hawaiian Show, and there were a few glitches therein. God Only Knows followed, with Carl delivering the lead vocal  in a manner that made this tune become a show stopper for him in later years. Despite ridiculous crowd noise, the song kept its stately feeling and was a highlight of this August 25th first show. Good Vibrations proved to be the concert's finale, and with the group having had several months to polish the performance of this intricate tune, Vibrations proved to be a show stopper.

The encore, which was Barbara Ann, was done in a light and faithful manner to the tune on the Capitol single version, and this tune continues to be a concert closer fifty years later. The concert MC informed the patrons of this show about the next show on the 26th of August, and thanked the Beach Boys and the crowd for a great show.

Native Pacific Islanders

Surfing Began With Them

On August 26, Dino, Desi, and Billy opened for The Beach Boys. There is some documentation extant that Bobbie Gentry also performed. The details of her appearance, if any, are missing in historical accounts of the shows. When the Beach Boys took the stage, crowd reaction was almost worshipful, with attentive, rapt listening, and the occasional tween screams. The song selections were fairly close to the previous night's show, with a few songs that the group didn't play showing up in the set list.

As in the August 25th first show, there were songs a fan would not hear stateside.  The instrumental tune called Hawthorne Boulevard made its first and only appearance in a concert by The Beach Boys. The Letter was moved into the next to last song in the set. Hawaii was performed second in this concert. Another tune that got a great audience reaction was when Alan Jardine did "Help You Rhonda" reversing the lead for a woman who just broke up with her long term boyfriend. Gettin' Hungry and Surfin' got positive crowd reactions. Barbara Ann was added as an encore tune. The rest of the songs in this show were identical to the August 25th first show.

One of the most interesting accounts of these shows was by a Wally Heider engineer who was retained by the Beach Boys for recording the two shows. His name is Dale Manquen, and he was in his second year of sound engineering when The Beach Boys flew him to Honolulu to be one of the engineers for the two Beach Boys concerts. While some professional engineers report having trouble getting paid for their recording work, Mr. Manquen reports in his blog at the Wally Heider blog site that "at least The Beach Boys knew how to treat a guy!"

Mr. Manquen in his blog notes that Wally Heider Studio-Los Angeles brought two eight track machines which were to be connected together to gain maximum flexibility. There were technical problems, and Bill Halverson, the chief engineer, asked Mr. Manquen to get things fixed, which happened to finally get finished just as Paul Revere and the Raiders finished their opening set.

In his conclusion to this blog entry, Mr. Manquen makes some observations about The Beach Boys performances. Regarding the quality of the tapes of the two shows he says:" The Beach Boys were so stoned during their performances that I don' t think any of the tracks we recorded were ever used."

Where the Boys Are-Waikiki Beach Mid Sixties

For the Beach Boys, their time in Hawaii was again an opportunity to help Brian's recovery from a major nervous collapse after shelving Smile. Brian's trip to Hawaii was the last live performance until he filled in for Mike Love until a trip with the Beach Boys in 1970 through the United States Northwest. The same year he performed a show at the Roxy in Los Angeles. He suffered terrible ear pain due to the loudness of the band in that small venue. Film was shot of the Hawaiian trip after the shows were done. Footage has appeared in several films through the years, most notably Beach Boys-An American Band and Endless Harmony.

After returning to California, The Beach Boys listened to the shows recorded in Hawaii. They wisely determined that both shows were not of the quality needed for release. Having spent a small fortune recording the shows, the band decided to try rerecording the shows at Wally Heider Studios in Los Angeles September 11, 1967, and in two dates at Brian's home studio. They spent several hours recording a number of songs performed at the Hawaiian shows.  These included rehearsals for Surfin', Surfer Girl, California Girls, Good Vibrations. There were new versions of The Letter, Surfer Girl, You're So Good to Me, California Girls, Help Me Rhonda, 6 takes of God Only Knows, and Heroes and Villains (with Brian's send up on himself and Mike Love narrated by Mike over the track to Heroes and Villains.

Full Group Photo August 25, 1967 First Rehearsal for Hawaiian Concert

What is left of these shows is probably what many Beach Boys concerts taped in the early and mid Sixties sounded like. Even before Lei'd In Hawaii, Brian had to remix, and occasionally replay tunes done in concert due to crowd noise, vocal and instrument mistakes, and remote sound system failures. Even today, the act of playing live is a huge task for many rock and jazz bands. Is there enough material from Hawaii to issue a live cd or digital recording of what is a very unusual time in live Beach Boys Music? That Brian played both of these shows, despite his mental health concerns, and sounded great on many tunes at a time when touring was not something he usually did, is somewhat of a minor miracle. The concerts were the only performance of a few of the songs live, and the material is deserving of release for historical purposes, as well as being the only live Brian shows between 1965 and 1970.

Regarding the results of the taping of the two shows, the finishing of a final product of the numerous efforts to assemble a record that satisfied The Beach Boys and Capitol Records was not to be. There were sessions in Wally Heider Studio-Los Angeles that were targeted to be used for completing a record quickly that would start to get The Beach Boys moving toward the timelines in their Capitol contract.

The tape of the proposed album was roughly 90% complete, and had been mixed to mono. Apparently, only crowd noises were needed to have a final product. The unfinished tape was a 1/2 inch 4 track reel labeled "Hawaii Concert." The mono tracks were left open to accommodate the addition of crowd noise. The reel included You've Got to Hide Your Love Away and Barbara Ann from the October 1966 concert tape from Ann Arbor. The remaining tracks were from 1967. Most of the tracks used were from studio work.  The only song that proved to be from Hawaii was the lovely Their Hearts Were Full of Spring from the September 25th rehearsal. For some of the October 11th and undated Brian's Home Studio sessions, there were two mixes of sessions tracks. It is unclear as to whether the group was planning to select the best whole song take, or to merge the best of two versions into one.

One unknown but interesting fact is that the version of With a Little Help From My Friends most likely cut at Brian's home studio was set for release on Lei'd in Hawaii. It appears in the song list on the nearly completed master tape. The full track lineup, as listed on the nearly finished Lei'd In Hawaii album tape from the Brother Records Library is as follows:

The Letter
You're So Good to Me
Help Me (You) Rhonda
California Girls
God Only Knows
Surfer Girl
Sloop John B
With a Little Help From My Friends
Barbara Ann
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Their Hearts Were Full of Spring
Good Vibrations

The amount of recorded material post Smiley Smile and pre-Wild Honey was unusual in that Brian used his new organ on 11 of the tunes cut for Lei'd In Hawaii songs on the nearly completed master tape. The reasons for the canning of the album can only be guessed about. Perhaps the group felt they needed a new studio album. Maybe the new Baldwin organ sounded too strange. Or....it could be that costs were driving the album too high at a time when the cash flow was tight.

There was one other track recorded during this period, a studio version of Game of Love, a hit for Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. Released on the superb Sunshine Tomorrow (1967) double archival set, the version is probably more experimental than intended to be released. As was wont for the Beach Boys to do, their dalliance with this hit remains somewhat of a mystery that only a Beach Boy present at the session could answer.

The group chose to can the material from the Lei'd in Hawaii period. Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote instead a group of songs with a funky feel...and along came Wild Honey. Songs from the Hawaiian Shows were released on the Sunshine Tomorrow double cd, and offer some perspective on the two concerts.

Text copyright 2017 by Peter Reum-All rights reserved

Smiley Smile-The Little Album That Could by Peter Reum

Smiley Smile: The Little Album That Could by Peter  Reum

The effort to assemble the Smile album was effectively tabled by Brian Wilson in late December 1966, when he was told by David Anderle that a new single was overdue. In Paul Williams pioneering rock journal, Crawdaddy, Anderle said telling Brian that a single was overdue was the hardest thing he had to do while at Brother Records. Brian, who had Smile roughly 75% complete, had to shelf the album in favor of working on a new single.

In a frantic manner, in the winter of 1967, Brian recorded several segments of Heroes and Villains, shuffling the segments in a manner that seemed unfocused. In several subsequent interviews through the years concerning why Smile was shelved, Brian attributed his difficulty in finishing Smile to losing his focus and perspective. As time marched into late Spring 1967, Brian's inactivity spoke volumes about his exhaustion and mental health's deterioration. March 1967 was consumed with a lawsuit stating Capitol Records owed Brother Records a substantal amount of money for unpaid royalties due to an outdated policy Capitol used in the 1940s to charge off to artists' 78 rpm records that broke in shipment.

In April 1967, Brian set Heroes and Villains aside like he did Smile, and began work on a new single--Vegetables. Nearly all of his studio time in April was concerned with Vegetables.  In effect, both Smile and the first single, Heroes and Villains, from the album were set aside.

Brian, exhausted from 6 years of hectic work as a songwriter and producer, had a nervous collapse, which led to him telling the Beach Boys that he wanted more involvement from the group in studio work, and that he needed the guys in The Beach Boys to take over production of future singles and albums, because he needed to rest following his nervous collapse in May 1967. A quote from Carl Wilson regarding Brian's emotional frailty during and after this breakdown intimated that had the group pushed Brian during his collapse to produce the single and album, they might have never gotten Brian to do any future work for the Beach Boys. In June 1967, The Beach Boys, with Brian and Carl Wilson co-producing, used both Wally Heider's Studio 3 and Brian's Home Studio, still a makeshift studio under construction, to record this most eccentric of Brian's albums with The Beach Boys. The  use of Brian's home studio had to accommodate use of the mixing board on Beach Boys Tours in the late Sixties.

Smiley Smile was recorded in very primitive conditions, partly in Brian's new home studio, and it tends to show. Nevertheless, it has some great innovation. Coming on the heels of the Derek Taylor Smile publicity horse opera, it was probably commercially doomed from the start. Smiley Smile is the antithesis of what Smile was promoted by Taylor to be.

Whereas Smile was ornate, broad brushed Baroque Rock Opera bathed in Americana and Elemental Mythology....Smiley Smile was a Zen Koan, a riddle, Minimalist in its approach, full of intuitive cues that were at once humorous, eerie, silly, and unexpected. To illustrate, some of the chants, spoofs, and some of the Van Dyke Parks written lyrics were retained for Smiley Smile, and others were shelved for future use. The influence of the shelving of Smile cannot be understated with respect to the minimalist approach on Smiley Smile. In a 1983 comprehensive interview with Geoffrey Himes, Carl Wilson reaffirmed the exhaustion and feelings of ambivalence Brian had after he ceased recording Smile. There is an observation by Carl in that interview that had The Beach Boys not understood Brian's state of mind after canning Smile, that "we might have lost him for good." It appeared to several observers at the time that the failure of Heroes and Villains to enter the top ten singles charts across the country drove Brian  further into self-doubt and fear, leading to sparse home brewed recordings in 1967. It is also likely that Brian's compulsive shuffling of recorded bits for Heroes and Villains led him to rewind his approach to studio recording, resulting in the homemade, subtle approach to Smiley Smile. In an interview that this author did with engineer Jim Lockert prior to his passing away, Lockert observed that Brian suspected several groups of spying on the Smile Sessions, with Brian then assembling Smiley Smile from five modular taped recordings into a finished album, thereby ensuring Smiley Smile's sound would not be copied by competing groups. In that sense, Smiley Smile was the first completed modular production approach album which was successfully assembled and then released in rock.

Author and musical analyst Daniel Harrison in a 1997 chapter in a book about musical structure made a crucial point that given the approach Brian took to Smiley Smile, it could not be regarded as a piece of art that could be compared to their albums of the late Sixties, and to compare it to those works does a disservice to Brian and his creativity. In a separate interview with Tom Nolan from a 1971 two part Rolling Stone article on The Beach Boys and Brian, fellow producer Terry Melcher makes two critical observations about the era of Smiley Smile. First, he recounts a story in which Brian and his friends formed a line of cars that went to a radio station in Los Angeles to offer that station the debut broadcast on radio of Heroes and Villains. The midnight disc jockey, not sure what to do, turned Brian down at first, then called his supervisor who screamed "put it on, you idiot!!!" Melcher goes on to say that the experience of not initially playing Heroes "killed Brian....it was like someone kicked him in the stomach and deflated him." With distance and perspective, it appears to this writer that whatever self-confidence Brian had regarding his songs being commercial disappeared forever. Later on, in 1975, Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher signed an agreement with Brian to produce 15 sides for their Equinox Records label. Both men remarked in separate interviews that Brian was loathe to touch the mixing board, and thereby could not meet the requirements of his Equinox contract. Terry Melcher remarked that "they ought to give Brian a grant to be able to write and record whatever he wants without any expectations so he could follow his own muse." The simple fact is that Brian's commercial instincts ebbed after Smiley Smile, partially due to his internal voices, partially due to his refusal to step on the commercial recording treadmill again, and partially due to his inability to produce artists on Brother Records, and his own doubts about his ability to produce hit records.

None of the factors cited above in any way diminish the beautiful simplicity of Smiley Smile. The creative heart of Smiley Smile is the non-verbal musical humor embedded in the tunes. When Carl Wilson called Smiley Smile "an album for Brian to cool out by," it was hard to imagine the levels of exhaustion and cross-talk that Brian was experiencing in his brain. The stark beauty of Smiley Smile, the subtle and idiosyncratic humor therein, and the overcoming of true and abject fear that Brian experienced because of the hostile voices he was hearing gave birth to Smiley Smile, but for Brian, the creative load was no longer bearable. The phrase "Produced by Brian Wilson" did not appear as a complete album credit until 15 Big Ones, recorded almost 10 years after Smiley Smile.

Here is a revised section on Brian's use of humor in recording partially taken from my article entitled Light the Lamp, with new material included, which I first wrote with the goal of searching for the sources of Brian's musically humorous approaches and expressions:

...So we begin our search for Brian Wilson's laughin' place....We know that Brian valued humor as a child and as a young adult from anecdotal evidence from childhood friends and The Wilson Brothers' own stories of his antics at home in Hawthorne, at school, later on the road, or in the studio. We also see that the albums we have enjoyed through the years have all had differing types of humor that evolved and changed as Brian grew older, became more worldly, and was more responsible for his extended family.

If we accept the definition of humor as outlined by Steven Sultanoff, Ph.D. from a well done 1997 article at the American Academy of Therapeutic Humor website entitled "What is Humor?", we find a definition in several parts. First, Dr. Sultanoff makes the point that "one way to experience humor is to experience incongruity in a familiar situation." Musically, this could be as complex as a song with a paradoxical twist at the end of it, a musical unexpected moment, or simply a picture of people that does not fit with standard behavior. An example of a musical punchline almost approaching a Zen koan in its emotional suddenness is the version of Wind Chimes on Smiley Smile. We are lulled into somnambulence listening to our wind chimes, almost to the point of total relaxation. If Brian were to loop the singing, it would surely have the quality of reducing distances between people. For Brian, humor was one way for a very shy and gifted teenager who was always on the edge of several social circles to be able to be accepted. This is well documented by David Leaf in his interviews with Rich Sloane and other high school friends of Brian's. A high school friend of Brian's tells the story of Brian's high school graduation, where Brian asked several friends to limp across the stage to get their diplomas. He told each person "everyone is doing it." Second, in the end, only Brian decided to limp. What would motivate Brian to do this?" The most likely answer is that Brian wanted to do something funny that would make the gesture by Brian the most memorable event at graduation.

Using Dr. Sultanoff's definition, the third purpose for humor is to dispel anger. In Brian's chaotic, abusive, alcoholic home, the major emotion he witnessed was anger. His father's volcanic temper could be tamed by two of Brian's gifts, music and humor. Brian used one or the other as often as he could in order to lighten the emotional tension in his mom and brothers' lives. There are several interviews with Brian, Dennis, and Carl which mention Brian telling funny jokes or singing songs to reduce the anger and fear that the boys routinely experienced and its consequential anxiety, which was always at a high level throughout their childhood. In this sense, we can attribute to humor a third and critical purpose for Brian, which was to alleviate anger, depression, and to reduce stress generated anxiety.

Another notorious part of Brian's sense of humor is the "put on." Even his best friends report difficulty determining at times whether the answers they are getting in conversations they have with him are complete fabrications or on the level. Don Was tells the story of asking Brian how he wrote Til' I Die during the I Just Wasn't Made for There Times Film. Brian replied by telling Don that he was trying to compose a song by "only playing the black keys." Don admits not knowing whether Brian's reply was true, or "Brian was just entertaining me." 

Dr. Sultanoff mentions a fourth purpose of humor as deflating or ridiculing the seriousness of a highly important topic. The song She's Going Bald is an example of this form of humor.  The song begins with a modified Brazilian jazz sound, with the topic of going bald being probably one of the worst problems a woman who values her appearance can have happen to her. Derived from a brief fragment in the Smile Session known as "He Gives Speeches,"  Mike Love added some lyrics that amplified the absurdity of the song. The sarcastic and angry tone of He Gives Speeches was altered to emphasize silliness instead of a more critical and sarcastic focus. One of the brilliant musical touches of humor Brian employed was to alter the vocals of part of the song using an Eltro Information Rate Changer. The Fifties tune "Get a Job" is quoted, only adding to the absurdity of the tune. The third part of the song mocks the urgent nature of the problem, a woman going bald. Finally, the call and response section of the tune's end, quoting a Fifties Rhythm and Blues type of singing breaks the news to the woman...."You're Too Late Mama, Ain't Nothin' Upside Your Head No more, No More, No More...."

Another purpose of Brian's Smiley Smile humor is  to dispel feelings of fear or being scared. Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony) uses the same chord progression as Mrs. O'Leary's Cow from Smile.  Brian, quoted in an interview about Smile, remarks that the ominous chord progression from Mrs. O'Leary's Cow did not  have to be a "big and frightening tune." Instead,  he states that Fall Breaks and Back to Winter can be a "candle" instead of a "big scary fire."

The rest of the tunes on Smiley Smile can be placed in one or more of Dr. Sultanoff's purposes for humor. Smiley Smile's version of Wonderful, unlike the almost chamber music tone of the Smile version, is presented with an unusual spoken word bridge that is humorous instead. The song's bridge is somewhat discordant, lending an almost "musique concrete" feel to the song. The overall impression one takes away from repeated listens is an almost bemused wonder, bringing out the subtle smile the album's title evokes. The same feeling is generated by Little Pad and Whistle In, two modified "chants" which parallel some of Brian's work on Smile. Both tunes are repetitive. Whistle In simply repeats the phrase "Remember the day, remember the night, all day long...Whistle In." Little Pad is a little more developed, but still has the feeling of a Smile type of chant that has been modified to offer a feeling of living a more simplified life in Hawaii. The overall feel is a wistful type of happiness, as the listener places himself or herself in the vocalist's place.

A promotional album from the Smiley Smile period released by Capitol has an interview with Brian about the song With Me Tonight, in which Brian is asked why there is a loud "GOOD!!!" included in the otherwise hypnotic sounds of the song. Brian responds by saying "oh that was Arny Geller, and we liked how it sounded so we just left it in." This almost Zen acceptance of what could have been considered a blown take of the song again illustrates the whimsy and humorous attitude Brian and The Beach Boys took  in recording Smiley Smile. Brian instinctively understood the necessity of humor in his childhood to distract his younger brothers from the fury of Murry Wilson's outbursts of rage. Humor became a prime coping method for Brian to be able to laugh off the fear of his father when intoxicated, which in turn was also protective of his younger brothers using distraction to dispel their fear as well.

Gettin'  Hungry is the first tune written by Brian and Mike Love with Brian fulfilling his promise to write an album's worth of songs with Mike. This promise was made just before recording Pet Sounds, and the Smile Sessions using Van Dyke Parks as lyricist delayed the keeping of that promise, with Mike possibly feeling cast aside. Brian, deciding to keep his promise to Mike, wrote Getting Hungry with Mike, and this second single from Smiley Smile was not released as a Beach Boys song, but as performed by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. Gettin' Hungry was a hit in some parts of the world, but not in the USA. The organ and other instruments in the song are more Rhythm and Blues in tone, making it sound more like a Wild Honey tune than a Smiley Smile track. It may have fit better there.

Vegetables is a song that makes fun of, yet promotes the dietary benefits of eating vegetables and fruit. The Los Angeles region of California has historically been obsessed with being healthy and trying to maintain a youthful appearance for as long as possible. Brian toyed with exercising and maintaining a healthy diet, but did not maintain a consistent approach. A few years later, Brian's Radiant Radish health food store graced the Hollywood area for roughly a year. The reversed laughs in the tag of Vegetables are from the Smile version.

For Brian, humor is indeed a gift from God. He has been quoted repeating that idea in several interviews down the years. For him, the good feelings and relief that came from being funny and getting laughs generated from brothers and friends were a lifesaver. Dr. Sultanoff mentions in his article that as anxiety increases, a person's ability to maintain healthy self-esteem, realistic self-perspective, and ultimately, sanity, decreases. He mentions that the effect that is commonly seen therapeutically is that "without humor, peoples' thoughts become increasingly  stuck and narrowly focused."  That phenomenon is one of the primary reasons Brian stopped working on Smile.

Brian got a form of emotional release from crippling social anxiety and humorous relief from seeing conflict. He scripted a scene at a rehearsal for Heroes and Villains after the 1967 Hawaiian Live Concerts in which Mike Love actually reads a Brian authored script making fun of Brian for having a less successful sales result with the Heroes and Villains single than anticipated. Brian is making fun of Mike making fun of Brian and Van Dyke's art during Smile's recording several months beforehand. There is a complex form of humor which is a form of payback for Mike's discomfort with Van Dyke Park's lyrics for Smile, yet Brian is also ridiculing himself for thinking that Smile would be accepted by the group as a Beach Boys album. Self-deprecation is a major form of expression of humor that Brian finds funny. 

If we carefully listen to Brian's humorous songs. we have a window into his feelings. For Brian, humor was the safe outlet to express the anger and hostility he felt for the wrongs that life had dealt him as a child and young adult. The Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson script is one written mostly by Brian on Shut Down Volume 2, and reflects some of the frustration Brian felt with his relationship with his cousin, but more importantly, his father, Murry. We see that Brian found humor in replaying the arguments of his childhood in his art. The famous story about Brian wanting to have his Smile era pals go out and provoke a bar fight to be tape recorded for Smile was serious. There is also Brian's skit from April 1967 which has Hal Blaine (imitating Murry) arguing with Dennis about whether Dennis can have some Vegetables because he is hungry. Hal says "get outta here you punk, and take your dog with you!" Does anyone else catch the similarity to the lines of a certain witch in the Wizard of Oz?

Above, in this article, we asked what Brian finds funny, and why he might limp across the stage at his high school graduation. One answer is that Brian finds the opportunity to sneakily get back at those who he perceives as hurting him as funny, and the actual act of doing so hilarious. To limp across the stage at his high school graduation was to say to his tyrannical father, "Hah! you won't be able to tell me what to do much longer, because I'm going to be my own boss. Screw you for wanting this to be a dignified occasion!" Brian finds humor in being able to put one over on people he considers intrusive, rude, pushy, or as bullies. 

Perhaps the ultimate expression of what Brian finds funny is his complex, yet hilarious send up of himself and his father regarding the ongoing and terribly damaging conflict in their relationship in I'm Bugged At My Old Man on Summer Days. The absurdity of a millionaire Beverly Hills musician singing 12 bar blues about having his phone ripped out of the wall and having boards tacked up on the windows, while "dad is out there eating steak" is brilliant, and went over everyone's heads in 1965. This is a valid yet hysterically funny expression of Brian's incredible anger at his dad for all that had happened in his life, most recently his dad's infidelity to his mom, which also spawned the more emotionally wrenching Let Him Run Wild, also on Summer Days.

Brian also is highly interested in the use of visual humor, and began to utilize pratfalls, camera tricks, absurdity, and even Three Stooges gags to illustrate his music beginning with Pet Sounds. We see Brian, in the Sloop John B promotional film greeting what we assume to be Brian, only to have the unseen person turn around and be Carl. They all carry a life raft into a swimming pool, then proceed to swamp it, turning it over and falling into the pool. In the Good Vibrations Promotional Film, several Beach Boys slide up a fire station pole after sliding down. In another Pet Sounds Promotional film, Brian employs the use of masks to create a surreal atmosphere involving confused identities. These ideas, had they been further developed in Smile, would have likely resulted in some ground breaking performance art comedies of the type later used on MTV. There were discussions of a complete album related to comedy with accompanying visuals. Instead, Brian's incorporation of humor into Smiley Smile was primarily expressed in sound, which helps distinguish the overall difference of Smiley Smile from Smile. 

Returning to the subject of therapeutic humor, Dr. Sultanoff's article points out that humor is a highly idiosyncratic experience which is unique to each human being. We are left to wonder what else Brian himself finds humorous. His use of humor in his music has had the effect of bringing him and his fans together. This phenomenon has been substantiated by several researchers in the field of humor. What we subjectively find funny is something that Brian intuitively grasped from the very first Beach Boy album, with its self-deprecating descriptions of the five band members in the song Chug-a Lug. Brian realized that in order to connect with his audience, he had to share humor with them in such a manner that they could find a universally common frame of reference in his music. The audience can picture themselves in The Beach Boys' place in Chug-a-Lug. His music transcended its immediate California locale to become something even teenagers in landlocked states and frosty foreign countries could understand. Humor in Brian's music had the quality of replacing mundane feelings of life with pleasurable experiences that everyone could feel were honest and truthful. 

According to humor researchers, we experience humor in three ways...through our intellect, emotions, and physiology. Brian's music primarily connected with us emotionally in the early years. We felt the honesty in his records, and how they reflected our experiences in life.  Smiley Smile began a shift from emotional humor, often called mirth, to cognitive humor, called wit. 

Brian had been influenced by the creative use of humor in the work of Jan Berry throughout his career, and at the same time Pet Sounds had been recorded, Jan had issued an album designed to piggyback the mid Sixties Batman television show craze. Undoubtedly, Brian admired Jan's ability to express humor on Jan & Dean records dating back to Schlock Rod Parts 1 & 2 on their Drag City album. Brian heard the Jan & Dean Meet Batman Album, and decided perhaps there were some ideas to develop there on Smile. By the time of Smile's distillation into Smiley Smile, humor was the central motif presented. 

During the Smile Sessions, Brian had the advantage of working for the first time with a musician whose abilities equaled his own. Van Dyke Parks brought a literate sense of word play in the writing of lyrics, hearkening back to the 1930s and 40s in American popular music when brilliant songwriters  like Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the Gershwin Brothers dominated music with snappy wit and beautiful melodies. If Brian were aiming for a new American Musical Style, he had found his match. 

Parks' lyrics presented the listener with the challenge of deciding whether to take them somewhat literally or at levels of deeper meaning. There are multiple options for interpretation in each tune, and the lyrics to songs such as Heroes and Villains and Wonderful offer puns  double entendres, and whimsy, often quoting other American classics and favorite children's songs. Brian's musical tracks continued to connect on an emotional basis. What is fascinating is that for the first time , we consistently experience a multi-modal attack using humor on Smiley Smile. In Vegetables, for example, we hear funny pouring sound effects while listening to puns and whimsical lyrics at the same time. In Wonderful, the lyrics we hear are those that remind us of archetypal images from fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood. In Heroes and Villains, the picture of Bugs Bunny and his ongoing battles with Yosemite Sam in the Old West emerge, while also referencing a rooster's call in the lyric "what a dude'll do in a town full of Heroes and Villains.

It is ironic that in the recording sessions for Smile from 1966, an album that was intended to celebrate humor and its healing properties, caused Brian to become so anxious and out of self-control that his ability to see the big picture became narrower and narrower, to the point that he believed that he had to scrap Smile to save his life, his sanity, and his emotional balance and perspective. Brian instinctively drew back from Smile, and shared what had become the overbearing burden of creativity with his band mates. Together, in an environment of stoned silliness, Brian shifted some of the burden of creativity to his brothers, cousin, and friends, deciding to work on healing his fractured psyche  using the very human resilience that had preserved his human resilience for a future he did not think was possible until the Post Landy period of his life.

Smiley Smile, as released in 1967, began to take on the added dimension of highly pictorial musicak performance, giving we listeners the chance to interpret some of the nuances heard in this 1966-67 recording. In Smiley Smile, the intellectual and emotional connecting experience was turned on its ear by the use of slapstick, a third approach to humor, evoking deep laughter, the physiological component of humor. For the unprepared listener in 1967, Derek Taylor's publicity campaign had created an unprecedented anticipation for an American Rock album. Why did it leave Brian emotionally spent? Brian lost the ability to find the humor in his own Smile music, consumed with his rivalry with The Beatles. However, in asking for the group's help on Smiley Smile, Brian was able to back away from his work on Smile and to allow the other Beach Boys to contribute in a fully creative manner, creating a multi-modal approach that transcends his previous work by using and blending various types of humor to create a new form of art. Dr. Sultanoff, in a 1994 article entitled "Exploring the Land of Mirth and Funny" makes the following important observation...."the fullest, and most powerful experience of humor is one that is experienced with all three components (wit, mirth, and laughter) simultaneously."

We are left to wonder how Brian instinctively knew that his creative muse would return by inviting his fellow Beach Boys to contribute to the creation of Smiley Smile. For the close listener, the chance to experience humor in all its forms awaits on Smiley Smile. Perhaps it is the very resilience of Brian Wilson himself and his ability to see humor in the most tragic of circumstances that enabled him to create an work of art with his group that is so powerful that it meets we listeners on all possible planes of human levity.

If resilience is the ability of people to bounce back from the most deadening of experiences in life, it is no coincidence that Smile would be the most resilient of Brian Wilson musical works. We are left with a few thoughts from people about humor.... 

"Tragedy plus time equals humor." Carol Burnett 

"Humor is a great, the great thing, the saving thing, after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place." Mark Twain

"Humor is sacred, a gift from God." Brian Wilson 

Dr. Sultanoff's ground breaking work may be found at his website: HumorMatters 

Some Final Reflections on Smiley Smile:

Both Smile and Smiley Smile were recorded using modular formatting, but whereas Smile proved too complex to assemble, Smiley Smile was completed in a roughly three week period, and recorded "dry" without echo. Recorded in modular format and assembled in a final mix by Jim Lockert, Bill Halverson, and Stephen Desper, it proved that the modular method of recording was not only feasible, but capable of being used for an entire album.

Brian's self-preserving instincts seemed to tell him that if had kept up the pace of the first 5 years, under Capitol Records contract, he would have ended up either in a straight jacket or suicidal. In effect, Smiley Smile was the first "therapeutic album" that Brian did, some 10 years before 15 Big Ones, Adult Child, and Beach Boys Love You. Little did he realize that it would prove therapeutic for thousands of listeners as well. Carl Wilson, in a number of interviews from the Seventies and Eighties, often termed Smiley Smile "music for Brian to cool down/chill out while recording." Smiley Smile was also seen as a "back to basics album" in which Brian help produce but which other Beach Boys were expected to contribute actively as well. In a late Sixties interview, Brian termed Smile "music that was too personal to release."

Track by track:

Heroes and Villains

Undoubtedly my favorite Beach Boy 45. Incredible in its power. An example of how amazing the human voice can be used as an instrument. Had it been released at another time, when art rock was more accepted, e.g. after Hey Jude and MacArthur Park, it would have been a better seller. A perfect marriage of music and lyrics, it was rock critic Paul Williams's favorite single,  and is mine as well. A wealth of ideas in roughly three and a half minutes, and based on the River Deep Mountain High baseline, it is the aural equivalent of a three ring circus, with so much to hear that it reveals more upon each play. Recorded in small sound snippets, Heroes was the single tune that proved hardest for Brian to sequence and complete. He worked the equivalent studio time of recording and sequencing for entire previousBeach Boys albums on the Heroes and Villains single. From October 1967 until 1990, Brian refused to sing Heroes and Villains in live concerts. Since 1990, it has become a song Brian loves to sing with his incredible backing band.

Vegetables

This should have been the second single off Smiley Smile, but got shunted aside by group vote. A nice version, certainly commercial, with a catchy tag. The reverse laughs at the end are a marvel of rock music singing. The humor here is more subtle than on the Smile version. The heartbeat bass, the sounds of juice being poured, the crunching and "mmmms", and the break into  a Stephen Foster bridge just before the end all add a more subtle approach than one might expect.

Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony)

Composed during the Smile period after a camping trip to Redwood Country, it of course contains the chord progression and vocals intended for Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. I have always believed this piece was linked to Elements in some manner. It has a similar chord progression to MOLC. In the true stereo mix, it sounds quite spooky. The distorted bass vocal combined with the various harmonicas make the tune at once gently mocking and foreboding. The tone of the tune is reminiscent of death and decay, with the promise of new life in the coming spring signified by the call of the woodpecker. The tune has a way of reminding me of Randy Newman's classic song "Snow."

She's Going Bald

Credited to Van Dyke as co-author, he can't remember writing it. It is possible his credit was put on here as a practical joke. The dope influenced tape effect and sophmoric lyrics are typical of Beach Boy humor of the time. Probably as close to an obvious humor track on this album as exists. Obviously derived from He Gives Speeches. Perhaps this is why it is partially credited to Van Dyke. He Gives Speeches was targeted at Murry, and it is likely that this reframing of the tune was Brian's way of not pulling the trigger in a negative manner and making fun of his father like he did on Summer Days.

Little Pad

This tune is a model of modular recording. Using five recorded modules with two of them repeated, Brian schools the group in how to assemble a full length tune. Great track, great Hawaiian guitar effect, nice wordless singing section. Like many of Brian's songs from here on out, an idea left incomplete. This one is an obvious stoner tune. The song begins with a "Do it!", then proceeds to a section shared by Mike's lead vocal, laughs, and kazoos. The Hawaiian Guitar module kicks in at 16 seconds into the tune, then lasts for 23 seconds, followed by a finger snap, then roughly 20 seconds of ukelele, then into Carl's second verse  at 60 seconds, followed by a reprise of the Hawaiian Guitar module for another 23 seconds, the ukelele section with wordless vocals pops in for 20 more seconds, Brian comes back in for a brief third verse, followed by the third reprise of the Hawaiian Guitar segment to fade.  The Hawaiian Guitar module is repeated three times, and the ukelele section is repeated twice.

Good Vibrations

Probably the Sloop John B of Smiley Smile. It doesn't fit with the rest of the album, but probably was needed for sales of this album. In this Minimalist context, it became more of a reminder of what was lost when Smile was shelved, and in this sense, it became a cement overcoat when The Beach Boys were doing their best to tread water.

With Me Tonight

An undeveloped tune based off a riff written during Smile. The weird "good" that you hear about 30 seconds into the song is by Arny Geller. It is one of those little Brian surprise artifacts that  make the album a Zen type of experience.  Better developed by Sandy Salisbury than by Brian himself. The Salisbury version should have been a hit, but got buried on the Together records label and disappeared.

Wind Chimes

Incredible example of Brian's subtle use of humor in his music. Brilliantly recorded and executed, perhaps the most influential Smiley Smile track on other musicians. The whole tune is a prank, lulling the listener into a near trance, then shocking one back to reality with an unexpected fuzztone. If you were stoned listening to it, you'd be even more shocked. I love the Yogi  Bear sounding ting-a-ling by Mike twice toward the end...more humor.

Gettin' Hungry

The last track recorded for the album, and sonically closer to Wild Honey. A departure from the rest of the album soundwise, it has a computer sounding organ piece alternating with a breathy lead vocal from Mike. Chosen to be the album's second single with the provision that it come out as a Brian Wilson/Mike Love single. Gettin' Hungry was also a gesture on Brian's part to make peace with a bruised Mike Love, who had been told by Brian that there would only be one ornate "arty" album, only to be put on hold for Smile. This song was chosen by Brian over Vegetables, which was the intended second single. A political "family peace" move.

Wonderful

A dramatic departure from Brian's almost classical approach to this tune for Smile, the track is riddled with sounds that play against each other, such as a clarinet playing out of tune notes, the sounds of children playing, and on the incredible bridge to the song, Brian singing "cool it....just cool it" over against Carl saying "don't think your God Vibrations will make it off the record." The bridge has been cited by numerous choral composers as a  radical use of the spoken voice to make music. A minimalist tour de force, and certainly the most radical of the innovations on an already innovative album.

Whistle In

The coda to the album....a fitting conclusion to an album so Minimalist, so subtle that it is missed by most who listen to it. Can you imagine the sound of one hand clapping????

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum--All Rights Reserved