Michael Vosse, may he rest in peace.

[Cam Mott]

I understand Michael passed this morning. Condolences to his family and friends.

[Gertie J.]

rip michael.

[Dudd]

R.I.P. Michael. 

[alf wiedersehen]

Sad news

R.I.P., Mr. Vosse.

[SMiLE Brian]

Another great one has passed .

[Shady]

RIP, great guy.

[The Dumb Angel]

Rest in peace, Michael!  

[guitarfool2002]

Oh man, I'm very sad to hear this. After Cam's post last week it didn't sound like the prognosis was good, I guess the bad news was inevitable. As I said in another post about another recent passing, time does march on and it is inevitable that news like this will come with more frequency as we all get older.

So again I want to offer advice that Warren Zevon handed down after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and knew his days on Earth were numbered: "Enjoy every sandwich".

Words to live by.

And for Michael, his friends and family, my sympathy and condolences to you. His place in Smile history is fortunately well documented and his name will forever be linked to a truly terrific period of music and unbridled creativity. And he was a close and trusted friend to Brian Wilson at a very important and special time, and I can only imagine some of the fun times they shared together.

RIP Michael.

[Ed Roach]

"Enjoy every sandwich"

[bossaroo]

love that guy...

[Mitchell]

RIP. He seemed like a really fun guy and his role in the Smile era will never be forgotten.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Dammit...my condolences to his friends and family

[Jay]

We're losing to many good people connected to The Beach Boys. It's starting to hit to close to home.

[monicker]

I love sandwiches.

[feelsflow]

sad news...the circle gets smaller.  be still and know you are.  rest in peace brother Michael.

[silodweller]

So sorry to hear this news.  Condolences to Michael's family and friends. 
On a personal note:  I always enjoyed his roles in Brian's Smile-era spoofs.

[KittyKat]

What was he sick with, if anyone knows and it's not too rude to ask? Also, what did he do after Smile? I remember vaguely that he did some work in TV production but am not sure of what else he did.

[bossaroo]

he worked a&r for A&M and was closely involved with Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers

[guitarfool2002]

If this is inappropriate please feel free to either tell me and I'll delete it, or just delete it. But this being the internet, Michael was on Linkedin and posted his full resume. It's here: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-vosse/42/515/6a6

Again if it's inappropriate to post that, please let me know and I'll take it down ASAP. But it is a public profile, hopefully not crossing the line of privacy.

The short history:

He won two Emmy awards for his work on television, a career that was nearly three decades long. That was where he sort of started in the LA scene, working as a production assistant where one of his accomplishments was getting rock acts onto the show he was working for. After that he freelanced as any number of things which included writing pieces-for-hire in magazines, a gig which led him to interview Zappa in 1966 and which also led him to Brian Wilson, whome he met over milkshakes at a local restaurant (if I recall the story), where they hit it off talking music and the whole scene, and where he eventually got hired on as Brian's assistant for the Smile era.

He did in fact work for A&M, getting there in 1967, after Smile collapsed and Brian cut ties with most of the crew, coming after A&M hired a business he had started with photographer Guy Webster and others, to run the A&M graphics dept. Wanting to get into the production gig he produced an album for John Braden after A&M didn't know what to do with the folk singer and his different voice. Vosse called in favors from prominent musicians he knew or had access to through his friendships and music connections, which is how some prominent names came to work on the Braden album, alongside engineer/producer Henry Lewy who was brought in to keep an eye on things as Vosse had never produced a record before. It's a decent record but it sold terribly.

Vosse continued with A&M in various roles, which got him involved with the Burrito Bros. He was assigned to their tour, ostensibly as a "chaperone" of sorts, but that tour with all kinds of debauchery, drug abuse, sexual escapades, and all the trappings of young 60's rock and roll animals became legendary for costing A&M a ton of money, as they funded Gram and the boys basically going wild on the road. One such escapade unfortunately saw the genius pedal steel player "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow dosed with a strong psychedelic, and needed medical care because he thought he had gone insane...Pete did not partake in that strong of a drug, and was holding down his job in animation as the band worked its way up.

One of the unknown chapters in Michael Vosse's story is from the access he had to all of these legendary artists at just the right time. He was a behind-the-scenes guy, and in part through A&M was assigned to be at or report on a lot of legendary events. He was also given a film camera to capture some of these happenings, much like Brian gave him an expensive tape recorder to capture the whims of Brian's imagination for natural and found sounds. Some of this rare footage eventually turned up in a 1980's local documentary which aired once in San Francisco, was narrated by Michael, and unveiled some very rare and at that time unseen film he had shot of events like the Big Sur festival.

He worked for station KGO in San Francisco, the ABC TV affiliate.

Nearly 30 years in the TV news business, for one station...anyone who knows that business knows that is like an eternity and only the brighter talents and guys who knew their stuff would last that long in a big city market. The turnover rate is crazy high, and chalking up Emmys and other awards pretty much shows the man knew his trade, and did it very well in a cutthroat business.

We all know him from the Smile association, so in posting this and the link I hope folks who only know him as the guy in the floppy hat from the Smile shots can see what he was able to do with his career after his Smile association ended. In fact through syndication and repeats of news features around the country through the network, some of us may have seen his work or stories he produced for the news without even realizing it, that's quite a possibility.

Again, RIP Michael Vosse. Another one of the unsung, often unnamed figures from behind-the-scenes that we can raise a glass and drink a toast in his memory.

[guitarfool2002]

I just wrote that on the fly from previously reading about him, summarizing the credits from the resume, and the like, if there are mistakes or factual errors please correct.

Add to all that his involvement in Monterey Pop, and I also have read a story where he drove a friend to the festival that week in June 1967 in his Ford Mustang, the friend being a dancer, actress, and scenester named Georgiana Steele-Waller who wrote a book about her life in and after the 60's scene.

One of the better stories she told was that she had gone to a restaurant in a classic 60's natural-psychedelic setting called Nepenthe and had seen a six-toed cat there, of all things, which must have made an impression. Later on, Michael Vosse came to her house in LA and out of the blue gave her a kitten that also had six toes, which she of course named Nepenthe!  


EDIT: "Nepenthe" is still in business, should you ever make it to Big Sur. Here's their website too, just to connect the Vosse story even further...not sure if you'll find any six-toed cats wandering around though.    Link: http://www.nepenthebigsur.com/

[The Heartical Don]

R.I.P. Michael.

Such a household name in the BBs saga... indeed, inextricably linked to one of the most creative and 'alive' periods in all of pop music, with unbridled experimenting and sheer daring. Nothing seemed impossible way back then.

And thanks to those who posted the photos in this thread.

[The Shift]

Many thanks for the info Guitarfool, illuminating and very much appreciated.

Rest in Posse, Michael.

(We also had a six-toed cat btw, called Dusty)

[bluesno1fann]

Don't want to sound stupid or offensive, but who exactly was Michael Vosse?

I've never heard of him until this thread

[Niko]

I think you can gather who he was by reading posts in this thread alone.


RIP Michael Vosse.
I can't imagine what it was like being part of Brian's inner circle at the time. He had some great stories...

[Andrew G. Doe]

Aaah... another of the company leaves us. God bless, Michael.