What If?: SMiLE came out instead of Good Vibrations?

[The Old Master Painter]

Good Vibrations took 7/8 months to record. In the middle of those exhaustive months, Brian Wilson once considered to give Good Vibrations away to an R&B group....

Let's imagine that this happened...

Brian instead focuses on completing SMiLE throughout those several months, and releases an album in the fall of 1966/winter of 1967, as planned.

What would have happened? Would The Beach Boys be hailed as spokespeople of the 1960s? Would they just fall into further obscurity after the commericial performance of Pet Sounds?

[The Old Master Painter]

Anyone?

[yonderhillside]

Good Vibrations took 7/8 months to record. In the middle of those exhaustive months, Brian Wilson once considered to give Good Vibrations away to an R&B group....

Let's imagine that this happened...

Brian instead focuses on completing SMiLE throughout those several months, and releases an album in the fall of 1966/winter of 1967, as planned.

What would have happened? Would The Beach Boys be hailed as spokespeople of the 1960s? Would they just fall into further obscurity after the commericial performance of Pet Sounds?

I've pontificated on this from time to time and, more often than not, I surmise that the effect Smile would have on the record buying public, similarly to Pet Sounds, would have been minimal and it's counterpart, Sgt. Pepper's, would have most likely overshadowed it even if released afterward. However, it would have been seen by fellow musicians and the like as groundbreaking and as revolutionary as Pet Sounds. The fact of the matter is The Beach Boys had an image that couldn't easily be shaken and The Beatles, though almost always a step behind them, were "more popular than Jesus." Though, I'm a natural-born pessimist, I could be wrong. Good Vibrations was a big success so Smile could have been too. 1967 saw psychedelic music push to the mainstream and the average "square" was turning "hip" to new ideas.

[Uncle Jesse]

It seems like Good Vibrations was a huge part of the promotional campaign for Smile.  I genuinely believe that if Smile was released it would have been huge, but I think that is dependent on Capitol's promotion campaign.  If Good Vibrations hadn't come out then Capitol wouldn't have a hit single to assure them that Smile is commercially viable, so it probably would have gone the way of Pet Sounds and remain virtually unpromoted by Capitol.  So basically Good Vibrations was key to Smile's potential success.

[Summertime Blooz]

What if aliens came down from the sky in 1960 and abducted Brian Wilson, so The Beach Boys never even existed. How would the world be different?

[Andrew G. Doe]

What if... people stopped typing it as SMiLE ?

Why, then we'd have world peace. Mayeb even candy bars too !

[SMiLE Brian]

There is no SMiLE without GV's pioneering of the modular recording technique.

[The Old Master Painter]

What if... people stopped typing it as SMiLE ?

Why, then we'd have world peace. Mayeb even candy bars too !

Oh Wouldn't It Be Nice..... lol 

[Lee Marshall]

SMiLE.  There ya go Andrew.   I'm not big on "what ifs".  What was though?

Sadly it didn't happen and Good Vibrations was absolutely and entirely the best way possible to set THAT table.  But... ... ...  No.

Its not being released spelled the difference between history recognizing the Beach Boys as one of the the top 3 or 4 bands from the 60s/70s [and therefore potentially for an even longer time-frame] in terms of quality, content and influence to ever record a song and of being recognized however they're seen now.  Pet Sounds sets them up for some high class recognition.  Good Vibrations framed that picture...loads of OTHER recordings...at least til 1972[ish] provided further proof.  It's just that due to the lack of there being a Smile [sorry Andrew...SMiLE] circa i966/67...the group fell off the radar and the public  kind of forgot about them....thus missing out on some real MAGIC

How are the Beach Boys perceived NOW?  Not including US?  ['cause we're not the average music fan and our's is not the average perception]  Go see the Mike Love version perform.  They do it well.  And THAT is the Beach Boys.  Brian does it all ever so differently.  The crowd size?  Somewhere around the same numbers on average, per show, would be my guess.  It's just that Mike and Bruce et all do it about 3 times more often.  And that doesn't include the times when Brian comes off the road.

If SMiLE had been released...Good Vibrations would have been one of the first singles.  Oh...and THIS board [and all Beach Boys related sites like it] would be about 10 times busier.

A SHaME really.

[Phoenix]

What if... people stopped typing it as SMiLE ?

Why, then we'd have world peace. Mayeb even candy bars too !

    

[yonderhillside]

Ya know, I digress, if Smile had been released and they had attended Monterey Pop, as they had intended, (they helped conceive it for GOD'z sake) and they performed material from Smile (I'm thinking Heroes & Villains, Cabin Essence, Do You Like Worms?, Mrs. O'Leary's Cow, Water, Surf's Up). Hell, maybe Van Dyke and Mike Love kiss and made up, Van joined them on stage for a chorale of prayer, then perhaps they would have been revered, perhaps crucified, as the forerunners of psychedelia in 1967. Perhaps The Mamas & The Papas, Jefferson Airplane, and Grateful Dead could have been outshone.

[John Manning]

If Smile had been released, I suspect this board would be a quiet thing. The legend and puzzle of the unreleased album was what fuelled the board and it's predecessors. If smILe had come out on schedule there'd be no mystery, no debate.

And we're assuming that it would have been a hit and a critical success, but it might have gone almost exactly the same way as SmileySmile… it had the same singles to drive it; shared half the songs (albeit different versions, granted, though even a few here prefer Smiley Chimes).

Smile would have been further fromPet Sounds than Pet Sounds was from Summer Days or Party! And it could have lost them even more fans.

[The_Holy_Bee]

Ya know, I digress, if Smile had been released and they had attended Monterey Pop, as they had intended, (they helped conceive it for GOD'z sake) and they performed material from Smile (I'm thinking Heroes & Villains, Cabin Essence, Do You Like Worms?, Mrs. O'Leary's Cow, Water, Surf's Up). Hell, maybe Van Dyke and Mike Love kiss and made up, Van joined them on stage for a chorale of prayer, then perhaps they would have been revered, perhaps crucified, as the forerunners of psychedelia in 1967. Perhaps The Mamas & The Papas, Jefferson Airplane, and Grateful Dead could have been outshone.

I realize you're being in part humorous here, but the main conceptual drivers of the concert were John Phillips and Lou Adler, weren't they? My understanding is that Brian, like McCartney and Jagger, et al, fulfilled a kind of 'ambassadorial' function, symbolic representatives of different elements of the transatlantic pop mix.

And the groups to 'outshine' were hardly established pop acts like the Mamas & the Papas, Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead (or, for that matter, The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel) - they were rock newcomers like Janis and Jimi, and 'outsider' pros like Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar, getting their first major exposure in front of the predominantly white and middle class 'pop' scene. Even with a string section performing 'Fire', and the booming choral vocals of 'Cabin Essence', I suspect - sadly - the Beach Boys would have had a hard time pulling focus from Jimi immolating his guitar at the conclusion of 'Wild Thing'.

EDIT: I'm probably taking your post way too earnestly, yonderhillside. If so, sorry.

[filledeplage]

It seems like Good Vibrations was a huge part of the promotional campaign for Smile.  I genuinely believe that if Smile was released it would have been huge, but I think that is dependent on Capitol's promotion campaign.  If Good Vibrations hadn't come out then Capitol wouldn't have a hit single to assure them that Smile is commercially viable, so it probably would have gone the way of Pet Sounds and remain virtually unpromoted by Capitol.  So basically Good Vibrations was key to Smile's potential success.

Maybe - in either Rusten/Stebbins or Badman (which I don't have at my disposal right now) there are indicators from Brian that Smile required another year of work.  Time is of the essence in this business.  You needed to be on the charts either coming or going every few months.    

And GV was a monster radio hit, but still I have found no 1966-7 performance, contemporaneous to the release to indicate there was a  bona fide  organized and thorough promotional campaign, complete with GV  appearances on every US (My TV antenna did not reach overseas.) major television network.  

And, I do not (and will not, now) equate that to setting a GV track to whatever film footage with firehouse or other scenes was available.  I mean that the band would perform GV and probably another song, be seated, talk to the host, discuss Brian's technique, and done either the "live" or taped-in-advance performance.  A lot of the late shows were live, after the 11 p.m. news as is the model now, five decades post.  

But, I don't think the industry was ready for Smile without significant marketable radio singles and promotional coordination.  The trend as was sort of set with The Beatles was to release singles between LP's and these singles would not be part of an LP.  One that comes to mind is The Little Girl I Once Knew, which probably should have been on SDSN.  The whole LP thing ended up going on the then-newer fm dial.  AM had too much stuff to market, too much weather, too much news to read in between.      

Smile needed, according to Brian, another year to complete.  He didn't have it.  

(Don't mean to have all that italicized - the functions won't seem to do what I want them to do. Sorry for that.)

[The_Holy_Bee]

Filldeplage - there's a debate at the moment in New Zealand, where I live, about our statistics for child poverty. Most findings put it, shockingly, at about 30% or higher. One right-wing politician has made the clearly fallacious argument that, compared to Bangladesh, kiwi kids aren't in any kind of poverty. An equal argument could be made that, compared to folks in Hollywood, our upper-middle-class are themselves impoverished.

The point is: these kind of comparisons - indeed, all comparisons - are inherently relative by nature. It has been demonstrated on this thread that Capitol provided considerable press and promotional support to both 'Pet Sounds' and 'Smile'. I totally understand your position that what they did wasn't enough - and indeed, by issuing certain singles and a 'Best Of' - they undercut the effectiveness of those efforts they did undertake.

But: GV was a #1 hit. Capitol issued full-page ads; commissioned multi-page articles in their in-house mag; made standees for record stores; and produced a promotional tape (admittedly for in-house purposes) which culminated in a plug for the album based around that recent #1 single. All in the face of a band/record that consistently missed its projected release dates (despite significant production of LP and 45 covers); the cost of which was much higher than the then-average in production/studio time, despite the last record not resulting in the expected financial income; which failed - for almost a year - to produce the speedy, all-important follow-up single that was expected of all major 60's pop groups - a fact you recognize in your post above; which was fighting them legally over royalties and a projected subsidiary label; and - eventually - released an album that used almost nothing from the studio time the label had paid for.

The last one of these points I realize falls outside the purview of the argument you're making, but does again, serve to make the point that all these things are relative.

EDIT: Brian did indeed say he 'needed another year' to complete SMiLE. But in the pop context in which he was working, almost two full years between albums was unheard of. The Beatles, to provide the closest possible analogue, were issuing at least two LPs worth of new material a year from 1964-1966 . I'm definitely not arguing that Capitol were as supportive as they might have been, but I don't think it's fair to suggest - especially in light of the extensive Anderle/Vosse interviews (the former of whom was actually charged with setting up Brother Records) that a lack of promotional support from the record company was any kind of critical factor in the collapse of the album. In fact, it could be argued they did the best they could to promote a basically non-existent product.

[filledeplage]

Filldeplage - there's a debate at the moment in New Zealand, where I live, about our statistics for child poverty. Most findings put it, shockingly, at about 30% or higher. One right-wing politician has made the clearly fallacious argument that, compared to Bangladesh, kiwi kids aren't in any kind of poverty. An equal argument could be made that, compared to folks in Hollywood, our upper-middle-class are themselves impoverished.

The point is - these kind of comparisons; indeed, all comparisons, are relative by nature. It has been demonstrated on this thread that Capitol provided considerable press and promotional support to both 'Pet Sounds' and 'Smile'. I totally understand your position that what they did wasn't enough - and indeed, by issuing certain singles and a 'Best Of' - they undercut the effectiveness of those efforts they did undertake.

But: GV was a #1 hit. Capitol issued full-page ads, commissioned multi-page articles in their in-house mag, made standees for record stores; and produced a promotional tape (admittedly for in-house purposes) which culminated in a plug for the album based around that recent #1 single. All in the face of a band/record that consistently missed its projected release dates (despite significant production of LP and 45 covers); failed - for almost a year - to produce the speedy, all-important follow-up single that was expected of all major 60's pop groups; which was fighting them legally over royalties and a projected subsidiary label; and - eventually - released an album that used almost nothing from the studio time they'd paid for.

The last one of these points I realize falls outside the purview of the argument you're making, but does again, serve to make the point that all these things are relative.

You are correct about everything being relative.  When I wore another hat (politics) there would be a full candidate promo, if you will "package," including car bumper stickers, meet-and-greets press releases, position papers, speeches, radio ads, TV appearances, that were hosted by groups doing election debates, yada yada, etc.  You can have a "fully-prepared promotional file" and the devil is in the details - the actual "execution" - and any DJ (we have an esteemed one) worth his or her salt would listen and play GV while they still had the "nod" from the executives who ran the radio franchises.  

There is still for me a huge disconnect as to the resources advanced consistent with their "emerging musically sophisticated scope," in that time window.  I will go out on a limb and suggest that Brian's performance on Bernstein, was as close as there was to a live performance up to the live GV in 1968.  

There may be a file at Capitol where they attempt to defend whatever they say they used. But the reality is that there was no live performance of GV that I can find or can remember from that era.  I am very open to seeing anything appropriate such as a personal appearance and performance on say, Johnny Carson, who had an 11 p.m. slot or anyone comparable.  Even if they taped a live concert with GV to promote or WH.  Radio was it.    

And you are correct about the faction-based positions on poverty or any political spin.  I get that and constantly filter it to see if it is left or right or in the middle.

The most accurate accounts come from The Beach Boys themselves, commenting on what happened on the  UK - 1967 tour, the record company had another agenda to advance, selling records in the older BB catalog. And just because some author or historian comes up with a file from an ad campaign, doesn't mean they did the job, placing the ads, showing actual documentary evidence of live and taped TV spots,  which actually took place.  

It may run contrary to whatever people have found to "source" from files.  They may have prepared a package but it was not a full on in-your-face one.  They didn't create Brother Records for nothing.  Just sayin' and JMHO.    

[The_Holy_Bee]

Sorry, FdP, I continued to edit that post while you were writing yours.  That's why the quote doesn't quite match up with the post above it. I appreciate your reply.

[The_Holy_Bee]

Filldeplage - there's a debate at the moment in New Zealand, where I live, about our statistics for child poverty. Most findings put it, shockingly, at about 30% or higher. One right-wing politician has made the clearly fallacious argument that, compared to Bangladesh, kiwi kids aren't in any kind of poverty. An equal argument could be made that, compared to folks in Hollywood, our upper-middle-class are themselves impoverished.

The point is - these kind of comparisons; indeed, all comparisons, are relative by nature. It has been demonstrated on this thread that Capitol provided considerable press and promotional support to both 'Pet Sounds' and 'Smile'. I totally understand your position that what they did wasn't enough - and indeed, by issuing certain singles and a 'Best Of' - they undercut the effectiveness of those efforts they did undertake.

But: GV was a #1 hit. Capitol issued full-page ads, commissioned multi-page articles in their in-house mag, made standees for record stores; and produced a promotional tape (admittedly for in-house purposes) which culminated in a plug for the album based around that recent #1 single. All in the face of a band/record that consistently missed its projected release dates (despite significant production of LP and 45 covers); failed - for almost a year - to produce the speedy, all-important follow-up single that was expected of all major 60's pop groups; which was fighting them legally over royalties and a projected subsidiary label; and - eventually - released an album that used almost nothing from the studio time they'd paid for.

The last one of these points I realize falls outside the purview of the argument you're making, but does again, serve to make the point that all these things are relative.

You are correct about everything being relative.  When I wore another hat (politics) there would be a full candidate promo, if you will "package," including car bumper stickers, meet-and-greets press releases, position papers, speeches, radio ads, TV appearances, that were hosted by groups doing election debates, yada yada, etc.  You can have a "fully-prepared promotional file" and the devil is in the details - the actual "execution" - and any DJ (we have an esteemed one) worth his or her salt would listen and play GV while they still had the "nod" from the executives who ran the radio franchises.  

There is still for me a huge disconnect as to the resources advanced consistent with their "emerging musically sophisticated scope," in that time window.  I will go out on a limb and suggest that Brian's performance on Bernstein, was as close as there was to a live performance up to the live GV in 1968.  

There may be a file at Capitol where they attempt to defend whatever they say they used. But the reality is that there was no live performance of GV that I can find or can remember from that era.  I am very open to seeing anything appropriate such as a personal appearance and performance on say, Johnny Carson, who had an 11 p.m. slot or anyone comparable.  Even if they taped a live concert with GV to promote or WH.  Radio was it.    

And you are correct about the faction-based positions on poverty or any political spin.  I get that and constantly filter it to see if it is left or right or in the middle.

The most accurate accounts come from The Beach Boys themselves, commenting on what happened on the  UK - 1967 tour, the record company had another agenda to advance, selling records in the older BB catalog. And just because some author or historian comes up with a file from an ad campaign, doesn't mean they did the job, placing the ads, showing actual documentary evidence of live and taped TV spots,  which actually took place.  

It may run contrary to whatever people have found to "source" from files.  They may have prepared a package but it was not a full on in-your-face one.  They didn't create Brother Records for nothing.  Just sayin' and JMHO.    

The general discussion of politics - and specific consideration of TV spots you concentrate on - aside, I would love to read your thoughts on any of the actual points I raised above.

EDIT:

The most accurate accounts come from The Beach Boys themselves, commenting on what happened on the  UK - 1967 tour

I am sorry, but I don't get what you mean by the "the  UK - 1967 tour". (I may well be being extremely dense here.) Do you mean the UK tour of '66, while the tracking sessions for 'SMiLE' were moving along, and Brian in all recorded utterances was deeply positive about what was being produced? Or the '67 tour(s), after the functional collapse of the Smile album, when the band were trying to pick up the pieces? I'm not trying to be aggressive here, but a bit of context would be useful. 

[yonderhillside]

I realize you're being in part humorous here, but the main conceptual drivers of the concert were John Phillips and Lou Adler, weren't they? My understanding is that Brian, like McCartney and Jagger, et al, fulfilled a kind of 'ambassadorial' function, symbolic representatives of different elements of the transatlantic pop mix.

And the groups to 'outshine' were hardly established pop acts like the Mamas & the Papas, Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead (or, for that matter, The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel) - they were rock newcomers like Janis and Jimi, and 'outsider' pros like Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar, getting their first major exposure in front of the predominantly white and middle class 'pop' scene. Even with a string section performing 'Fire', and the booming choral vocals of 'Cabin Essence', I suspect - sadly - the Beach Boys would have had a hard time pulling focus from Jimi immolating his guitar at the conclusion of 'Wild Thing'.

EDIT: I'm probably taking your post way too earnestly, yonderhillside. If so, sorry.

Haha a little bit, but that's okay. But yeah, actually, I always took their part in Monterey at face value and never looked too far into it. I suppose that would make more sense them being ambassadors of sorts. As I was always somewhat surprised they would have been ones to partially conceive the idea anyway. And I didn't bother to mention Jimi, Janis, or The Who, because, at that festival especially, they couldn't have been outshone.

[filledeplage]

Filldeplage - there's a debate at the moment in New Zealand, where I live, about our statistics for child poverty. Most findings put it, shockingly, at about 30% or higher. One right-wing politician has made the clearly fallacious argument that, compared to Bangladesh, kiwi kids aren't in any kind of poverty. An equal argument could be made that, compared to folks in Hollywood, our upper-middle-class are themselves impoverished.

The point is - these kind of comparisons; indeed, all comparisons, are relative by nature. It has been demonstrated on this thread that Capitol provided considerable press and promotional support to both 'Pet Sounds' and 'Smile'. I totally understand your position that what they did wasn't enough - and indeed, by issuing certain singles and a 'Best Of' - they undercut the effectiveness of those efforts they did undertake.

But: GV was a #1 hit. Capitol issued full-page ads, commissioned multi-page articles in their in-house mag, made standees for record stores; and produced a promotional tape (admittedly for in-house purposes) which culminated in a plug for the album based around that recent #1 single. All in the face of a band/record that consistently missed its projected release dates (despite significant production of LP and 45 covers); failed - for almost a year - to produce the speedy, all-important follow-up single that was expected of all major 60's pop groups; which was fighting them legally over royalties and a projected subsidiary label; and - eventually - released an album that used almost nothing from the studio time they'd paid for.

The last one of these points I realize falls outside the purview of the argument you're making, but does again, serve to make the point that all these things are relative.

You are correct about everything being relative.  When I wore another hat (politics) there would be a full candidate promo, if you will "package," including car bumper stickers, meet-and-greets press releases, position papers, speeches, radio ads, TV appearances, that were hosted by groups doing election debates, yada yada, etc.  You can have a "fully-prepared promotional file" and the devil is in the details - the actual "execution" - and any DJ (we have an esteemed one) worth his or her salt would listen and play GV while they still had the "nod" from the executives who ran the radio franchises.  

There is still for me a huge disconnect as to the resources advanced consistent with their "emerging musically sophisticated scope," in that time window.  I will go out on a limb and suggest that Brian's performance on Bernstein, was as close as there was to a live performance up to the live GV in 1968.  

There may be a file at Capitol where they attempt to defend whatever they say they used. But the reality is that there was no live performance of GV that I can find or can remember from that era.  I am very open to seeing anything appropriate such as a personal appearance and performance on say, Johnny Carson, who had an 11 p.m. slot or anyone comparable.  Even if they taped a live concert with GV to promote or WH.  Radio was it.    

And you are correct about the faction-based positions on poverty or any political spin.  I get that and constantly filter it to see if it is left or right or in the middle.

The most accurate accounts come from The Beach Boys themselves, commenting on what happened on the  UK - 1967 tour, the record company had another agenda to advance, selling records in the older BB catalog. And just because some author or historian comes up with a file from an ad campaign, doesn't mean they did the job, placing the ads, showing actual documentary evidence of live and taped TV spots,  which actually took place.  

It may run contrary to whatever people have found to "source" from files.  They may have prepared a package but it was not a full on in-your-face one.  They didn't create Brother Records for nothing.  Just sayin' and JMHO.    

The general discussion of politics - and specific consideration of TV spots you concentrate on - aside, I would love to read your thoughts on any of the actual points I raised above.

EDIT:

The most accurate accounts come from The Beach Boys themselves, commenting on what happened on the  UK - 1967 tour

I am sorry, but I don't get what you mean by the "the  UK - 1967 tour". (I may well be being extremely dense here.) Do you mean the UK tour of '66, while the tracking sessions for 'SMiLE' were moving along, and Brian in all recorded utterances was deeply positive about what was being produced? Or the '67 tour(s), after the functional collapse of the Smile album, when the band were trying to pick up the pieces? I'm not trying to be aggressive here, but a bit of context would be useful.  

THB  - I don't think you are dense - there is so much to absorb and process.  It is the '67 tour, after Brian appeared on Inside Pop, right after Carl's arrest.  Smiley did not even come out until September of 1967.  So we know Brian is working on something spectacular with Surf's Up.  It is on national TV. That is real promo.  

But Bernstein isn't a Dick Clark, featuring teen music-of-the-day, or Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson who did variety shows for both adult and teens - more family entertainment for Ed Sullivan, Carson is on at 11:30  p.m., after the late news.

Bernstein is a serious classical artist.  The show serves to translate what is "rock music" to adults who are scared to death of it.  Bernstein had a Sunday Young People's Concert series that was mostly classical music and he served as the conductor trying to get kids interested in classical music.  Bernstein is drawing the analogy as between classical roots and rock music, tying the generations together for the adults (maybe some of the kids who have not looked at rock music, quite in that way.)  

And, I don't have Badman and the Rusten/Stebbins books handy, which have interspersed with the concert stuff, what is going on exactly at those moments with the concerts, touring and sessions. When you follow the timeline, month-by-month, it is really helpful.  Moi - a major geek.    I have some references to it around #42 in the other "contentious" thread.

The Paris Gaumont interview from 1970 is invaluable for the band insight going back a few years.  In French, subtitled.  On Youtube.  

[jiggy22]

Mike Love would have to choose a different name for his autobiography.


Anyways, there's a great article that answers a similar question: What if Pet Sounds had never been released? I think some of you would enjoy reading it.

https://arkhonia.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/smile-my-first-25-years-what-if-pet-sounds-wasnt-released-in-1966/

[The_Holy_Bee]

THB  - I don't think you are dense - there is so much to absorb and process.  It is the '67 tour, after Brian appeared on Inside Pop, right after Carl's arrest.  Smiley did not even come out until September of 1967.  So we know Brian is working on something spectacular with Surf's Up.  It is on national TV. That is real promo.  

But Bernstein isn't a Dick Clark, featuring teen music-of-the-day, or Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson who did variety shows for both adult and teens - more family entertainment for Ed Sullivan, Carson is on at 11:30  p.m., after the late news.

Bernstein is a serious classical artist.  The show serves to translate what is "rock music" to adults who are scared to death of it.  Bernstein had a Sunday Young People's Concert series that was mostly classical music and he served as the conductor trying to get kids interested in classical music.  Bernstein is drawing the analogy as between classical roots and rock music, tying the generations together for the adults (maybe some of the kids who have not looked at rock music, quite in that way.)  

And, I don't have Badman and the Rusten/Stebbins books handy, which have interspersed with the concert stuff, what is going on exactly at those moments with the concerts, touring and sessions. When you follow the timeline, month-by-month, it is really helpful.  Moi - a major geek.    I have some references to it around #42 in the other "contentious" thread.

The Paris Gaumont interview from 1970 is invaluable for the band insight going back a few years.  In French, subtitled.  On Youtube.  

Thanks for this, FdP - it's becoming clear to me I really need to invest in Badman and Rusten/Stebbins!

[guitarfool2002]

The single hit #1 and stayed there in multiple American regions and markets for close to a full month. In Europe too.

Just how bad or how lacking was the promotion to have a single sitting at #1 for more than a week, in the case of GV spending multiple weeks as the top single in various markets?

If the single stiffed, we'd have something to criticize. #1 for more than a week - Then, as now, quite a major feat for any record or musician.

Whatever was done or wasn't done, someone did a corking good job promoting it to that level of success.

[filledeplage]

The single hit #1 and stayed there in multiple American regions and markets for close to a full month. In Europe too.

Just how bad or how lacking was the promotion to have a single sitting at #1 for more than a week, in the case of GV spending multiple weeks as the top single in various markets?

If the single stiffed, we'd have something to criticize. #1 for more than a week - Then, as now, quite a major feat for any record or musician.

Whatever was done or wasn't done, someone did a corking good job promoting it to that level of success.

GF - that was all radio.   There was no GV performed until well over a year later in 1968.   So, no Darlin' or Wild Honey on film. (that I can find)

They did I can Hear music - http://youtu.be/vzCy0VKMhUs     (20/20)

Do It Again - http://youtu.be/eLFAYaae0


They did Never Learn not to love (1968) with Dennis on lead, Carl on Drums. - Mike Douglas show.

http://youtu.be/810v2bVX8j4

They did a real bona fide promo for Breakaway and Celebrate the News on Mike Douglas with Carl on drums and Dennis on lead on July 8, 1969 - with the LP of 20/20 in hand.  Mike Douglas.

Enjoy.  

http://youtu.be/sobVMqnEIOI

Hope it copies.  - so up to that point, they got  20/20 on national US TV - real promotion.  

And Brian and Mike Douglas from 1976.

http://youtu.be/2gQD2g6F7y8

Hope they all copy.  

Note the white jacket on Brian.  

[LostArt]

In 1966-'67, were nationally televised TV appearances by bands typically arranged by the record companies, by the band's management, or a combination of both?