Early Nineties Yankee Stadium

[HeyJude]

Mike has never presented himself first and foremost as a songwriter; even his short run of 1981 solo shows (perhaps the only time he did shows billed as simply "Mike Love" rather than "Endless Summer Beach Band" or something) featured a bunch of songs he didn't have a hand in writing:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mike-love/1981/brandywine-club-chadds-ford-pa-43dbcf03.html

[guitarfool2002]

Mike has never presented himself first and foremost as a songwriter; even his short run of 1981 solo shows (perhaps the only time he did shows billed as simply "Mike Love" rather than "Endless Summer Beach Band" or something) featured a bunch of songs he didn't have a hand in writing:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mike-love/1981/brandywine-club-chadds-ford-pa-43dbcf03.html

Concurrent with that: Mike's solo album Lookin Back With Love has only *one* (count 'em) song which Mike had a hand in writing. Unless the credits are wrong.

[HeyJude]

More commentary from Mike about why he released his solo album would be interesting.

It certainly wasn't, by the time LBWL came out, a case of finding an outlet for songs he had written that didn't have an outlet on any BB albums due to whatever reason.

Does anyone have any contemporary comments either from 1981 regarding LBWL, or circa 1978 regarding his previous two attempts at solo albums, about what his motivations were? Was it just kind of a generic "well, we're in a band, but sometimes bands split off and do solo albums, so I guess I'll try one of those?" Was it motivated by jealousy over Dennis and POB?

Whereas, with Carl's solo albums, you can see he wanted an outlet for songs he had written, wanted to do a (relatively) different style of music, saw no movement towards a BB group album, and was overtly rejecting the BBs due to lack of studio activity and live tour antipathy.

Dennis's album seemed to not be a rejection of the BBs (he didn't quit the touring band, and the BBs *were* recording albums at that time), and was more just an outlet/expression of his own songs.

When Mike took to doing "First Love" and "Country Love", I'm curious what he was aiming at. Perhaps it started as an outlet for more of "his" songs. But by the time of LBWL, as evidenced by the album being almost exclusively covers and work from outside writers, was he just taking one last stab at solo stardom?

TV interviews of the like of "Solid Gold" and "Merv Griffin" often weren't very substantive, but I can't remember what sort of comments Mike made about LBWL on those shows.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Mike has never presented himself first and foremost as a songwriter; even his short run of 1981 solo shows (perhaps the only time he did shows billed as simply "Mike Love" rather than "Endless Summer Beach Band" or something) featured a bunch of songs he didn't have a hand in writing:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mike-love/1981/brandywine-club-chadds-ford-pa-43dbcf03.html

Concurrent with that: Mike's solo album Lookin Back With Love has only *one* (count 'em) song which Mike had a hand in writing. Unless the credits are wrong.

Coincidentally or not, it also sounds better than anything on KTSA (and most of La Light for that matter)