Labor Day Weekend 1978

[c-man]

This Labor Day weekend marks the 30th anniversary of The Beach Boys' sessions at Criteria Studios in Miami, and being the historian I am, I find myself reflecting on that moment in time.

Way overdue in fufilling their commitment to deliver the first album in their $8 million deal with CBS, the Boys chartered the late Elvis Presley's jet and planned a tour around a week's worth of studio time booked at Criteria (owned by the Brothers Gibb).  As Ed Roach recalls, "The Boys were on such a high from their signing with Columbia...and were going to record their new album as a group, with Brian at the helm".  Brian, just released from a detox hospital in San Diego and contracturally obligated to write and produce 80% of the group's new material, flew out to meet them in Miami, where the Boys and their entrouge were staying at the Doral Country Club Hotel.  Brian joined the Boys for a string of concerts with Jan & Dean (who were just embarking on a comeback to tie in with the broadcast of the "Dead Man's Curve" TV movie), beginning in Grand Haven, Michigan on the 25th.  Back in Miami on the 28th, the Boys set up camp at Criteria, having flown in Chuck Britz to run the board for Brian in Studio A, while Dennis was given Studio C to work in with former Brother engineer Tom Murphy (Steve Desper, who was living nearby at the time, dropped by the studio to hang out and observe the sessions). 

With the Beach Boys' touring band, Brian laid down a number of tracks in Studio A, while across the hall Dennis recorded drum and percussion overdubs for his work-in-progress, "Love Surrounds Me".  The AFM sheets for these basic tracking sessions were apparently filled out some time later, and are dated August 31st and September 1st; other evidence suggests the sessions actually occurred August 28th (or 29th) and 30th.  Brian apparently began producing the morning of the very first day with (ironically) Mike's tribute song "Brian's Back", followed that afternoon by the Neil Sedaka oldie "Calendar Girl".  According to the AFM contract, Brian played piano, with Carli Munoz on electric piano, Phil Shenale on Oberheim synthesizer, Sterling Smith on Moog, Ed Carter on bass, Bobby Figueroa on drums, and Carl on guitar.  The afternoon of the second day, he produced "California Feelin'", the tune he'd written with Steve Kalinich three years earlier.  Ed Roach:  "I was SO impressed with Brian's attitude when we first set-up shop at the Bee Gees' studios...man, was Brian back in form!  Even people like Eddie C., who'd been around forever, were impressed by him, but it was the people who'd never seen this before, like Figueroa & Munoz, who were really the most shocked.  I think he might have started with (the) cover of 'Calendar Girl', recording organ tracks at 30ips, then playing them back at 15ips (or do I have that backwards?) with them sounding like a calliope... I mean, we were definitely in the presence of genius...".  A few months after these sessions, Ed Carter would describe Brian's enthusiastic return to the production helm, compared to the tentative days of the previous two years:  "In earlier days he didn't enjoy it as much as lately.  I've seen him when he wasn't enjoying staying in the studio too long, but at least that was an improvement over the past.  When I saw him at Criteria Studio in Miami he was working a 12-hour day and he was outlasting me, that's for sure...We did some great stuff and came up with some funny, you know, like Ray Bradbury, the way he writes prose and stories; some of the stuff that Brian came up with, I hope they use it on the album. There's one that sounds like a carousel.  He has great ideas and unique ideas about everybody playing an octave above and playing another track, and tuning it slightly differently so it has a real childlike quality to it...it sounds very much to me like Pet Sounds, the stuff". 

When it came time to record vocals, Brian soon realized that his once-rich falsetto voice had been damaged beyond repair by his cigarette smoking, so he phoned former Beach Boy Bruce Johnston and asked him to fly in from California to sing on the album.  Bruce met the group in the studio the next day, and did about five days' work with them before joining them on the road for a half-dozen concerts in the Southeast.  The  group, including Bruce, laid down vocals for all three songs that Brian produced in Miami, as well as a couple of tracks cut in L.A. earlier that summer (Al's "Santa Ana Winds" and "Lookin' Down The Coast/Monterey") and Dennis' "Baby Blue" (lead vocals for this last song had been taped by Carl and Dennis in Seattle the previous month, but the background harmonies in the bridge section were added at Criteria).   

Unfortunately, Brian's productivity and energy level soon came to an abrupt end, as Ed Roach recalls:  "Well, I'm sure this lasted for 2 or 3 days, when suddenly, Brian was called to the phone.  Whatever transpired threw him into a total funk... He took up a fetal position on either the couch or the floor, and was extremely uncommunicative".  We can speculate about just what threw Brian into this "funk", but the best guess would be that it had something to do with his separation and impending divorce from Marilyn.  "Next thing I knew," remembers Eddie, "Bruce...began producing the album".  Bruce, having won a Grammy a couple of years earlier for penning the huge Barry Manilow hit "I Write The Songs", was an obvious choice to co-produce the group:  having spent years in the studio and on the road with them, he knew all about their strengths, weaknesses, and personalities, yet could remain objective enough to see the "big picture"...the perfect "insider on the outside". 

Other tunes reviewed and/or worked on in Miami included "Good Timin'" (cut at Caribou Ranch in late '74), "Shortenin' Bread" (Brian's latest version, begun at Brother back in January), and Brian's piano demo of "I'm Beggin' You Please", all of which exist on the "Criteria Rough Mix Reel" dated 8/28/78, alongside all of the previously-mentioned songs except "Love Surrounds Me".  At some point the Boys met at Criteria with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff; upon hearing the work the group had done so far, Yetnikoff reportedly stated "Gentlemen, I think I've just been foaded", before quickly asking "Where do we go from here?".  The answer to that question would be "home"...following the last of their concerts (on September 4th), the group would return to Western Recorders in L.A., where Bruce Johnston and Caribou label head James William Guercio would soldier on, producing most of the remaining album sessions, and inviting Curt Becher to co-produce (with Bruce) the audacious disco version of Brian's r'n'b oldie "Here Comes The Night".  Brian, meanwhile, would suffer another nervous breakdown in December, and wind up in the hospital for several months, while the Boys finished the L.A. (Light Album) without him. 

What could have been Brian Wilson's return to a fully-inspired production career instead became a pleasant-but-somewhat-bland commercial disappointment, an album that peaked at Number 100 on the U.S. charts, despite moderate airplay for a couple of tracks and a surprise Top Ten single in the U.K.  Ed Roach believes the bootlegged mixes of Brian's Miami productions that have circulated in the years since pale in comparison to what he heard in the studio all those years ago, and don't represent the true picture, but rather the direction the album began to take once Bruce picked up the mantle:  "It occurs to me now that what remains is probably what was done after they continued working down there, and that's why those sessions were scrubbed.  It was the basic tracks that Brian laid down that were phenomenal...".

[Andrew G. Doe]

That's going in the book. Unchanged. 

[Pretty Funky]

Book? 

Surely you jest....

If not, tell us more!

[c-man]

That's going in the book. Unchanged. 

Well, maybe we can leave off that first paragraph...

[Andrew G. Doe]

That's going in the book. Unchanged. 

Well, maybe we can leave off that first paragraph...

Well of course... 

[John]

This sounds promising...

[gsmile]

Awesome post c-man.  I live for this stuff!  Just one thing you might wanna chage:  The Bee Gees didn't actually own Criteria studios.  During their early to mid 70s slump, they decided to relocate to Miami to record at Criteria at the suggestion of friend Eric Clapton, who had recorded his hugely successful "comeback" album "461 Ocean Boulevard" there.
They hooked up again with Arif Mardin (who produced their previous, "Mr Natural" and thanks to the american atmosphere injected a healthy shot of R&B into the new album, "Main Course", which OF course (couldn't resist) was a massive hit.  They fully relocated to Miami and recorded their next few albums there, including their contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and the follow-up, "Spirits Having Flown".  Between their own albums and the records they were producing for other artists at the time, it's no wonder that session musicians thought that the Bee Gees owned Criteria!  After their `79 tour they purchased their own studio which they called "Middle Ear".  The majority of their future projects were recorded there, all the way up to Maurice's unfortunate passing in 2003.  Shortly after that, the studio was sold and it's doors officially closed in March of 2006.  There was talk of it being demolished, but I'm not sure if that happened.  Criteria still stands today, and I recently recall seeing it listed in some liner notes of a recent album I bought.

Geoff

*ok, sorry, back to the Beach Boys!  *

[Howie Edelson]

C-Man -- Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Time for a book.

[c-man]

Awesome post c-man.  I live for this stuff!  Just one thing you might wanna chage:  The Bee Gees didn't actually own Criteria studios.  During their early to mid 70s slump, they decided to relocate to Miami to record at Criteria at the suggestion of friend Eric Clapton, who had recorded his hugely successful "comeback" album "461 Ocean Boulevard" there.
They hooked up again with Arif Mardin (who produced their previous, "Mr Natural" and thanks to the american atmosphere injected a healthy shot of R&B into the new album, "Main Course", which OF course (couldn't resist) was a massive hit.  They fully relocated to Miami and recorded their next few albums there, including their contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and the follow-up, "Spirits Having Flown".  Between their own albums and the records they were producing for other artists at the time, it's no wonder that session musicians thought that the Bee Gees owned Criteria!  After their `79 tour they purchased their own studio which they called "Middle Ear".  The majority of their future projects were recorded there, all the way up to Maurice's unfortunate passing in 2003.  Shortly after that, the studio was sold and it's doors officially closed in March of 2006.  There was talk of it being demolished, but I'm not sure if that happened.  Criteria still stands today, and I recently recall seeing it listed in some liner notes of a recent album I bought.

Geoff

*ok, sorry, back to the Beach Boys!  *

Thanks Geoff!  I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the Gibbs became part-owners of Criteria for a time, but I couldn't find anything on that just now on Google.  Anyways, I'll change that part of the article for the book.  Meantime, you might be interested to know Criteria is now part of the "Hit Factory" family (even though the original New York Hit Factory is no more...).  Another great album recorded at Criteria was the 1977 "CSN" album (the one called simply "CSN").  Stills went on to record (IIRC) his 1978 solo album there ("Thouroughfare Gap", or some such title), and he also played on one of the Bee Gees' hit songs while hanging at Criteria ("You Should Be Dancing").

[gsmile]

Thanks Geoff!  I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the Gibbs became part-owners of Criteria for a time, but I couldn't find anything on that just now on Google.  Anyways, I'll change that part of the article for the book.  Meantime, you might be interested to know Criteria is now part of the "Hit Factory" family (even though the original New York Hit Factory is no more...).  Another great album recorded at Criteria was the 1977 "CSN" album (the one called simply "CSN").  Stills went on to record (IIRC) his 1978 solo album there ("Thouroughfare Gap", or some such title), and he also played on one of the Bee Gees' hit songs while hanging at Criteria ("You Should Be Dancing").

"CSN" is one of my favorites!  I actually reach for it more than the original "couch" album.  I love the added maturity to the material and their voices; "Carried Away" and "Anything At All" are the stand-out tracks for me.  Thanks for the info about Stills on YSBD.  I assume he played extra percussion?  He's a friggin' percussion nut, sometimes to the detriment of his own music...see the Stills-Young Band album.   

[c-man]

Thanks Geoff!  I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the Gibbs became part-owners of Criteria for a time, but I couldn't find anything on that just now on Google.  Anyways, I'll change that part of the article for the book.  Meantime, you might be interested to know Criteria is now part of the "Hit Factory" family (even though the original New York Hit Factory is no more...).  Another great album recorded at Criteria was the 1977 "CSN" album (the one called simply "CSN").  Stills went on to record (IIRC) his 1978 solo album there ("Thouroughfare Gap", or some such title), and he also played on one of the Bee Gees' hit songs while hanging at Criteria ("You Should Be Dancing").

"CSN" is one of my favorites!  I actually reach for it more than the original "couch" album.  I love the added maturity to the material and their voices; "Carried Away" and "Anything At All" are the stand-out tracks for me.  Thanks for the info about Stills on YSBD.  I assume he played extra percussion?  He's a friggin' percussion nut, sometimes to the detriment of his own music...see the Stills-Young Band album.   

Yes, Stephen is credited with percussion on that BGs tune, and I read an interview somewhere (maybe it was in their biography) where he said he also did some "wacka-wacka" guitar on there.

[DonnaK]

That is fantastic stuff C-Man. Where do you guys find this stuff?? Boy, I'd love to pick your brains!!

[John]

Yeah, I'd just love track-by-track lineups, that'd do me.

[c-man]

That is fantastic stuff C-Man. Where do you guys find this stuff?? Boy, I'd love to pick your brains!!

In my case, I get this info from a variety of sources...specifically in this case from Ed Roach's postings on his board, and old Ed Carter interview in the BBFUN (Beach Boys Freaks United) newsletter, a Bruce Johnston interview from around the same time in the Pet Sounds newsletter, gig dates that were published in BBFUN and some more that were dug up by Ian Rusten, some recent conversations with and postings from Alan Boyd, and finally from the musician contracts on file at the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 in L.A. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

The rest, he made up. 

[DonnaK]

C-Man, do you live in LA where you can get quick access to all of this, including Ed Roach?? Fantastic job. You always have such interesting things to tell us. Don't know where you find the time to do it!

Unless Andrew is right....................................... LOL

[c-man]

The rest, he made up. 

Hee-hee-hee...
 

[c-man]

C-Man, do you live in LA where you can get quick access to all of this, including Ed Roach?? Fantastic job. You always have such interesting things to tell us. Don't know where you find the time to do it!

Unless Andrew is right....................................... LOL

Nope, I'm not L.A.-based, but with the marvelous world wide web, I can get access to lots of material & folks that I wouldn't otherwise.  That, plus my moldy 30-year old archives that I thankfully never threw out.  As for where I find the time?  Well...it's amazing how much one can accomplish by sleeping less!

[mtaber]

Making stuff up always worked great for me...

[MBE]

Very nice.

[petsite]

As this post is 4 years old and we are coming up on another Labor Day soon, I thought I would comment on this by putting up Bruce's interview with the old Pet Sounds fan magazine:



A Voice From The Past Helps With Tomorrow: An Interview with Bruce Johnston on November 9, 1978:

BJ: Everybody’s throwing a song in a pile, and I guess Jim Guercio and I will be the referee. There are around twenty songs although some of them are real light. There’s one song of Carl’s, “Angel Come Home”, that I hope is a hit. It’s really good. It’s probably the first time that Dennis has sung a hit lead, even though he sang “Do You Wanna Dance”. It’s the first time a commercial Beach Boys record has showcased Dennis the right way.

PS: What is your role in the project ?

BJ: I would say that Guercio and I are kind of executive producers. I’m reproducing the album, as opposed to producing it. I’m sorting out stuff that has been sitting around and a lot of new stuff. “Angel Come Home” is a track that they cut two years ago up at the Caribou ranch and it’s just been sitting there. Nobody volunteers anything, so I had to kind of hear about it. Carl’s so humble … that song is really hot.
Also I convinced Dennis to put “Baby Blue” on the album. That’ll be fabulous … incredible chord changes. I don’t think “Calendar Girl” at this point will be on the album. Brian cut it in Miami and we all sang on it, but it might be too light. It sounds dated, but it’s really good. It could probably be a hit in ten countries. There will be a couple of Brian’s songs on the record. Like “Good Timin’” … that’s really good. “Here Comes The Night” – the short version …

PS: You had (indicated) that the album might include some “SMiLE” tracks …

BJ: I have decided that I’m going to wait until Brian would really give his permission to do it. Guercio wants to open the album with “Rock Plymouth Rock/Roll” and end with “Been Way Too Long”. I wanted to make up a collage, but I want Brian to be the one to put the collage together. I can tell he still feels funny about that stuff. You know, there a lot of “SMiLE” stuff intact …

PS: Will your song “Ten Years Harmony” be on the LP ?

BJ: Again, I don’t know. There’s a song called “Brian’s Back” which is dreadful I think. The intent of it is really nice. I’m saying it’s dreadful as a record. The idea is really nice … it’s something I’d play for Brian at his house. The same with “Ten Years Harmony” … Carl and I talked about that, and he said he’d feel really funny singing about himself. We decided to sing the verses in the second person, and when the chorus comes into the song, it would go to Carl singing in the first person. I’m not really trying to zoom any of my songs in. I’m just trying to be a representative of the people who still love the Beach Boys. As of now, the songs that will probably be on the album are “Baby Blue”, “Angel Come Home”, “Lady Lynda”, “Here Comes The Night”, “Full Sail”, “Going South” … maybe “Calendar Girl” … I’m trying not to put “Santa Ana Winds" on … a heavy ‘no’ on “California Feeling”.

In August, Brian called me, and I went down to Miami. Just to sing a few parts. I worked about five days on the album, and then I went out on the road, which was really interesting because the only other time we’d ever officially played together, in terms of a set, all six of us, was the Whisky (in 1970). The shows were good, a little sloppy, which is just a matter of rehearsing …

PS: What was the genesis of “Here Comes The Night” ?

BJ: I told Curt Becher, who is a guy who when he was a baby produced records for The Association like “Cherish” and “Along Comes Mary”, and then he had his own album … I told him I was going to work on the Beach Boys project. Curt and I had talked about cutting “Here Comes The Night” (for our own album), but he said that the Beach Boys should really be the ones to do it. So I approached everybody and I thought – “a Beach Boys disco record. Before anybody hears it, they’re going to hate it if they love the Beach Boys”. But if I’m right, when they hear it, they’ll realise that disco – in terms of the Beach Boys – is a lot different than disco in terms of Cerrone or Giorgio Moroder. It has to be because it’s the Beach Boys. So I decided, “Okay, I’ll talk it over with them”. Curt and I are co-producing “Here Comes The Night”. None of the guys played on the track; we used our own people. When it came to putting the vocals on, because it’s so much more rhythmic than you’re used to with normal Beach Boys vocals, Curt was a little curious as to whether they could sing the parts. But I’m telling you, I wasn’t surprised. They sang the parts … I’ve got it all done now, and it’s incredible. It’s nice to know that you can be in the record business for seventeen years, and have all these things change, and you can go into this style you’ve never sung in and (snaps fingers) you’ve got it. The first day! And it was really hard to sing. It was hard for me to sing ‘cause it’s so syncopated.

If it comes out, there will be a twelve inch record, and it’s ten minutes and twenty-five seconds long. It has about two and a half minutes of intro, then the body of the song, and there’s two minutes of a cappella vocals. Carl sang the lead. I still have to get Brian on it, and I have finish Mike. Carl, Al and I sang the centre voices. I went up to Santa Barbara, and put Mike on all the bass voices, and now I’ve got to track Brian down and put him on the high parts, the higher than me parts. And then it will be vocally finished.
It just happens that the whole disco thing looks like it’s going to be around for a while. The major labels are taking it seriously. I talked to Walter Yetnikoff, who is the head of the CBS Records Division, and he agreed that he would like us to try something in the (disco) area.

PS: What are your plans as far as the group is concerned ?

BJ: I don’t know. I really want to get back to stuff that I’ve gotta do. I’ve got to make another (solo) album for Columbia. I want to do an album with Curt. I’ve got a lot of things I want to work on. I’m sure that I won’t rejoin the band, and I certainly never know when I’m going to produce anybody beyond the album I’m doing. You can expect me to pop up once in a while on a tour with the Beach Boys …

[Exapno Mapcase]

No quality control. They were still on an oldies kick and they shelved some of the better new songs. As it stands, LA is reasonably pleasant with three standout tracks (Angel Come Home, Baby Blue and Love Surrounds Me - thank Christ Mike didn't think of that title), one pretty good one (Good Timin') and a couple of decent ones amongst the rest. Thank God we escaped Brian's Back and calendar Girl, however.

[tpesky]

A couple of Bruce's comments made me spit out my drink laughing...

The quote about looking like disco will be around for awhile might be one of the funniest things ever.......ooops Bruce..... and the one about him not rejoining the BB as well ,just popping up on a few tours.   We all know how that turned out...

Never did get that solo album. Not sure why he was so against Santa Ana Winds on the album and did he say that HCTN SHORT VERSION would be on the album! Of course that's what should have been done. It would have been fine that way. Granted that and Shortenin Bread don't belong on an album with light in the title but still. How did they ever end up with the long version??

[urbanite]

I think C-man is being kind to BW regarding his work at Criteria Studios.

[Sheriff John Stone]

I remember when c-man posted that in 2008. It was a fascinating read and it always raised further questions about that time, specifically Brian's personal situation.

It was perplexing (or maybe not, this is the Beach Boys) that Brian went immediately to a recording session upon release from being institutionalized, instead of home to his family. I'm assuming he was already separated from Marilyn? Which raises the next question. It is assumed(?) that the fateful phone call down there in Miami had to do with Marilyn's filing for divorce. If Brian and Marilyn were separated, how long had it been, and, did Brian expect a reconciliation? Yes, any divorce can be traumatic, but did this catch Brian off guard?

As far as Bruce becoming the producer, it is sometimes written that he (Bruce) was the natural choice. Really? Bruce Johnston? Did anybody listen to Going Public? Was Carl too ill at the time to resume the role of producer which he so ably filled in the earlier 1970's? Or, didn't he want it? Carl was all over L.A. (Light Album) actually.

I also found it interesting that Dennis "was given Studio C to work in with former Brother engineer Tom Murphy". Was this one of those times that Dennis was NOT given the ultimatum to either be a Beach Boy or a solo artist? Was "Love Surrounds Me" always intended for The Beach Boys?

Finally, in the Bruce interview, he says, "There's one song of Carl's, "Angel Come Home", that I hope is a hit." Did Bruce just mean that he hopes people like it, or was it ever considered as a single? Or, is that simply Bruce being Bruce? The more things change, the more they stay the same....