Van Dyke Parks left, came back, and left again. Truth or Fiction?

[A Million Units In Jan!]

So, besides Jules Siegel's article, is there anyone else who can verify that this indeed happened? That he came back and then left again? Exact months are pretty much non-existent. He must have left late December/Early January, as the infamous CE vocal sessions were in December. When exactly did he come back, and why did he leave again? It seems like if he came back, he'd stick it out? So the story as we have it now is, he left because he was pissed about being questioned about his lyrics. Then, a month (or whenever) later he comes back, worked on (?), and then left again after (?) to do his solo album. Something about that doesn't add up for me. If he came back it would have been early '67, and by that point Brian was just working on a couple of songs to use for singles. So basically Van came back just to work on Vege Tables lyrics? Seems like he would have just left for good after getting upset about his lyrics being questioned, and wouldn't come back.

[letsmakeit31]

I too would love to know more about this, Maybe we will hear the whole story when Smile Comes out this summer...Hopefully!!!

[Cam Mott]

Van Dyke seems to consider himself leaving either early around the recording of Fire or late during the lawsuit. He is at recording sessions in February so maybe he actually does consider himself leaving twice or he only considered himself a visitor after quitting in November. Maybe he feels he quit the scene due to weirdness in November but didn't quit the job until late February when asked for clarification of a line.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Working purely from memory (brainfade warning...) I recall VDP quit when questioned about the "Cabin Essence" tag lyric by Mike (who nonetheless then turned in a sterling performance of same), which would indicate a window somewhere between December 6th & 15th 1966. The latter date can be ruled out as there's not even the most cryptic reference to any such conflict in Oppenheim's reel notes, so that further narrows it down to between the 6th and the 11th (granted there was also a vocal session on 10/11, but given that session is logged as "Home On The Range", unlikely, especially as he was there on 11/4 for the "H&V/IIGS/Barnyard" 'demo' session).  I gather he left for the 2nd time when offered a solo deal by Warners.

[XY]

When the Beach Boys returned from tour, they were a bit confused about the new project, about the heavy orchestrated music, about the lyrics. It was a déjà-vu what happend during the Pet Sounds Sessions.
But the boys did a couple of vocal sessions and tried to give Brian what he wanted. They gave their best. They even agreed that it would be an idea to perform this kind of music live with an orchestra.
Unfortunately, Brian was unhappy with the results and re-recorded vocal-parts by himself. With Brian's unhappiness about the boys' vocal-work, arguments between Mike and Brian followed.
Murry Wilson - who didn't like the direction since "Good Vibrations", who was worried the boys would lose their image - asked Van Dyke to leave in early - mid December 1966.
After the missed Christmas release date, Brian put his concentration on "Heroes & Villains", the new single. Van Dyke was still very involved. But as the work went on and on without an end on the horizon, Van Dyke and Brian started more and more to disharmonise , they would have arguments and fights. Then, Van Dyke Parks got the chance to do an arrangement for the "Mojo Man", had other new projects in the pocket and left in the midst of the H&V sessions. Brian tried to sign him to Brother Records and offered to produce him, but Van Dyke knew now that wouldn't work.
Brian continued alone, but without Van Dyke, soon lost more and more interest.

[letsmakeit31]

Found this too, It may be helpful for this?
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=240888&page=23

[Andrew G. Doe]

When the Beach Boys returned from tour, they were a bit confused about the new project, about the heavy orchestrated music, about the lyrics. It was a déjà-vu what happend during the Pet Sounds Sessions.

The Smile sessions commenced in earnest in early October 1966: the next major tour - to Europe - started on October 25th in Paris. While they were away, Brian held seven sessions, mostly for "Surf's Up" and "Vega-tables". The BB then did a US/Canada tour November 16th-24th, during which time no sessions were held.

But the boys did a couple of vocal sessions and tried to give Brian what he wanted. They gave their best. They even agreed that it would be an idea to perform this kind of music live with an orchestra.

I'd like to see a source for the 'orchestra' bit of that... and the vocal sessions followed the November North American tour.

Unfortunately, Brian was unhappy with the results and re-recorded vocal-parts by himself.

Source again, please.

With Brian's unhappiness about the boys' vocal-work, arguments between Mike and Brian followed. Murry Wilson - who didn't like the direction since "Good Vibrations", who was worried the boys would lose their image - asked Van Dyke to leave in early - mid December 1966.

Murry, who was barred from the band's sessions since the infamous "Rhonda" episode and had no direct business connection save for the publishing, asked Brian's main collaborator to leave in order to maintain their image ?  Again, source please.

After the missed Christmas release date, Brian put his concentration on "Heroes & Villains", the new single. Van Dyke was still very involved. But as the work went on and on without an end on the horizon, Van Dyke and Brian started more and more to disharmonise , they would have arguments and fights. Then, Van Dyke Parks got the chance to do an arrangement for the "Mojo Man", had other new projects in the pocket and left in the midst of the H&V sessions.

VDP was offered his solo deal in February 1967, the same month the Mojo Men's 45 he co-produced with Lenny Waronker and played piano on was released (so it was obviously recorded some time earlier).

Brian tried to sign him to Brother Records and offered to produce him, but Van Dyke knew now that wouldn't work.

Source, please.

[Runaways]

one of my favorite parts of the beautiful dreamer documentary was when van dyke was saying "brian thought i was a big enough guy to guard the door, i wasn't a big enough guy.  And that is a great regret".  

[XY]

Andrew, the sources for all this are the extremely accurate 1969 memories of Michael Vosse.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Andrew, the sources for all this are the extremely accurate 1969 memories of Michael Vosse.

Where can I see them ?  He's certainly wrong about the tours/vocal sessions timing bit.

[XY]

Certainly not everything is correct, like the timing of things he remembered, but I think there's some truth behind some of his memories. You can read the article here: http://thebeachboys.ch/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=4249#4249

[Cam Mott]

Working purely from memory (brainfade warning...) I recall VDP quit when questioned about the "Cabin Essence" tag lyric by Mike (who nonetheless then turned in a sterling performance of same), which would indicate a window somewhere between December 6th & 15th 1966. The latter date can be ruled out as there's not even the most cryptic reference to any such conflict in Oppenheim's reel notes, so that further narrows it down to between the 6th and the 11th (granted there was also a vocal session on 10/11, but given that session is logged as "Home On The Range", unlikely, especially as he was there on 11/4 for the "H&V/IIGS/Barnyard" 'demo' session).  I gather he left for the 2nd time when offered a solo deal by Warners.

I agree and that December date could be if you assume the question had to happen at the time of the lyric recording, or it could have been earlier as Van Dyke has intimated around Fire. But to me Van Dyke put his leaving as precipitated by the question about a line of lyric at the time of his departure and the time of his departure at time of the lawsuit which would be much later [late February].

[Alex]

For some reason, I thought he left once b/c of the lyric argument, then came back, but only as a hired gun and no longer an equal partner.

[rab2591]

Certainly not everything is correct, like the timing of things he remembered, but I think there's some truth behind some of his memories. You can read the article here: http://thebeachboys.ch/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=4249#4249

Does anyone know if the Vosse Fusion article is included in Priore's Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! book?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Certainly not everything is correct, like the timing of things he remembered, but I think there's some truth behind some of his memories. You can read the article here: http://thebeachboys.ch/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=4249#4249

Thanks for that... reading now...

OK, he's got Brian recording "Fire" & "Wind Chimes" while the band are in Europe: unless there are sessions we don't know about (and that's unlikely), he's wrong on that.

I'm not being picky for the sake of it, but when someone's memory doesn't stack up against documented facts, you have to question that memory (which, btw, at this point was over two years old). Here - firstly he says VDP was going to work with The Mojo Men, then a couple of paragraphs later it's Harper's Bizarre. Now as it happens, he worked with both of them, but at differing times, the latter a good few months after he left Brian for the second time. You see my point ?

OK, just double checked, and unless my eyesight is worse that I think it is, nowhere in that article is there anything about Murry asking VDP to leave. If I'm missing it, please point me at it.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Certainly not everything is correct, like the timing of things he remembered, but I think there's some truth behind some of his memories. You can read the article here: http://thebeachboys.ch/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=4249#4249

Does anyone know if the Vosse Fusion article is included in Priore's Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! book?

Yes, I do. No, it isn't. 

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I found it odd that in that article, he doesn't mention the episode where Brian hears 'Strawberry Fields Forever' the first time and pulls over, and makes a comment about how 'The Beatles have already  done what I wanted to do'.

 And at this point, AGD will say 'I'll say it again: The Vosse article was more interesting for what he didn't say, then what he did say'. 

[c-man]

For some reason, I thought he left once b/c of the lyric argument, then came back, but only as a hired gun and no longer an equal partner.

I'm pretty sure VDP never thought of himself as an equal partner...I recall him commenting more than once (in the eighties and later) that he was strictly a hired gun...for instance, when demonstrating how they wrote "Heroes & Villains". he said Brian had the complete melody, and he was hired to supply the words, plain and simple, and so he did.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Vosse: final observation... aside from his timeline problems, you have to question his credibility when he say something as ridiculous as this:

"The recording of it ["Cabinessence"] is all new, because before his ear operation about a year ago, Brian could not hear in stereo"

Apart from his assuming that, because it's in stereo, Brian's operation was successful, he's also assuming that because it's stereo it's an all new recording, both assumptions being entirely erroneous. It also raises a worrying supposition on our behalf - that despite being an insider for much of the Smile era and listening to the music on a weekly, if not daily, basis, just over two years later Vosse cannot remember "Cabin Essence" well enough to realise that, with the exception of Carl's lead vocal, none of is "all new". Had the interview been conducted in, say, late 1967, I'd feel happier about the quality of his recall.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

It still blows my mind that the whole SMiLE saga took place in only a matter of months. When you read about  the different things that happened, how the boys would be home, then go out on tour again, come back home, Brian was getting involved in this, that and the other thing, all of these events took place, and really the whole deal was only about 6 months long.

[Mr. Cohen]

I think you're being too harsh on Vosse.He didn't have access to Smile bootlegs in the sixties. He couldn't listen to the songs over and over again like we can now. So he thinks that "Cabinessence" was rerecorded because it was mastered different and made it into stereo. Big deal. Keep in mind, he's no expert in the area of music. He's just a fan. And if the Beach Boys could get away with saying "Time To Get Alone" was rerecorded, what's so unreasonable about Vosse's assumption? For all we know, Brian Wilson himself told Vosse that "Cabinessence" was redone in stereo to brag about his "surgically corrected" ear.

You don't think Wilson lies to people about details? Read a couple interviews with Wilson and you'll see that he loves to lie about details.

Also, it's an unreasonable to expect people to remember the exact dates of events years after the fact. Think of how many years it took you to put together the timeline on your website. And you expect people to just remember that stuff off of the top of their heads? I mean, AGD - do you remember what you ate for breakfast Monday morning, January 10, 2011? I bet you can't. And, for me, that throws your ability to remember and compile any kind of data into doubt.

Does that make any sense? Was that a reasonable assumption on my part? No and no again. But that's the kind of logic you continually use to attack people like Vosse or Al Jardine, people who were actually there. I don't that's the right approach to take this kind of information, and if anything, it only encourages these people to not talk about these things at all.

[c-man]

Dang!

[Andrew G. Doe]

I think you're being too harsh on Vosse.He didn't have access to Smile bootlegs in the sixties. He couldn't listen to the songs over and over again like we can now. So he thinks that "Cabinessence" was rerecorded because it was mastered different and made it into stereo. Big deal. Keep in mind, he's no expert in the area of music. He's just a fan. And if the Beach Boys could get away with saying "Time To Get Alone" was rerecorded, what's so unreasonable about Vosse's assumption? For all we know, Brian Wilson himself told Vosse that "Cabinessence" was redone in stereo to brag about his "surgically corrected" ear.

You don't think Wilson lies to people about details? Read a couple interviews with Wilson and you'll see that he loves to lie about details.

Also, it's an unreasonable to expect people to remember the exact dates of events years after the fact. Think of how many years it took you to put together the timeline on your website. And you expect people to just remember that stuff off of the top of their heads? I mean, AGD - do you remember what you ate for breakfast Monday morning, January 10, 2011? I bet you can't. And, for me, that throws your ability to remember and compile any kind of data into doubt.

Does that make any sense? Was that a reasonable assumption on my part? No and no again. But that's the kind of logic you continually use to attack people like Vosse or Al Jardine, people who were actually there. I don't that's the right approach to take this kind of information, and if anything, it only encourages these people to not talk about these things at all.

Not attacking them - just putting their reminiscences into a framework where we can weigh their worth, and also pointing out that said recollections should not be taken as gospel by anyone, including yours truly.  Someone here made a post that contained some very definitive statements that didn't ring any bells with me and included one that was almost certainly untrue (Murry/VDP), so I requested sources, to which the reply was "Andrew, the sources for all this are the extremely accurate 1969 memories of Michael Vosse."  I re-read those memories and, aside from the Murry/VDP claim not being mentioned at all, I demonstrated that in a purely factual reading, some of those memories were far from "extremely accurate". It's what researchers do - sift out such information as you have to get closer to what actually happened. If you read some of my very old articles, going back to the late 1970s, you'd wet yourselves laughing: for example, I wrote, with the utmost conviction, that while Brian had started the Spring sessions tentatively, his confidence grew and the later sessions saw him working with interest and involvement. As it turned out, that was only 100% incorrect.  

Question: assuming (with no good evidence) that Brian was still in contact with Vosse in late 1968, why would he tell him the operation was a success when you'd only have to be in his company for a few minutes to realise it was nothing of the sort ?  I know, I'm applying logic to the world of The Beach Boys. I think Vosse's impressions of what the music was like, and what the scene was around Brian, are hugely valuable (as is the revelation that Nick Kent's article for the NME in 1975 lifted huge parts of the Fusion piece almost wholesale)... but when you stack up his version of events against a timeline of documented sessions, tours and releases, it's not a very good fit. And if you're going to do this sort of thing to the best of your ability, "not a very good fit" isn't acceptable. As the mythical Mr. S. Holmes once pointed out, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".  And as regards The Beach Boys, the truth can be very improbable indeed.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I don't know why, but I thought Brian didn't go through with the surgery.

If you read some of my very old articles, going back to the late 1970s, you'd wet yourselves laughing: for example, I wrote, with the utmost conviction, that while Brian had started the Spring sessions tentatively, his confidence grew and the later sessions saw him working with interest and involvement. As it turned out, that was only 100% incorrect.

Well, it was backwards (started off good then petered out), so technically it was "only" 50% incorrect.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

The one thing that I vehemently disagree with in that article is his claim that the SMiLE cover wasn't very good. I, for one, thinks it's perfect! Except maybe they could have had drawings of the Boys' themselves in the windows.