The Smiley Smile Message Board

From what album on did the guys start not playing on the records, Seems 2 be bugging me for a while

It's not a clear cut thing by any means. Pet Sounds is really the only BB's LP that has virtually no BB's instrumentation on it. Only "That's Not Me" does...which has Brian, Carl and Dennis I believe...the rest is outside people. Other than that LP nearly every BB's LP has a significant instrumental contribution from the guys. The first few LP's is 90 - 100 percent them. The next three are probably 60 - 70 percent them, maybe more. BB's Today is about 40 pecent them. Summer Days is about 30 percent them. With Smile they get back into the studio again as musicians...especially Brian and Carl...plus Al and Dennis contribute too. Smiley Smile and Wild Honey is again 80 percent BB's or more. With Friends and later it drops again to 50 percent, sometime more, sometimes less. But they play regularly on the LP's throughout the late sixties and seventies depending on the track. This is a general guide...but it underlines that the often regurgitated myth saying, "The 'Wrecking Crew' played all the instruments after the first couple LP's" is total crap. The studio guys contributed mightily, as did six musicians named Brian, Carl, Dennis, Al, Bruce and David.

From the Nascar album on, I guess.

Pet Sounds certainly was the low point.  I always have thought that it was kind of a special display of either loyalty, or thanks, or maybe even pity that Brian allowed That's Not Me to be a self-contained group effort (I believe everybody ended up on it in some form, Al too).  The song turned out better for it, too.  Pet Sounds would have been a fascinating record had the Beach Boys done it all themselves, but that's neither here nor there.

So yeah, the Beach Boys never truly stopped playing on their LPs.

I like Jon's answer better...

Thanks for the commentary.

You are more than welcome!

"That's Not Me" is one of the stand out tracks on Pet Sounds for me. Mainly because the instrumentation is kept much simpler than the other songs. It doesn't stick out like a sore thumb or anything but it's nice to know that they all played together for that one song.

I've grown rusty in my BBoys knowledge so let me ask, who played on "Little Bird"?

I believe Brian played Piano on "Pet Sounds", the track....

Taken literally, the first documented album track with no BB instrumental involvement was that for "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", 1/7/64. Doubtless there were non-BB musicians on earlier cuts (tracks with string overdubs excluded, natch) - for example, a certain bass player of our accquaintance claims to have played guitar on "Surfin' USA", despite the AFM sheet naming just the five Boys (including, curiously, Mike).  On New Year's Day 1964, the "Fun x 3/WOTS" tracks session names Hal Blaine, Steve Douglas, Ray Pohlman & Jay Migliori alongside the band.

Brian played piano/keyboards on most of the tracks on Today and Summer Days, and Carl played guitar on quite a few.  But besides that, BB instrumental input was small on those two albums - I'm So Young on Today, and Then I Kissed Her on Summer Days.  Oh, and probably Girl Don't Tell Me as well?

On Today:

When I Grow Up
Dance thrice
I'm So Young
She Knows Me

Feature the full Beach Boys instrumental compliment.  Good to My Baby has Carl on it, DHMLS has Carl and Al.

On SDSN, the only fully self-contained song featuring the whole lineup seems to be You're So Good to me, but Girl from NYC, Amusement parks, Then I kissed her, and Girl don't tell me all have at least a couple Beach Boys on the track.

Carl plays guitar on every track on both albums except Please Let Me Wonder, Kiss me Baby, and probably Help Me, Rhonda...plus Summer Means New llove.