The Smiley Smile Message Board

As we all know, Brian has had two voices. Pre 15 Big Ones and Post 15 Big Ones. His vocals were scarce after the early 70's, so it is difficult to pin down exactly when and how quickly the decline took place, although 75' seems to be the concensus.

I've found this though, albeit from 71', where you can almost hear both voices. The sweet younger voice is giving way to the strained, older voice, especially on the falsetto.

And I'm sure you've all heard this version and the Spring version, but my god what a beautiful song this is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZf31lOrNSY&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZf31lOrNSY&feature=related)

Are there any more, perhaps better examples of Brian's "Missing Link" vocals

Don't You Just Know It. You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone. California. Rollin' Up To Heaven. Child of Winter.

If you listen to the interview Brian did with Jim Pewter in 1974, he has the rough voice.

Yes, but it's that "in between" stage I'm after. Though there are a few titles there I may have to search out.

I don't know what the hell "in between" stage you're referring to, but you can hear the decline on all of those listed tunes. Perhaps you should reword your post and properly articulate what you're looking for.

All the songs named may be a tad "in between" but are much closer to the old voice than the new sans "Child Of Winter", but that's just a spoken word bit. Still, you can clearly hear a good half of both Brians in there.

Also, Brian's had a good 359 voices or so, really. You could still hear the tiniest bit of the old Brian on Love You etc. Some time in the late 70s or early 80s is when he really sounded like someone completely different. I can easily hear 2011 Brian on BB85, for instance.

Also, I want to say very few "in between" recordings are said to exist. The "California Feelin'" demo that none of us have heard has been named as an example.

I think what I'm saying is, that Brian's young voice and Brian's old voice could be two completely different people. And you only hear one or the other, I was musing on the fact there might be a bridge between these two voices. Because Brian recorded so little in the mid 70's, the change seemed to happen overnight.

But as I hinted, I haven't heard a few of the tracks you listed, namely "Don't You Just Know It" and "Rolling Up To Heaven". PM?

"California" sounds like his young voice, and I've never been able to hear him in "Mess Of Help"

The "Awake" Demo was good, beacuse it was just him, up close to the mic.

In the Aussie radio interview that Brian did in I think? Late 74-early 75 his voice still sounded (to me at least) young pre 15 Big Ones. It was the same interview that's on the "Life of Brian CD4 entitled "Lost in space" I've written about this interview before on here. I thought it was a great honest interview if a little strange but pure Brian and I good insight into his state of mind at the time. 

"Rollin' Up To Heaven" is absolutely confounding. Recorded in November 74, Brian still sounds exactly like he did in the late 60s, "Child Of Winter" was finished shortly after, and then the next year saw work on 15 Big Ones. How does someone's voice change so suddenly?

brian went through another voice change after 1980 though

I feel like someone made a fairly detailed list of this. Anyone?

Maybe the full extent gruff voice was a put on to some extent with the gruff voice sounding like his bass voice on "sweet mountain", because Brian could still sing high well on "sherry she needs me" or "airplane". I think his voice was declining slowly to the point where for a short while he could sing both normal voice and gruff voice.

Brian has an interesting falsetto in that era, this Awake demo and Good Time are standout examples: "Might go up in smoke now but what do we care...".


It's very subtle but I hear slight hints of Brian's Love You voice on the Breakaway demo on the Endless Harmony Soundtrack, when he's singing in the lower register.

Around 1:34 there's hints of gruffness, he seems to struggle around the here while singing "...the more I thought of iiighhhhttt, I had been out of it".

Anyone else hear it? Not as obvious as the "eeeeeeeee" on He Came Down.

Are we 100% sure the "eeee" on "He Came Down"/"He Come Down"/"I Dislike Firefighters And Pie" is actually Brian? 72 just seems way too early for his Love You voice to appear, especially considering he sounds like this nowhere else up until 15BO (15 Body Odors)

i always thought winter symphony was an obvious tweener voice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dciht0NG4

If you listen to Brian's vocal solo for Tammy Wynette's version of "In My Room" done in 1996; he sounds exactly like he did in the 60's and early 70's.

Good example-more like the MIU voice-and what happened between LY and MIU?

I don't hear the post 15BO voice at all in awake. I still hear Brian's sweet voice in that song.

""Rollin' Up To Heaven" is absolutely confounding. Recorded in November 74, Brian still sounds exactly like he did in the late 60s, "Child Of Winter" was finished shortly after, and then the next year saw work on 15 Big Ones. How does someone's voice change so suddenly?"

I thought the vocals for Child of Winter were from 77?

Yeah I've always heard that too - probably the first time you hear any gruff sneaking in, even if it's sporadic. 

That "Breakaway" demo is pretty rough in some spots. Then again, it was probably just a quick reference done for Carl.

I always wondered if the other Beach Boys (or anyone else for that matter) noticed Brian's vocal decline in the late 60's/early 70's and advised him to practice more. Surely there must've been some internal conversation regarding that. I know I would've said something, lol.

Not all the gruffness is physical deterioration, especially early on.

Yes. Also, that same voice shows up in some of the backups on the Spring disc. Difference between him sounding like that then and , say, 4 years later, is that during the former he was trying to sound like that.

**just realised you said endless harmony, not hawthorne*

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's Carl on the second verse of the alternate version of Breakaway.

If you smoke enough and snort enough, then absolutely your voice can go that bad in a quick time. Also, I think Brian was intentionally pushing himself to sound more "manly" around 1976 as well.

Also, one thought...is it possible that Brian had throat surgery that we just never knew about? Case in point...Mike Nesmith had a tonsillectomy in 1967, and his voice did go through a noticeable change, and over the next few years it did kind of gradually revert to sort of its original sound...and didn't Dennis have surgery on his vocal cords in the '80s (which explains how shot he sounds in that clip near the end of An American Band)??? Wondering if Brian had minor surgery like a tonsillectomy or something that might have contributed to the change as well...

I'm pretty sure that the vocal for Don't You Just Know It was recorded back in 1970. Brian really hits some odd notes on that recording. I've always thought that his voice sounded slightly "thin". He also seems to be trying harder to hit the high note on the line "they siiiiing their songs so clear".

I believe this is the point where he lost weight and cleaned up, if only for a short while. His voice really feels like it was starting to revert back to how it was before - surely it would've never been quite the same, but it's a shame he fell off the wagon again :(

I thought "Winter Symphony" was MIU era, thus not technically a "transitional" vocal?

For the longest time, I though Al sang Winter Symphony.

Glad you said this, SMiLE Brian, as I've been meaning to research "Sweet Mountain" a little more.  I was hearing the bass voice at the end of the song and always thinking that it sounded like a 15BO era vocal if it was indeed Brian, but I didn't want to just assume it was him without looking further into it.  Definitely interesting!

Brian sings some of the high bits on Sweet Mountain, but also the low ending. I suppose at the time he could use whichever tone he wanted. There is less of a rasp but the tonal sound is the same.

Wait, wat? It's low in his register, but still sounds 100% like early 70s Brian and not at all like 15BO and after Brian. I think people seriously underestimate Brian's lower register pre-76. I'm still as sure as sure can be that all the vocals on "I Love To Say Dada" are him, for instance.

Where else on the Spring stuff does he supposedly sound closer to a '76 Brian?

i always found that awake demo strange since people say it's from 71 but by all accounts he shouldn't sound like that in 71

If you want to hear Brian doing a very credible bass vocal, check out the original 1973 version of "Shortenin' Bread". That's him.

How'zat? Sounds like that on about every other early 70s recording, to me.


Does that circulate? I know the Adult/Child version utilized some of the 73 recording, but is the bass vocal on the Adult/Child version from '73, too? :O

Adult/Child version is that very same track. This one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygBT4nMw-Zg), in fact. Only 1976 addition is Carl's lead.

D =

I can't even. It sounds so '76 that it hurts. Very interesting.

Wow that does sound so 1976 I always thought only the track was 1973.

[edit]

Nope...and funnily enough Brian's backups (low and high) sound EXACTLY like his vocal contributions on He Come Down off of So Tough. You can tell it's the 1973 version of Brian by the tag (when he sings "Shortenin' BREAD" at the very end during the fade out).

I think what is starting to become evident is that some of Brian's 15BO/Love You era voice being put on. Not the raspiness, but the tone. It's why his voice sounds so much better on some of the outtakes. I think late 78 was when the damage became permanent, personally.

So it's a bit like pulling a face when the wind changes? Your face stays like that forever.

Pretty much, yeah. Good analogy.

I wonder what happened to his voice here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSLclEJ0IAQ&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSLclEJ0IAQ&feature=related). He sounds rather focused in this interview (even if not totally "there"), but his voice... what has he done to it? He sounds remotely like his early '70s self but extremely hoarse. Or maybe he just had a bad cold that day.
BTW, what an annoying interviewer.

That is truly the most heartbreaking BW interview I've ever seen.

I know, right. That's horrible.

Apparently Brian was sick - it was more than a cold (though I don't know exactly what he was suffering from)

When I first saw this video my jaw dropped to the floor. I couldn't believe his voice was that bad - then I was informed he had laryngitis or something of that nature.

I thought it must be something like that. Still, he wasn't in a great shape (no pun intended) this period.

That's what massive amounts of coke does to ya, boys.  And I ain't talkin' the soft drink kind.  Guy was snortin' hog rails.

When you met Brian at his house in the 1970s, did you see Brian snort coke firsthand or at least  hear him do it in another room?

I know it's just him speaking, but I hear a whole lot of 60's Brian here and nowhere else in any of his late 80s speaking voices and especially his singing in that era. Strange.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPej7S_ttso (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPej7S_ttso)

Brian's voice in the 1973-'74 period is just a complete mystery. It's like Brian chose to sing it one way (Shortenin' Bread, Child of Winter) one day and an entirely different way the next. (Rollin' Up to Heaven, California Feelin', Lucy Jones). I think it's very possible that his modal voice was starting to become quite hoarseby this point, but his falsetto was still mostly intact (you can hear a bit of decline from the Sunflower era falsetto on Rollin' Up to Heaven, but not much). That, or he exclusively tried to sing in bass when not singing in head voice. The only conclusive "point of no return" we have is Johnny Rivers' Help Me Rhonda, where he basically sounds like a slightly higher pitched version of his 15 Big Ones falsetto. And after the early 80's, his voice becomes completely unrecognizable from what it once was (Little Children '83 is a prime example).