The Smiley Smile Message Board

Almer turning 70 today reminds me that besides the three songs he wrote with Brian (Marcella, SOS, Beatrice From Baltimore), he was supposed to have written a song with Carl called Then I'll Be Someone. In the mid '70s David Cassidy performed this song on British TV according to the main DC site...and since that happened when Bruce was working with Cassidy I wonder if the song was written before the CATP sessions got underway. Anybody hear Cassidy's version? Or another?

The name of the show is detailed here:

"Then I'll Be Someone (on England's Russel Harty show, 1976) The song was written by Carl Wilson and Tandyn Almer"

from the website here:

http://www.davidcassidy.com/fansite/DiscographyPages/UnreleasedLiveSongs.html (http://www.davidcassidy.com/fansite/DiscographyPages/UnreleasedLiveSongs.html)

Could be an interesting discovery?

banana-and-Louie.org's lists it in the unreleased BB song page. States it's from the Holland era but gives no source. Stuff from the Harty show in 70s is all over YouTube so I figure the Cassidy performance likely exists.

http://www.myspace.com/video/pinkpandoracat/then-i-39-ll-be-someone/13752341

Well, well...that almost sounds like something Dennis could have written...pretty far removed from Marcella or Along Comes Mary for that matter. The way Cassidy plays it, I wonder if he did learn about it from Bruce.

Wow, what a great discovery. I'd do terrible things to hear a studio version with Carl singing.

Interesting, I wonder if Carl gave it to him?

Turns out there was a discussion of this at the BBB board in March. Bruce did not weigh in. But Billy Hinsche called it a "powerful romantic ballad" and said that Tandyn himself taught it to him at the piano and that he (Billy) did an unreleased recording of it later...but curiously, until the song was mentioned at the board, he did not know Carl was supposed to have co-written it. But the chord changes and melody, for the most part, sound more like Carl than Tandyn.

YouTube also has the audio of Cassidy's performance, along with stills from the videotape. Listening to it again...the bridge does have an Almerish type of sound, comparing it to the songs he wrote alone. But most of the composition does have the feel of something Carl would have written after LPR. Billy Hinsche said at the BBB board that it's a song he'd be proud to have written...and indeed when he commented about MIBS, that was his first post to that board this year, so he must think it quite the humdinger...

The song really does sound more like a Dennis song, to my ears! I even got a bit of a Dennis-style vocal vibe from David Cassidy's performance. But credits are credits.

Speaking of David Cassidy, I wanted to throw in my two cents worth and say I think he is one of the more underrated and overlooked musicians of that era. All the teen-pop idol success and trappings of superstardom aside, the guy was a helluva good singer. The double-edged sword of massive fame and idol status really cut deep into his reputation as a musician, I think, and all you need to do is check out his lead vocals on even a few of the bigger hits and you'll hear a solid musician at the mic.

And I wanted to mention as well for fans of the various "Wrecking Crew" studio players, and their offshoots and next generation studio cats from the 70's: David Cassidy's solo albums are packed with a lot of legendary studio names. His solo albums are literally a who's-who of studio players, everyone from the Blaine/Osborn/Knechtel/Tedesco/Shelton Partridge Family core bad, to Larry Carlton, Lee Sklar, Mick Ronson(!), Jesse Ed Davis, Skunk Baxter, Jim Gordon, Elvis' band stalwarts Ronnie Tutt and James Burton, etc...the list is huge. It's pretty impressive to see how many musicians, those we'd consider among the best at their profession at that time, performed with David Cassidy.

Of special interest to BB's fans are the names Bruce Johnston and Ricky Fataar on various album credits, and the fact that Cassidy covered "Darlin'", "I Write The Songs", and co-wrote a tune with Fataar and Gerry Beckley.

It might be worth checking out some of those early 70's Cassidy solo albums, as they kind of slipped out of the public eye.

Never heard about this song. Thank you for posting !

Did the BBs ever record this ?

I LOVE David Cassidy's voice!  It's a shame he was in the same boat as Rick Springfield later got on.  It's not their fault they were attractive guys  :quote  but their looks caused most people to overlook their talents, especially Cassidy's voice and Springfield's songwriting prowess.  >:(

Tandyn, David & Gerry were a big part of the crew that hung out at the Miller Drive house during the time it was occupied by Ricky, Van Dyke & Lowell George; the same house written about in the infamous collaboration of Dennis & Gerry Beckley.  It was simply an amazing time & atmosphere, and all sorts of germs of ideas were exchanged between things guys, as well as McGuinn, Burton Cummings, and lord only knows who I can't think of off hand, or wasn't fortunate enough to have been there to see & hear.
In addition to that, Ricky would often scoop me up at night to drop in on Timothy Schmit's house & studio, and Cassidy would often pop in there, too.  I guess sometimes songwriting session continued out of these times, but often people were just glad to help out, and went uncredited.  Witness "You Are So Beautiful"!

That is an incredible post, thank you for sharing!

It is amazing to read again and again just how much interaction and cross-pollination of music, styles, and ideas was going on among musicians like those mentioned above. It would surprise some to put David Cassidy in the same group as Van Dyke Parks and Lowell George, but in reality that's exactly the kind of thing that made a lot of great music possible.

One of my favorite quotes from whoever said it is "It didn't happen in a vacuum..." :)

Count me in too. David Cassidy is one of my all time favorite voices. He came here almost two years ago, Danny Bonaduce opened up for him as a stand-up act. I'm a 20 year old guy, but I braved the hoardes of 50+ year old screaming fangirls and sat first row. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. What a voice!!! Bonaduce learned how to play one song on the bass and came out during David's set in one of those red velvet Partridge suits.

Well - over at the thread where Stephen Desper was explaining what the background vocal was saying in the opening of "Surf's Up," I just asked if Then I'll Be Someone rang a bell. So hopefully we'll find out if this is an actual BBs track.

Cassidy really is a very talented singer. He did national tours of Broadway shows in the '80s and in the early '90s starred on Broadway in "Bloodbrothers," and you have to be a heckuva singer to do that.

I remember seeing this song listed in Byron Preiss Beach Boys bio, and being quite interested in knowing what it was. Gotta say that it's odd that Carl wrote with Tandyn. I thought that "everybody" around Brian thought that Tandyn was a bad influence. I would probably agree with these people by the way, since after he "collaborated" with Tandyn, he became quite unproductive.

However, I wonder if there are any more Brian/Tandyn collaborations, because the songs from the Tandyn era are some of the rockingest things Brian ever did. I personally wouldn't mind hearing a few more. Maybe "Rooftop Harry" is one of them?

That's awesome!  ;D   I knew about Danny opening for him but didn't know that.

Arrrgh.  So frustrating that they had material like this lying around and put out as much iffy stuff as they did.

Because of the interpretation on piano instead of electric piano, this performance has more of a Dennis vibe, but the types of chords used are more Carl's bag.

I had never heard this before.  Wow.  Great song.

Cruise To Harlem was a song from this period as well.

I'm guessing Marilyn didn't.  ;D

Actually, despite her, Brian, and Tandyn's little "adventure", I'm pretty sure she thought he was one of the biggest "drainers" around Brian in the early '70s.

Much of the Cassidy RCA material is up on You Tube. First two LPs were co-produced by Bruce, the third by Gerry Beckley. I used to torture my pal Jeff Gold when we worked at Rhino Records back in the day by playing the "Home is Where the Heart Is" LP in the store. He kept saying "it's a god-dammed 20-cent record" (the ultimate Rhino insult...) and would really get pissed when folks would come up and say "Who is that? I love that guy's voice!!"  >:D

If Bruce could have been more successful at appropriating Brian's production style for Cassidy, those records would have been better...it seems as though they tried to emulate a lot of more "au courant" 70s styles on a lot of the songs, and more often than not to their detriment (IMO). There's a fascinating little BB-esque passage in Cassidy's cover of "Tomorrow" (a Sir Paul original from Wings Wild Life) that has 15-20 sec of Smile-y interlude, and overall it's a good track.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31WPkhheV3L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)

Cassidy could really sing, but he's never been able to add sufficient personality in his singing beyond his natural talent to become really interesting. The closest he came (again, IMO) was on "Gettin' It In the Street" (title track of the LP co-produced by Beckley)...there's an edge to his voice that's like a cross between Dennis and Eric Carmen. They don't quite pull off the song as a full "entity," but it's a fascinating little artifact. That LP was announced and brought to the point of release, but then abruptly canceled by RCA in America, but appears to have been recently released on CD and/or MP3. "Cruise to Harlem" was on this record--a track that's enjoyable, but winds up sounding like second-rate BW combined with the slickness of the original SNL house band...

Knowing Jeff, I figure he'd cleanse Rhino's air after each play of an RCA Cassidy disc with the strongest stuff available - which, to his way of thinking, no doubt was "As Kind As Summer" by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. ("Evil - live-e! Evil - live-e!")

It's hardly mentioned on this board as much as Bruce-plays-PS-for-Paul-and-John = Here There & Everywhere, but the BBs influence on Wings' music was very pervasive. "Back Seat Of My Car" is the most spectacular example but a lot of Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway shows the impact of Sunflower and Surf's Up, the way I hear 'em, and there are several other examples from the rest of the Paul/Linda/Denny et al output.

Actually I think we were getting more "progressive" stuff from JG at that point--Neu! or Faust. He was big into Nico's solo records at that point, too, IIRC. This was also the time frame when Rhino was just beginning to dip its toe into record production/marketing (well before they became the licensing whiz kids: which wasn't Jeff, but Foos and Bronson) and a lot of fur was flying re Roky Erikson (moving very close to the WCPAEB material you reference).

Agreed about that period of Wings...this was also the time when John Cale was doing his BW production hommages ("Mr. Wilson," "China Sea").

My Beach Boys cover band opened for David Cassidy a couple of years ago. He was not very nice,he must be called Mr. Cassidy and he would not take a photograph with our band. But I love his records, we also opened for Davy Jones , very very nice ,we asked about Mr. Cassidy and his attitude, he said it was the hair plugs!

One track I've always been curious about, since we're talking about Wilson and Cassidy connections.  I've always wondering how Shaun Cassidy ended up covering this obscure Brian Wilson composition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqiZQe3ufB0

Hear hear! Now there's a band that is ripe for re-discovery.

Token Beach Boys connection: their young guitarist Michael Lloyd was (according to an interview I read) in the studio during the "Bluebirds Over the Mountain" sessions, and apparently was something of an early SMiLE-ophile, in that the standout track from his 1968 album with The Smoke ("Cowboys and Indians") was directly influenced by "Heroes and Villains" (according to said interview).

WCPAEB is being rediscovered, bit by bit. RangeRoverA1 has expressed a liking for some of their songs....plus Jack White was covering the notorious "A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death" in one of his side projects; his performance is on Youtube or used to be. (I bought Vol 3 in 1977. In 1995, I finally figured out that the song was about both napalmed children and gingerbread men.)

Mentioning Michael Lloyd reminds me of Part One, the first major label WCPAEB album. (Their first album, on their (or really Bob Markley's) Fifo label, was reissued by Jeff Gold in the 1980s, which is why I mentioned the band above.)  Part One's first side finishes with their version of Van Dyke Parks's "High Coin," which Lloyd decided to cover when he heard Van Dyke play it in a club.

Apparently there wasn't enough time to ask VD if there was sheet music, so Lloyd (as he said when interviewed in one of those UK magazine articles written by premier WCPAEB-ologist Tim Forster) just guessed what the chords and melody were. 

The results did not go down well with Van Dyke. About 12 years ago, I mentioned what Lloyd had said in the article to him, and he was still unhappy, emailing: "I would never be so discourteous as to fail to properly learn someone's composition before performing or recording it."

"Dear Boy" (also from Ram) was undeniably influenced by the Boys' work, and Paul went back to that same well with the break down in Wings' "Daytime Nighttime Suffering". 

Another thing that never gets mentioned is how Paul's love for "God Only Knows" is about as accurate as the whole "Al replaced Dave" thing.  The first time Paul spoke at length about Pet Sounds, he did heap praise on GOK and the album in general but said, flat out that "You Still Believe In Me", with its "gorgeous harmonies at the end" was his all time favorite song.   He also explained the flow of mutal inspiration as Rubber Soul > Pet Sounds > Revolver > Smile (sessions) > Sgt Pepper (which makes a LOT more sense than Pet Sounds > Pepper, as both he, Brian, and George Martin all say nowadays). 

My guess is (like "Al replaced Dave") both sides figures that GOK being his favorite and PS > Pepper made for cleaner soundbites than singling out an obscure album track and having to explain how an unreleased album (not liked by all members of the band) influenced Pepper, rather than the Beach Boys' "masterpiece". 

Also, Bruce often mentions that Paul "distilled the essence of "Wouldn't It Be Nice" into "Here, There & Everywhere" which makes absolutely no sense.  The essence of "Caroline No" (with its sped up vocal), "You Still Believe In Me", "Don't Talk", or even the essence of Pet Sounds, I can believe and very much hear.  But "Wouldn't It Be Nice"?  Sure, they're both love songs but beyond that, I don't hear it.  Again, I think they just figure it sounds better to name check the well known high water marks, rather than something the general public may not have heard.

The Fool on the Hill sounds a helluva lot more like a Beach Boys song than anything else the Beatles ever did, including Here, There & Everywhere. In my mind/universe, it is as much about Brian as it is the Maharishi. But it really sounds like an honest attempt to precisely mimic Pet Sounds. IMO

Not an April Fool joke.

I recently learned that Tandyn Almer maintains a presence on one of our social-media sites - yeah, the one nearly everybody is signed up on. What he writes is visible to all who are members of the site.

Until recently, he has posted there only sporadically. Recently, though, his remarks there have been more frequent. Most of them have to do with his current personal ups and downs, which need not be mentioned at this board - they're simply the kind of thing everybody, even a legendary reclusive songwriter, is entitled to write on that site, and have it stay there, as they say about Vegas.

 But Almer has also written a few reminiscences of his distant musical past - and that kind of thing is Rock History.

He's explained, for instance, how the Garden Club 45 he wrote and arranged, "Little Girl Lost And Found," might have been a breakout hit but for the fact that it took too long to put together a band to take on the road.

And yes, you Boettcherheads, he has discussed "Along Comes Mary." Somebody put up a link to the Association's version and referred to "legend" having it Curt wrote most of the music. Almer replied that Boettcher had been present when he (TA) finished the song and "did make some improvements," though he went on to state that at a subsequent meeting between himself, Boettcher, their respective publishers, and the famous entertainment attorney Abe Somer [who was involved with the BBs in the late '60s], it was decided between the parties that whatever Boettcher did, did not require his being credited as a co-writer.  (I believe Somer is still living so presumably he could confirm this.)  But that's something for the General Music area, if somebody wants to take it to a Boettcher thread there.

So let's get to Then I'll Be Someone.

One of TA's friends put up a YouTube clip which is the audio of David Cassidy singing the song on the Russell Harty show, with stills from the video. TA replied (his lower-case style retained, with my remarks in brackets):

"thanks. i didn't know about this recording. i was writing it in 1971 about the time i met Brian Wilson, who was ostensibly producing his wife & her sisters [sic] & Marilyn wanted to do it. i remember cutting a track at bri's new studio in his house on Bellagio [which raises the question of whether Mr Desper was behind the board], just below the master bedroom, but she & i had some fallings out & i guess it was shelved. for a while Carl wanted to do it & i remember selling him the publishing rights so as to have $$$ to go to Maui. i only met David Cassidy once at his house thru Billy Hinshe, & some 12 y.o. girl was waking up at 9 pm in the bed."

From which we can conclude the song was (in its initial form anyway) entirely TA's work.  And the reference to Carl's buying the publishing, I suppose, explains why Carl is listed as co-writer.  (As mentioned above, Billy said at the BBB board in March that TA taught him the song, and that until it was mentioned at the board, he had not heard anything about Carl co-writing it.)

If TA did record a track at the home studio, it could be that is still extant from all the material from the period preceding CATP. And when he says "Carl wanted to do it" I guess what Carl indeed had in mind was recording it as a BBs song.  

And since he mentions just meeting Cassidy once, my guess is that the latter learned the song from Billy.

To finish up - this is the only time TA has mentioned anything involving the BBs in his corner of cyberspace.  He doesn't go online very much - he has indicated that he's still constantly making music of some kind out of the public eye, while waiting for Sundazed to put his old demo album out on CD. And when he does go online, he's more interested in using social media for the reasons everybody else uses it, as well as promoting his upcoming CD after a fashion.

 So unlike Lor(r)en Schwartz/Daro, I would say he is not interested in using up lots of time to chew over all those old issues. No doubt best to just  let him do his thing and let him decide when he feels like putting something on the record, like that bit about "Mary's" authorship.  

But if he does care, sometime, to let us know more about Marcella, Beatrice From Baltimore, SOS, or his side of the deconstructing-Rhapsody story Brian told Carlin, will pass it along.