The Smiley Smile Message Board

On 17 September the NPR radio show Fresh Air will feature the author of a new biography of Charles Manson. The preview today mentioned that they'd be playing a song by Manson and also the Beach Boys version.

I expect it will be available as a podcast if you don't live where NPR is broadcast.

web site
www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air


On today's program was an interview with Linda Ronstadt who mentioned a Wilson. While I expected her to mention Brian my ears said that Linda said "Dennis Wilson" but my ears sometimes mislead me.

Brian provided stellar bvs on Linda's cover of Jimmy Webb's "Adios" in 1989.

She writes about that in her new memoir....and about buying grape juice and going to the laundromat with Brian....which is why I didn't particulrly believe my ears.

It's on now - about to discuss Dennis's involvement with Charlie and Never Learn Not to Love.  Read the book - interesting details about Dennis, Stephen Desper and  Gregg Jakobsen's roles with Manson.

I was at work and missed it. Any new revelations? If the guy being interviewed is the author of the very lastest Manson book (Jeff Guinn) then I doubt he'd have anything new to say. His book is a rehash of stuff every Manson saga follower already knew.

I remember back then she talked about brian recording those bv parts. said brian told everyone about a conflict with certain notes and that it wouldn't sound right..that there was a problem with them, then he paced back and forth for 5 to 15 minutes (can't remember which..way too many brain cells gone now...:) ) and then stepped up to the mike and recorded his parts on the fly. she was totally knocked out how he came up with those parts and how well they sounded. don't remember what that story was printed in though.

The way the story is told in the memoir, he bashed a repetitive unrelated simple bit over and over again on a piano to cogitate on the problem and solved it splendidly.

Nothing new was discussed about the Beach Boys but in his book he details what went down at the Brother recording session, which I hadn't heard before.  Only Desper was in attendance and Charlie, Brian refused to come downstairs and Dennis wasn't there, it was only listening to the tapes afterward that Dennis took a liking to Cease to Exist and decided to cover it.  Neil Young was impressed with Charlie's musical talent and tried to get his label Reprise interested to no avail.  Gregg apparently hung with the Family for a while along with Dennis for the sex and the drugs.

haven't read the book.....what I remembered was from around 1989. thanks for the info...

I recall that story as he played "boogie woogie" piano repetitively and somehow that facilitated him finding the right harmony notes!  Very interesting.

God bless Linda Ronstadt btw....

It's in the Don Was produced I Just Wasn't Made For These Times documentary.  It's been awhile since I watched it, but I think she says that he couldn't get the vocal arrangement to "Adios" the way he heard it in his head, and he walked around saying stuff like "just can't get it right", so he walks over to the piano and starts playing a boogie woogie thing in a completely different key, different tempo, different genre, and finally stops, steps to the mic and nails the vocal parts.  She was amazed, as I would have been.