The Smiley Smile Message Board

Forgive me if this has been discussed or answered here, but who is signing the falsetto parts in the 1980 Knebworth show? I know Al does on some of the tracks, like Surfer Girl, but on some others, like I Get Around, I can clearly hear Al and Carl in the mix signing their normal parts. Looking at this video, it's clear to me that Bruce isn't doing it, (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GiekNHjkLTk) so who might it be?  The falsetto also sounds doubled to me, which I'm guessing was done as part of the sweetening in the studio.

Sweetening aside, I hadn't listened to this show in a long time and was blown away by it. I sure miss Carl.

I believe it was Bobby Figueroa, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I recall having once heard the isolated falsetto on I Get Around from that show, and it sounded absolutely awful.

Interesting.
Was Bobby Figueroa normally signing some falsettos during this touring era? I think Al sounds great in this show when he sings the falsettos.

Are the isos from that show floating around collectors circles? Would be very cool to hear.

Might've been Joe Chemay: he was there that night.

Judging by that YouTube clip, I reckon that it's Bobby, as Joe can be seen standing away from his mic during some falsetto parts, specifically at :19, 1:03, and 1:59.

http://youtu.be/GiekNHjkLTk?t=19s
http://youtu.be/GiekNHjkLTk?t=1m3s (blink and you'll miss it)
http://youtu.be/GiekNHjkLTk?t=1m59s

Whereas you can see Bobby leaning into his mic at this mark:

http://youtu.be/GiekNHjkLTk?t=45s

Bobby singing falsetto on I Get Around later that same year:

http://youtu.be/RzOODarjt84?t=10m49s

Yep, that centre channel falsetto is, um, revealing :o

Definitely sounds doubled in the final mix.  I'm guessing they double tracked all the backgrounds after the fact?  Seems to have been their S.O.P. for live appearances around that era.

Thank you all.  The way the live band shuffled the vocal parts over the years with the changing lineup, especially the falsetto, continues to be interesting to me.  And in this case, baffling...

You know, having done a lot of BBs covers over the years, in a lot of ways the EASIEST part to deal with is the falsetto.  What I mean is, of course, it takes a certain amount of ability to sing up there, and there are some parts -- ending of "Fun Fun Fun," I'm looking at you -- that are simply brutal, but most dudes with a half decent singing voice can take a wing at a high falsetto part and do a passable job at it for a song or two.  I'm always amazed at how many times on a gig with some baritone dude and they suddenly do some high thing that's way beyond what I can hit, and I do it for a living. 

But anyways, what I mean is with the Beach Boys stuff the devil is in the midrange harmonies.  If you're not an expert harmonist they are really hard to get right.  The falsetto melodies, by contrast, are the easiest things to pick out and retain from the records.  And you also have the issue of Carl, Al and Bruce all having semi-sensitive voices and they had to sing every night.  Every one of them COULD hit the falsetto notes, but they chose for the most part not to.  Because they gotta sing all night, every night.  Much better to split up the falsetto duties between them and to whatever side guy can take a decent shot at it.  Some better than others.

'the devil is in the midrange harmonies'

Adam , very true and well put - I have sung a lot of those mid vocals and yep there are some very difficult and unnatural parts , but phew some of the Mike bass lines are criminal - I have done the bass part in Our Prayer 'live' a number of  times (the middle section is nearly impossible) and had my fingers crossed throughout  :lol

Oh yeah, I had to do the Mike part on "Our Prayer" recently and I totally agree with you.  And of course, if you're the slightest bit nervous (and who wouldn't be), that range is just gonna wobble and shake.  Those bass parts are really difficult.

Bobby was never considered a falsetto singer. Even by his own words. He was asked to do it to help out Al on some of the vocals as it was hard for him and Carl to reach a lot of those night after night. Eventually that was when they brought in Adrian and then Foskett.

Yep, all that mid-range stuff is the toughest stuff to sing and to simply pick out when listening. I believe Scott Totten posted here some years back and mentioned that Al and Carl's two middle parts on "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" were the difficult parts to sing compared to the high and low Brian and Mike parts.

Listening to something like "Our Prayer", if I had a gun to my head I might be able to pick out and passably recreate the notes on the very high part, and maybe the low part. But all the stuff in the middle, I couldn't if my life depended on it.

As for Bobby Figueroa, as someone else mentioned, he was never the falsetto guy. He was never even a regular vocalist. In fact, before Baker and Foskett, they never even really had a "falsetto guy."

I've heard some recordings of "I Get Around" from around the 1979-1980 era where either Bobby is singing it very low, or they simply have him mixed really low, where essentially there are nearly no lead vocal for the "Brian" parts of the song.

I remember first hearing some of the Knebworth stuff when they aired some of it on the 1981 "20th Anniversary Special", and all I could hear was that there something kind of replicating the notes for the falsetto lead vocals. It was so buried and indistinct, I was almost convinced they were just playing the notes on a moog or something.

I would consider Al the main falsetto guy in those years. I know he didn't do all of them , but he did the most.