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Al Jardine has always been known as the rythm guitarist with The Beach Boys  and he also played bass on some recording sessions but I don't think it has been really publicised what his capabilities are as a guitarist. Can he play lead guitar but just left it to Carl who was the official lead guitarist.
Be interesting to know.

I think Al is at his best playing bass.  I think he's a solid if unspectacular guitarist.  If you listen to session tape where he's involved, he's very rarely called out for making a mistake, particularly when on bass.  But if you listen to something like the Dance, Dance, Dance session, for the released version, he's always right on, playing that riff including the key change with no problem.  Now, I'm not saying that riff is particularly difficult, but Al was getting it better than Glen Campbell at one point.

I think Al is one of those guys who considers himself a good rhythm guitarist and is happy with that.  Like John Lennon or something. 

Difference being that John probably said that to down-play his ego, where I'm sure Al truly is and was in comfort being only a part of the performance and not the part.

Al is an excellent lead guitarist as well, I saw a show with his more recent band where he played all of Carl's solos and he smoked!  Plus, he always sounds really good, he usually plays his white Strat through a Twin Reverb.

I'm sure I'll get torched for this by some of you...but Al is the third or fourth best of the BB's guitarists. He's certainly competent, probably much better than me, but BB's guitarists, in terms of pure playing skill, should be ranked this way.

1)David Marks...oh yeah...no joke
2)Carl Wilson
3)Al Jardine

I have so much expert testimony among musicians to this effect... it will certainly surprise and challenge any doubters...but you have to read the Dave Marks book. Coming in August. Unfortunately David got to show very little of his skills while with the BB's...so you might not count his best work as "BB's guitar"...and I'd be cool with that...just don't tell me he wasn't a better player than Carl...it wasn't even close.

and Blondie would slide in higher than Al if we counted him. Glen Campbell might rank number one if he were a Beach Boy...but he wasn't.

That said...Al is a real solid musician. He did play some nice guitar and bass on the BB's records. I gladly count myself among the minority in this world who believe all the BB's were good musicians and played a lot of great parts on their records... which they get little credit for because of the overblown Wrecking Crew myth.

What might be the most technically challenging song for a guitar player to play from the Beach Boys?

Besides from a few of the leads, and some of the odd voicings that Brian used in his more complex songs, I don't think it takes a virtuoso to play Beach Boys songs well.

I believe that Dave is the best.  How much of that do you suppose could be chalked up to Carl and Al thinking of themselves as "singers first"?  I mean, Dave always considered himself a guitarist, right?  And I think I've brought this up before, but I really wonder if Al or Carl think of themselves as guitarists or singers.  I mean, I play guitar, bass, piano, trumpet, drums, and also sing at a pretty passable level, but at gunpoint I'd call myself a bass player.  I wonder what Al would say he is if he had to narrow it down to one thing.  My bet is on "singer".

How do you think the various Beach Boys rank as bassists, Jon?


That's why god invented jazz fusion.

Are we talking about David later on or during his time with the Beach Boys? I seem to remember reading (probably a myth) that David couldn't hardly play when he was with them.

 :lol

I don't think it's a good idea to equate difficult parts with good music. The Beach Boys were good enough to play a lot of the material they had to do, and they hired other people for the rest. No harm there. The point, after all, is getting the music made. I think competence is just fine for most rock bands, and once you toss in al these guys' voices, it doesn't much matter if they could do 32nd note sweeping arpeggios or solo in super locrian, does it!?

Al definitely thinks of himself as a singer first...no doubt. I complimented him recently on his excellent bass playing...on Dance Dance Dance by the way...and he just wouldn't take the compliment...he said "oh its only four strings". But yeah he's a singer...in fact its hard to get him to focus that the BB's were more than just singers...and in talking about David he really did give him credit for influencing the BB's into a more electric direction.

Carl on the other hand thought of himself as a guitarist first...until '65. He and David were dedicated guitarists and Brian had to prod Carl to sing...hard to believe. Carl had such a unique gift as a vocalist...but it wasn't his desire...he wanted to be a combination of Dick Dale and Chuck Berry.

And to Phileas...Dave was barred from playing lead on the BB's recordings by Murry who only wanted Carl doing that. But Dave did play some tasty rhythm parts and if you ask people like Jeff Foskett they will point out how essential that funky rhtyhm sound was to the BB's energy and early appeal...now its thought of as something basic but at the time there wasn't really a band that had that distinct combination of surf  texture and in the pocket Chuck Berry feel in their guitars...Dave was a big part of that. But later he became a prolific lead player with jazz and classical chops to boot. Listen to the Moon's LP's on Imperial or Colours second LP on Dot..from '67 to '69....the lead guitar is all Dave Marks and much of it is brilliant. Dave also played on sessions for a lot of people including the Sunrays. A great trivia question is who did Eric Clapton replace in 69/70 as Delaney and Bonnie and Friends lead guitarist? David Marks is the answer.

Bass players? Brian and Al were the core until Carole Kaye and Ray Pohlman and others took the work. I love the idea of six BB's... with Brian on keyboards, Al on bass, and Carl and Dave on guitars...and that's basically what the BB's were on the Surfer Girl LP.

Maybe it's just my ineptitude (even though I think I'm a pretty decent guitarist), but to me, "Warmth of the Sun" is a BITCH to play.  Some of them chords changes are killer, and to pick the correct arpeggios (meaning not picking the same string patterns from chord-to-chord) is a whore.

Craig

Which reminds me...Carl, on his final tour, playing that difficult guitar part WHILE singing the lead WHILE battling cancer...God, what a trouper!  A truly dedicated musician!

Craig

So the song is a bitch AND a whore?

Pretty much.  BTW, I'd never speak of a woman that way...only a song...and a song I respect no less!
:)

Craig

 ;D The biggest whore to play is This Whole World. Seriously. Try it.

The This Whole World lead guitar is quite a part, as I mentioned in the thread about TWW.  David Cohen has my utmost respect.  Jerry Cole, too.

A few thoughts:

Regarding Al's guitar skills, for a long time I assumed he was a solid rhythm guitarist and never intended or wanted to be a flashy lead guitarist. I still believe this is true, but last year when I saw Al perform (at a charity show with Stevie Heger's band), it really blew my mind that Al was actually playing some of the lead parts on stuff like "Sail on Sailor", "409", and "Fun Fun Fun", and he sounded pretty good! I had always heard people say Al sometimes didn't even turn his guitar up or didn't have it mixed up during some songs at BB shows, and maybe that was true, but at this show I was able to not only hear his leads, but his impressive rhythm guitar playing ability. Certainly he's not a virtuoso, but he's a much better guitarist than I had previously believed.

I remember reading an interview once where Eric Clapton said that George Harrison could have been as great of a gutiarist as Clapton or Hendrix or any other hot shots if Harrison had really wanted to. While some may believe this is somewhat of a stretch, I do believe that people that are so inherently talented and musical in any different number of ways, be it Harrison or Al Jardine, have the inherent ability to become much better at a number of musical pursuits if they ever care to. Harrison wasn't interested in being better than Clapton, and certainly Al Jardine was never concerned about even being the best guitarist in the Beach Boys, let alone be compared to anybody else. But I think someone like Al Jardine has the inherent musical gift that means he could have been a more impressive guitarist if he had wanted to.

Regarding David Marks, I'll wait until Jon Stebbins' book before I even begin to pick apart Marks' input on actual BB recordings, because I'm sure there is a lot of new information to clear up about that. But my sense about Marks has always been that he may be a great guitarist, but even in his latter-day stint with the touring BB's, he never got much of a chance to show this. I've seen the video of the show Marks did with the then in-limbo "Beach Boys" in May 1998 (the show where Al is gone, but Matt Jardine is still there), and it seems like apart from a few solo spots doing the solo bits Carl had used to in concert, Marks wasn't doing much in the show. I don't think it had anything to do with his ability. Maybe it had more to do with having another "official" Beach Boy to add to the band. I believe David Marks alluded to this in inteviews a few years ago. But this is probably another area than Jon's upcoming book will get into, which is a part of the story I'm particularly interested in reading.

Regarding difficulty of playing Beach Boys songs on guitar, I think a lot of their stuff is rather difficult. One reason for this is that many of the songs seem to be in a non-guitar-player-friendly key (not surprising considering the liklihood that Brian wrote most of the stuff on piano). If you want to play some of their stuff in the original key, you can't get away with only knowing all the easy open chords. I remember when I first started to learn guitar, I got a hold of a BB music book, and even on seemingly simpler songs without a ton of different chords, it was difficult to play some of the stuff because it wasn't in an easy key like A major or something. And in addition, there are songs like "This Whole World" that would be difficult in any key, with like 57 different chords. I recall that in that "hotel room" video that's been around for years from 1990 with Brian, Bruce, Stamos, and Foskett, Bruce mentions to Brian that the touring BB's can't regularly perform "This Whole World" because there are too many chords. (The touring BB's performed the song on some of the 1988 tour and performed it pretty well, if lacking some of the nuance of the original recording.)

Glen Campbell was not a Beach Boy ? I thought  he was...

In the same sense that Hal Blaine was a Beach Boy, I guess.

I'm an amateur guitar player (really not very good at all) and when I first got some BB's chord books, I was pretty pissed that basically I couldn't play any of it, lol.  The only song I ever got down half way competently was "Don't Worry Baby", like someone said above, Brian wrote most of them on piano so they don't easily translate to a guitar's hillbilly chords. 

One diff -- Hal Blaine never toured with the BB nor turned down an offer to become a permanent member (the same offer Bruce eventually took).  Now would THAT have changed history had he accepted.

Al is an eccellent rythm player just look at some DVD/video close ups. One in particular 'The Lost Concert', just watch his fingerings playing the less commonly used chords and in difficult keys for guitar without a capo,(only guitar players know what I mean), hardly any BB songs are simple 3 chord 12 bar.
As for his amp turned down  it is noticed on the 'Beach Boys Concert' album when Mike introduces the band, he cannot be heard, (don't know why he didn't get applauded either,different than on the 'Lost concert' DVD).

He does seem to have quite a pinky finger (on the left hand anyway)

Al's a pretty darn good acoustic folk guitarist.  He did a version of "Sloop John B." on Pete Fornatale's radio show in '83, and his playing was impressive.

Why is it that Blaine never toured with the Beach Boys? It's not as if he's opposed to touring -- he was John Denver's percussionist for a period of time in the 70s.

Who is that the funkifies the rhythm guitar parts on Wendy and Cherry Cherry Coupe?  I love those rhythm guitar parts.

This is a great example...all the guitar parts Al is playing during The Lost Concert are parts that David Marks put on the original studio recordings, or the same covers Dave had been playing with the band for the previous year and a half...Al is just playing Dave's old guitar parts as shown to him by Carl....except on Fun Fun Fun, which Al recorded himself....although David rehearsed that one with the BB's too while it was first being developed by Brian...he just left before they recorded it. This fact dawns on very few people. Al is a competent musician no doubt...but remember that the set the BB's play during the Lost Concert includes 100% guitar parts that Carl and David developed...not Carl and Al. And on the other hand, both David and Al will point out that although the BB's guitar sound was basically in place upon Al's re-arrival...the BB's vocal blend improved greatly with Al there.

Toured as Brian's fill-in...was offered a regular job...but declined. He was never an "official" Beach Boy.

Because Dennis was the drummer and didn't start to miss shows until 1971.  They did hire a second drummer/percussionist in the late 60s but I doubt that Blaine was considered.  My guess is that the Beach Boys never asked Hal to tour.

My understanding is that Hal started to tour more after that really extreme time period of 1965-68ish where nobody felt like they could miss a day.  Of course, Hal was so iconic that he could have left and come back and still have been first call, but he would have been less likely to tour at that time, probably.

Hal did play some shows in 63/64/65 as Jan and Dean's live drummer..and at least some of these shows were on the same bill as the Beach Boys. He told me about watching Dennis play live, and even has a photo from a show that he took of Dennis from the side of the stage. Jan and Dean did a TV pilot in '65/65 that has some live concert footage with Hal as their drummer.

Hal Blaine starring as "Clubber".  What a hoot that show would have been.

I was prett sure I read that Brian asked Hal to join them on tour in '67 but Hal declined. I can't remember if Hal or Brian said it, but I'm pretty sure it was one of them.

Just heard 'PT Cruiser' on 'Songs from here and back' for the first time.
After hearing that I think that Al should definately do a solo album, long awaited by many fans.