The Smiley Smile Message Board

I read somewhere that Brian only participated vocally on Angel Come Home, on the LA Light Album.  I was listening to Good Timin' this weekend and I hear him very distinctly on the background vocals, particularly on the last syllable of "timin' during the end of each chorus "... good, good tim-in'..."

Anyone notice this?  it's unmistakable.

That part always sounded like Dennis to me.  But I guess their voices were both "changed" by that point.

He's singing on the high end.

Always thought it was Carl doing the falsetto part.

My god, I think you're right! Most audible around the 1 minute mark.

Brian is only singing 'Good, good, timin' - his part is the same two or three notes as Carl's right at the end of the chorus, as Steve Latshaw says above.

Well done to those who noticed it, I don't think I would have spotted it as I just assumed he was absent.

<<Brian is only singing 'Good, good, timin' - his part is the same two or three notes as Carl's right at the end of the chorus, as Steve Latshaw says above.

Well done to those who noticed it, I don't think I would have spotted it as I just assumed he was absent. >>

Having Brian's voice in that blend gives it that "authentic" Beach Boys sound.  It's a genetic thing, as someone once said, Carl and Brian stacked together.  By contrast, the tracks on LA where Carl and Bruce do the bgs, are pretty obvious, I think.

Good Timin' is one of my very favorite songs, so it's pretty nice to hear Brian's voice is in there somewhere. :)

I think Brian's in there earlier than that.  There's like a 2 voice "Oooo" way in the back which is the last bg to fade out behind...All us people, Now we're just livin', The world keeps turnin', and by the time 'And we're all learnin' rolls...that wee vocal is drowned out by the much larger over all bg vocals.

At any rate...Perhaps that explains why Good Timin' was the BIGGEST success the group had enjoyed in a few years? :hat

I recently discussed Good Timin vocals at length with C-Man...he states..."Bruce did the vocal arrangement, and he says Brian did not sing on it. I hear Mike's nasal tone in the intro & chorus. Al has stated that they triple-tracked their background vocals, then Guercio asked them to quadruple their parts, but Al had had enough at that point, so he headed off to Monterey. From there, it appears Carl and Bruce overdubbed extra vocal layers, and Bobby Figueroa has told me he sang on it, too. The track sheet bears these notations: "Grp 1" and "Grp 2" (probably the initial four group background tracks submixed into two), "Pt 2 voc grp Carl/Bruce", "Pt 1 douuble Carl and Bruce", "Intro dbl chorus Bruce and Carl", and two labeled simply "Vocals" (maybe Carl-Bruce-Bobby?), and one of "Carl combine" (by process of elimination, I'm guessing it's his falsetto part multi-tracked and bounced-down to one)." We also determined that Dennis's voice seems to be in the mix as well. As stated above Brian does play keyboards on it.

Brian's on "Good Timin'", but only instrumentally. He's on keys; more accurately he's on piano, I think. You can hear the classic Brian rhythm part a bit better on the unfinished 1974 version, which was built upon in 1978 to make the classic we now hear.

And it looks like Stebbins beat me to it!  ;D

So "Good Timin'" on L.A. was a complete rerecording? I thought the basic track dated back to 1974, no? Which could make the theory that Brian has a vocal buried in there hold water.

No, no. Not a complete re-recording. They built the finished version upon the 1974 version.