The Smiley Smile Message Board

Would I be crazy to think SOMS is one of there greatest tunes?

Soulful Old Man Shunshine? Yeah, it's awesome.

It is da bomb!  :lol

Love it!  :love

Amazing tune.

No.

It can only be for the way that tune came into being that they never considered SOMS for release, not for a lack of quality. IIRC Rick Henn produced the instrumental track alone, so the Beach Boys would have had to give him a production credit, which I don't know whether they would have been ready to at the time. That was the era of the group efforts, and the "we just get to sing on it" mode made them shun Sunshine. They had lots of other tracks to choose from. Great tune, great production, great singing (of course), great sound. Personally, I wish the Wild Honey album would sound that good!

In my fantasy world of alternate album tracklists, Sunflower starts off with Old Man Sunshine.

How much did Carl's 'Shunshine' blooper have to do with the non-release?

I'd say at the time it was recorded, none. Nothing easier than just to redo it.

In my opinion, this is their greatest Sunflower-era track, right after This Whole World.

Tend to agree - but the rub is, they didn't "redo it", rather, dropped work on the track - as LAGD relayed a couple of times (and he will deservedly shoot me if I'm wrong) the track was never finished (as in the vocal track) and the version as we know it is a little inconsistent in the vox dept.

Carl's Shunsine thing was provided as a reason why it wasn't included on the GV box set.

Another missed opportunity, dazzling stuff

That's it, they left it unfinished in its day, probably for the reasons I wrote in my first post. The "shunshine" could only prevent a later archival release. I wonder if nowadays they couldn't somehow with some digital trickery replace the shun with a sun! :)

I don't if it was Rick Henn or someone else that said this, but legend has it the rest of the group thought the sound of the track didn't fit the group. It was too much like a show tune. Supposedly the group was giggling a lot during the takes. As we know, Brian's a pretty sensitive dude, so that may have been part of it.

I think it fits the group perfectly. Definitely another missed opportunity.

Ah, I found what was referencing on the Hoffman board ( http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-beach-boys-soulful-old-man-sunshine-whats-up-with-the-sound.276506/page-2 ):

"In my interview Rick said that the instrumental session at Sunset was painful because, wanting his own sound, he elected to contract a bunch of L.A. jazz cats that he knew instead of the usual crew of Beach Boys session musicians, and they couldn't grasp the pure simplicity of a basic rock shuffle. Rick said that the vocal sessions were equally painful, as the Beach Boys were skeptical -- agreeing to participate because of Murry's insistence and Brian's participation in the songwriting, but reluctant due to to the involvement of an outsider, and due to Rick's relationship with Murry. Rick recalled that every time Carl would attempt the lead vocal, Mike would dance around in front of him doing a "Vegas lounge singer shuffle" across the floor, cracking Carl up and ruining the take. Eventually Rick had too much of it and blew up -- which basically resulted in the group saying "f-you" and walking out. Carl's vocal on the bridge (where he flubs) was a scratch vocal, and he never came back to replace it."

Why am I not surprised that Mike's name pops up.

I think it would have been even better if it had less falsetto in it.

Because he's, like, a member of the band, you know?

He is..?

Ever heard my version on the Japanese CD "In my room" - A Beach Boys tribute for the homeless of California from 1995 (before the original was released) ?  We had just the chords and the notes of the melody.......no idea about the original arrangement.
Of course I had to do it with my equipment of these days.

To properly credit it, that interview with Rick Henn was done by me in 1994 for ESQ.  The post on the Hoffman board was also by me.

Lee

No, but I would like to. Can it be found online?

I don´t think so, - I never looked for it.  It wasn´t on my mind anymore at all. Look for the CD on ebay ?
There´s a lot of interesting stuff on it (by Alan Boyd,  Darian Sahanaja, Ken Sharp, Sean Macreavy, Lee Dempsey, Nick Walusko and others).

They asked for contributions of Soulful old man sunshine and made the notes available (I guess via ESQ), 3 or 4 sent their versions in and my one made it.
I had contact with Rick Henn then and he told me he liked my version very much, though the original was much more powerful, - but he couldn´t let me hear it and I had no idea about it ............... nice album anyway at all.

If you give me your email, I´ll send it as MP3.

It's in your PM box. :)

It reminds me of "You Can't Hurry Love" though a lot richer/fuller arrangement.

Love this story.   :lol

Here is the CD that I mentioned, WOW ! Never thought it got that expencive !!!!!!!  The No. 7 is me.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/In-My-Room-Beach-Boys-Brian-Wilson-Tribute-Japan-CD-95-Posies-Wondermints-Darian-/121350868431?pt=Music_CDs&hash=item1c41134dcf

here it is in English:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/121350868431   

Yikes, over 4 times the 1995 price I paid! Perhaps the seller, in the original spirit of the project, is considering donating the profit to the homeless.