The Smiley Smile Message Board

The lack of track-by-track credit info on NPP is sorely missed. But there are still some interesting points that can be gleaned.

-- First, Brian is credited as playing on one of his own albums for the first time in seven years. (Acoustic piano, B3 organ and additional keyboards).

-- BW band members spotted: Probyn, Mertens, Walusko, Lizik, Simons, Bennett, Darian, Bragg, Taylor.

-- Those last two might be because of the bonus version of "Love and Mercy" included. Anyone with a non-Target CD want to cross reference for me?

-- Likewise, Steve Desper has an engineering credit! I'm assuming this is because of ITBOMM.

-- Production is officially credited to both Brian and Joe. (The BB record had a solo production credit for BW, and a "recorded by" credit for Joe.)

-- Brian gets a solo "Arranged by Brian Wilson" credit. Interesting.

-- Although Bob Clearmountain does have the main mixing credit, there are a bunch of "additional mixing" credits -- including one for Brian.

-- Sebu has an "additional production" credit for "Runaway Dancer," which was also mastered separately from the rest of the album.

-- The credits are still incomplete. No mention of banjo, which is clearly audible on both Kasey and Nate's tracks (and which is almost certainly Probyn).

-- Backing vocalists include Brian, Al, Blondie, Kasey, Hollens and Zooey (the latter three on their respective tracks, I assume). They also include Matt Jardine, Bennett, Thom Griffin, Jimmy Riley, Foskett, Taylor and Nelson. Again, the last two are probably on there because of "L&M." Not familiar with Griffin or Riley.

-- Don Was gets the lead bass credit, as well as an A&R credit and a special thanks in the notes. I suspect he had an important role.

-- And hey there, Ray Lawlor! (And Gloria Ramos, of course.)

It's stupid I suppose, but I was still hoping Ricky would've squeezed his way in there. Wasn't he supposed to be part of the album at one point?

I don't think he was mentioned until the PBS special came up ...

Who is Andrew Salgado?

http://www.andrewsalgado.net/

Kasey collaborator, I'd reckon.

Unless it was recorded in 1971/2, unlikely.

Is Steve still working, then? And what would he have contributed? It was my strong impression from his posts on the board that he was retired from active engineering.

I know Desper may not be associated so much with the 75-ish time period, but wasn’t he working with the group as late as 1979/1980? I have a vague recollection that he did stuff like working the live sound for the radio broadcast in Philly in 1980. I know he has a credit on KTSA, although that may be solely for “When Girls Get Together.”

I’m not even sure he’s worked much with Al since the late 90s/early 2000s. If Desper did something other than the ’75 demo, it’s possible he came into it through Al (or Matt). I’d still say it’s far more likely his credit comes through the ’75 recording (whether erroneous or not) than new work with Brian. It would be quite interesting if he did some new work with Brian, though. Zooey Deschanel with 3-D Spatializer anyone?

Correct, he was chief engineer on KTSA, the whole album.

When I first read the credits, I found this remarkable, as well.

I love that Brian played on the album!  In fact, I recall thinking at the time that it would have been cool for Wilson to have played on TWGMTR.

On the topic of Brian the instrumentalist, wasn't there the suggestion that he was perhaps going to play some bass on this record, too?  Was it a photo, or something?  I forget.

So here's the answer to my own question.

Desper is not credited in the non-Target deluxe edition.

Likewise, Taylor and Nelson drop off the backing vocalist list. Nelson still gets a percussion credit, though.

Why did he dedicate the album to his 5 D-named kids, but not Carnie and Wendy?

And why say he's been with Capitol for 50 years and can't imagine being anywhere else,
when this and "That Lucky Old Sun" are his ONLY solo albums to be on Capitol?

I felt bad for Carnie and Wendy, too...

To be fair, Capitol was releasing Beach Boys product for the vast majority of that time, regardless of whatever label put out his solo records. So he has been with the company that long, just not always as an active recording artist.

A lot of the blurbs on the concert lumped Ricky in with the other guests as being on NPP, and I only hoped that they weren't wrong. Here's an example of one: http://classichits1015.com/2015/03/26/recent-brian-wilson-concert-celebrating-his-new-album-to-air-on-pbs-soundstage/

What the... I can't believe I overlooked that for decades. (Big BB fan for slightly less than 20 years) No wonder I'm attracted to the sound of that album more than to the previous one and the following one.

I'm not around my CD.... but was wondering earlier listening to it, who's listed as songwriter for "On the Island" ?  The lyrics are very quirky, I wonder if Joe & Brian wrote it, or if we can credit the hip lyrics to Zooey.

Nope, just Brian and Joe. I agree, though, the lyrics are a trip!

I know some have commented they don't like how she sings it, so I'm wondering if that's on her, or if Brian came up with that melodic way of phrasing it?  I really like it, great song.  I guess ultimately I'm wondering how much of that... sound is Brian, and how much is Zooey.  I haven't heard any of her other music.

It sounds like typical Zooey, to me. I love her vocal on this track. A perfect fit, in my opinion.

So, I wonder if Nelson's credit for drums and Scott's credit for bass are also gone from the non-Target deluxe edition? I believe this version of "L&M" is from the 2005 Katrina-release single (which also included "Walking Down The Path Of Life"), and if I recall correctly, those two were credited with those instruments on that, thus explaining if they're credited for those things (along with the Taylor and Nelson backing vocal credits) on the Target deluxe edition but not the other editions. And, how about Linett's engineering/mixing credits? Present or gone from the non-Target releases?

Likewise, are there credits that are present in both the Target and non-Target deluxe editions but absent from the "standard" release? If so, that would imply they pertain to the three extra "non-Target" tracks that appear in the middle of the running order on the two deluxe editions.

Craig, you're spot on about everything in your first paragraph. No Nelson drum credit, no Scott bass credit. No Mark L. credit at all.

I have no idea about credit differences between the 13-track and 16-track versions yet. Yet.

Because the evil stepmother is pulling all the strings.

Because those five kids are responsible for introducing (most of) the guest artists to Brian.

I seriously doubt that Dakota Rose - and maybe Dash - had anything to do with said process.  ;D

Sensible part: I'm guessing the BW piano credit would be for "ITBOMM".

Does the piano credit still exist in the other, non-Target editions?

All of Brian's instrumental credits -- piano, Hammond B-3 and additional keyboards -- carry over between editions.

That being said, I can't hear anything that immediately suggests his pianistic touch on the album tracks. Maybe "It's a Beautiful Day"?

I strongly suspect he's playing the dead simple organ chords in "Don't Worry" and "Tell Me Why," though.

The "additional keyboards" could be anything, anywhere.

Please don't yell at me if this has been asked elsewhere (I'm looking at you, AGD), but what about us iTunes buyers? No booklet available? Are the credits online anywhere? Hm.

No iTunes booklet. Someone has transcribed them all to the album's wiki page, though.

I know I'm stating the painfully obvious when I pose the question of why they didn't just include track-by-track credits. I would imagine it's probably just a space/design issue for the booklet. I'm curious if there was any flack for the TWGMTR credits being so odd (missing instruments, etc.), and if the more general credits are a reaction to that. Probably not.

Can someone just e-mail Joe Thomas and get track-by-track credits. It's fun but also weird that we have to do this process-of-elimination thing to decipher just a few of the credits.

For whatever reason, all the Thomas-associated BW projects have had odd credits. The Imagination ones are also missing instruments, songwriters, etc.

GIOMH also clumped all the musician credits together, probably to obscure the varying origins of the tracks. (Some were clearly cut in the mid-90s, one with Joe, the others in '03, etc.). Maybe it's a Mark London thing!

Some extra info, tho -- Brett Simons posted on FB that he played bass on the two Bennett co-written tracks, and that both were originally intended for the biopic. So it looks like, for awhile at least, that Brian was working on two separate recording projects.

Thanks, Wirestone!