The Smiley Smile Message Board

I’ve always been somewhat fascinated about Brian’s voice change in the early to mid 70’s. To me, it was one of the biggest losses in the group, other than Carls’ and Dennis’ death of course. After Brian’s voice changed, it affected the group (and solo) vocals forever.

Brian Wilson’s voice changed dramatically in 1975. His vocal chords had already started to decline as early as 1970 when it was evident that his voice was starting to get a little thinner, especially on the high parts. On Mt. Vernon & Fairway it was different. On the intro to “California Saga” you can tell the voice wasn’t as strong as it was before. If you listen to the interview with Jim Pewter in the Fall of 1974 and the interview with the Australian DJ, he still talked with a clear voice. Then, in 1975, you can hear a distinct difference (example: In The Back Of My Mind demo). In this song you hear the last remaining clear voice transitioning to the raspy one. There have been many theories over the years as to why Brian lost his clear singing voice. To me the obvious cause was a combination of hash, cocaine and a 5 pack a day cigarette habit. But on occasion after 1975, Brian could still sing in his trademark falsetto when he forced it. *

One time a poster (BJL) posted here on the Smiley that he’d heard or read that Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford said that Brian “changed his voice on purpose”. Someone else said that he damaged his voice on purpose to “sound more manly”. I’d never heard or read about this before. Did it mean that he abused his vocal chords with drugs and cigs on purpose, knowing it would permanently give him a deeper, raspier voice? I just have a hard time with that. My opinion is that the voice change happened inadvertently, by accident.

I don’t think this subject has ever been put to rest with a cast in stone conclusion. We haven’t had a poll in awhile and I’d like to get a consensus on what the board members think about Brian’s voice change in the 70’s. Brian some evidence if you can. Let's see what we come up with!

*Caveat  Matchpoint Of Our Love, and Wontcha Come Out Tonight - 1978

Didn't Al go on the record as saying Brian intentionally chainsmoked to get a deeper voice?

Mikie...I recall reading somewhere...a long, long time ago that Brian was very self conscious about his voice...particularly his falsetto.  He thought that the girls were laughing at him especially at live shows.  Yet...there were enough falsetto voices back when the group first started to roll [Frankie Vallie, Lou Christie, the Tokens etc] that he decided to soldier on.  In coming off the road Brian would have lost touch with fan appreciation.  Also by 1965-66 it became pretty clear that Carl was at least as good at it as Brian was.

Reading some of that Jack Rieley material reposted the other day also suggested that Brian was pissed off about the lack of success and acceptance as it pertained to Heroes and Villains and that his multiple reactions may well have included some kind of payback or revenge motive.  To who?  Everybody.  The band, the record company and the fans who seemingly weren't ready for his creative 'times'.

I think that it may well be that a disillusioned/disiillusional Brian decided to render all of his talents useless.  He stopped composing.  Stopped looking after his physical well-being.  Virtually stopped participating.  I'm sure he regrets THAT self sustained abuse now as he has spent a LOT of time trying to get it back vocally...taking voice lessons and no doubt eating and drinking things which might help.  He's clearly better at singing on note and sweetly now than he was say around the OCA period.

The smoke and booze abuse had loads to do with it...but I'm afraid that Brian had a sense of purpose and a goal in mind with the volume of that abuse.  Seems like it was a 'plan'.

I believe Jon Stebbins confirmed this in Beach Boys FAQ.  I believe it's the chapter on Beach Boys career missteps.  And there's a segment called "Brian's Back-But His Voice Isn't"  

As Stebbins wrote, Brian's voice improved once he got clean, but it was never the same.  

Really glad you started this topic and I hope it leads to something concrete. 48 years of speculation and arguing about Smile is bad enough but this issue should not be so puzzling.

Are you sure Carl was? He rarely sang falsetto, especially during the live shows of this time in which Al or Bruce covered the Brian parts.  Sidenote, Al did a hell of a job.

I sort of felt Brian's voice was even less appealing on the BB85 album, kind of nasal, whiny and slurry, except on Getcha Back. I could listen to a whole album of Brian's In the Back Of My Mind '75 ultra soulful vocals.

Yes, I read about that too, Lee. Brian even said as much during concerts a few years ago, that he "use to sing like a girl."


I gotta think he regrets it too, Lee. You bring up some good points here -still not 100% convinced that he did his voice in on purpose, knowing it would damage his vocal chords forever. Brian's book is coming out - hopefully he'll touch on the subject.

Thanks. I somehow missed that. Will have to go back and read it again. He definitely didn't go cold turkey right away on the smokes, and continued on into the early 80's. "Night Was So Young" and "Sheri She Needs Me" were two examples where he managed to get that falsetto out again in 1976. 

But if he had already "succeeded" in changing his voice on purpose in 1975, why did he continue smoking into the early 80's? The damage was done, but the nicotine habit obviously hit him hard. Did he ever stop after Landy took over? Maybe briefly, but not again until many years later.

That's what I was thinking, Paul.

I'd love to hear more about this.

Also, I don't think anyone has been able to touch the "amazingness" of Brian's falsetto.

When you're suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder you will do just about anything to avoid the crazy peaks and valleys.

Sadly, I can personally vouch for this.

We only hear the anecdotal stuff from the books and interviews, and what Brian feels like talking about. The way the man felt personally is a thought I dare not have because I fear it will end up depressing me way too much. All one needs to know is that when you're feeling THAT empty and THAT worthless, you will do anything in your power to remove that feeling, even if it's only a few seconds. Some turn to smoking, some turn to food, some turn to drugs. Brian, unfortunately, turned to all three.

..........and I guess he hit the sauce pretty good for awhile too.

Well said TRBB.

The deterioration of Brian's and Dennis' voices is one of the saddest things in all of Beachboydom. On the flip side, Carl apparently smoked like a chimney for many years, and yet his voice remained clear and strong all  of his all too brief life.

If Brian was trying to destroy his falsetto, why did he keep singing in falsetto during those years?

I dunno, but "Getcha Back" in '85 was another one that sounded pretty good with his falsetto!

The difference: Brian and Dennis did a lot of cocaine. (And Brian snorted heroin, too.) That'll even ruin your voice worse than tobacco smoke. I'm sure Carl did some blow too but undoubtedly not nearly as much as his brothers.


IIRC, they got one good take of Brian and they dropped that vocal line in where necessary.

BTW, didn't I read somewhere in this forum that someone once overheard Brian some time in 1978 in a room by himself with a piano, playing and singing --- with his 1963 voice?

I remember a guy on the Cab board who once said that the coke wouldn't have caused Brian's vocals to get raspy.

I said, bullllll sh*t, massive amounts of coke over time would hit the vocal chords (and sinuses) like shrapnel and tear it to shreds!!

He didn't believe me, but 4 or 5 other people did. Smoking a lot of hash didn't help matters either. Burns like a mofo.

I remember that post! It was someone talking about going to the recording of MIU and finding Brian alone in a room with a piano playing a really happy sounding song, although they were too nervous to approach him about it.

I read that Jeff Foskett doubled it.  But unmistakeably, I hear Brian a LOT more than Jeff on that part.  I still think it's all Brian. [/quote]


I'm sure you've heard Brian and the piano on "I Sleep Alone" where he switches back and forth between voices.

I'm sure you've heard Brian and the piano on "I Sleep Alone" where he switches back and forth between voices.
[/quote]

Great vocal.

The thing is Brian also sounded good when he started putting more vibrato on his voice to sound manly.  Was it Largo or Jimmy Carter's Inauguration where Brian warms up his 'manly' voice at the mic as if he's 'some kind of an opera star?'  Hilarious stuff and obviously a Brian 'put on'.

I don't think we should put the deterioration of Brian's voice in the same category as the deterioration of Dennis's voice. Well Brian's voice was definitely a case of cigarettes and drug abuse, I have always felt that Dennis' changes came about from being punched in the throat and his inability to baby his voice as it recovered.

Didn't BW say he wanted to sound more manly like Randy Newman (?!). I think he was listening to a bunch of frank sinatra and hanging out with guys like harry nilsson...add randy newman and you get ITBOMM. Seems pretty purposeful to me.

Interestingly, 1974 is also when Lennon and Nilsson were hanging out a lot around LA and Lennon talked Nilsson into nearly destroying his voice. So I wonder if this idea was just in the air around the rock elite in LA at the time.

Well, there IS that famous picture of Brian with Nilsson at that time...

As for his voice, I have long maintained it was a mixture of self sabotage and an intentional stylistic change . Some of his 1972 vocals sound EXACTLY like 76 Brian.  Also his vocals were raspier in 1976 than later, even when he was at his worst. There are demos floating around from the 80s and early 90s where he is singing like he did in the earlier days (although more nasily ).So some of that was damage, and some of it was a bit of a put on. 

Everyone here is neglecting the most important factor to the sound of your voice: the resonators. I't's up to you the way you set your throat, palate and nose. It's totally mental. I can be a raspy barithone or a childish tenor depending on my state of mind. The more relaxed the resonators are, the better you will sound. And we know relaxing is not Brian's field

That is yet another factor

Brian hung out with Nilsson in the mid-70s and did so much coke that he: 1) permanently damaged his singing voice  2) has no recollection of meeting John Lennon on (at least) two occasions.

That's some high grade toot...


yolo  :smokin

(http://i62.tinypic.com/o0qp6o.jpg)

A lot of questions that this board constantly goes around in circles for have been answered many, many years ago if you do some digging into articles and books. Like Brian's voice change: he had laryngitis in 1975 and then again in 1979. Mystery solved. Wish I could remember where I had originally read this. It was probably on here. Though the 1979 instance was documented in an interview that's on YouTube. His voice between 1978 and 1980 is night and day, just like 1974 and 1976.

I can see why the speculation continues. Many people here seem to feel that if they find evidence of a dated, published, vintage interview from Brian where he talks about having laryngitis, that solves the question of what happened to his voice beyond all reasonable doubt. But we know that Brian has lied in interviews for decades. The ashes all of us have in our Wilson collections, which are of course all that remained of the SMiLE tapes after Brian burnt them, are evidence of that. Oh, wait...

..but of *course* that's true. He said that in I don't know how many interviews in the 70s and 80s... There are multiple well-documented statements to a variety of international media! But, of course... it was all bobbins, as my multi-disc SMiLE boxed set bears witness.

So it's not beyond our imaginations to conceive of a time in the 70s where Brian totalled his voice through smoking of all kinds, but told the media his new voice was down to laryngitis. It could also be that he felt his voice deteriorating, and decided to pass it off to the press and associates, maybe even to Marilyn and his fellow band members, not as the result of drug abuse of various kinds, but instead as a conscious choice, an effort to sound more manly. And of course, it's possible that he really DID feel insecure about his 60s falsetto and part of him DID want to 'man up' his voice a bit... and that just happened to fit well with what was happening to his voice anyway as a result of all the Bug Powder Dust he was snorting.

Under this scenario, all of the quotes we have from all of the people mentioned in this thread, all of the citations and rumoured statements from friends, ex-wives etc could all be the absolute truth - ie Brian really did say those were the reasons at that time. But it doesn't mean that some of them weren't designed to mislead, sanitised versions of reality that Brian felt were more media-friendly, half-truths cloaked in exaggeration or mistruths, or even outright lies.

We can't really say for sure. I can't see that arguing one version over another is 'the truth' because Brian said it in such-and-such a documented interview in the 70s brings any of us closer to the real truth. If we ever even get to that, which we might not...!

All we know is: Brian's voice changed. We also know he was abusing all sorts of substances during that period which are harmful to the range and clarity of the human voice. The balance of probabilities says to me that they were something to do with the big change. But whether there really was an underlying concious plan behind that, or whether it was just coincidence and the awful vocals on 15BO and Love You just happened to be recorded when he happened to have a couple of bad spells of laryngitis... I don't think we can say. You can tell from the way I phrase this that I think it's unlikely, but it's impossible to say for sure. Whether we have Brian documented on record in contemporary interviews backing up any of those explanations or not.

Laryngitis alone? No way. A lot of what we hear in Brian's voice change sounds identical to the early to mid 80's Stevie Nicks vs. the late 70's Stevie Nicks. She was heavily into cocaine in the 80's. I think most would agree it was a combination of things that took a toll on his vocal chords. The PUZZLE for me was that he indeed did seem to almost intentionally "turn off" his falsetto. That never made sense to me. Brian's falsetto was one of the best natural sounds that a human being has ever, or likely ever will produce.  Listen to Wipe Out with the Fat Boys and the only thing that makes that song worth listening to is Brian coming very close to his old falsetto.

I agree with Matt that this is probably another one that will always leave us guessing.

Wow. If you believe laryngitis is a cause (or even a major contributor) of Brian's change in vocals you must have stone ears or have never heard what a person with laryngitis sounds like.

You're just messin' with us, right? This board constantly goes around in circles about a couple of other issues, but not this one. With all due respect, please use some common sense. Laryngitis usually lasts a few days, not years. If it were laryngitis, Brian would have waited a few days for the laryngitis to go away, like a cold, before recording 15 Big Ones. And then a year later Beach Boys Love You? Naaaahhhhh

On a semi-related note... when exactly did Brian's voice get slurry?  Is there a clear date when it suddenly changes, or was it gradual?  And the cause of it was... Landy's over-medication???

Great question. He's pretty slurry on the '85 album. Stevie from 81 doesn't have any slurring. There's a performance of God Only Knows from '82 where he doesn't slur (although its a very very lazy vocal). Must've been around '83. One could conclude it was the medication?

https://soundcloud.com/smilead/gok-82-brian-lead

Re: vocal change.

I'm thinking some / a lot of it could have been him being out of practice (on top of the smoking, coke, etc). I didn't sing for years, and when I tried again I sounded like an old man (in my early 20s). Fast forward a few years later, with constant practice, I sound pretty much like I did when I was 18.

This could partially explain why Brian sounds a lot better on MIU. He had a good year or two of being back on the grind.

My impression is that Brian was unwell, physically and mentally, and purposefully changed his voice. Cigarettes and other substances, sure, but what about unknown things, like screaming? I picture a 1970s Brian screaming on purpose to shred his vocal cords, to roughen them up.

There are going to be things we just don't know about, but likely a combination of all of them.

It's still sad though, that he would feel that way. He had such a beautiful voice.

Anti anxiety meds can cause slurring. So can strokes. Natural aging. Brain damage. All sorts of things.

That vocal is better than Brian's performance of the same song at Long Beach in '81, which itself wasn't bad, especially compared to his disastrous (if brave) Don't Worry Baby falsetto from '81.

People are always citing that Don't Worry Baby performance from 1981 as an example of how bad his voice had gotten, but rarely do people mention how craftily he changes the melody to accommodate his voice once he decides the falsetto wasn't happening.

Brian's voice isn't bad in this key when singing I'm Bugged At My Old Man from '76.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nG5lujg3E8

But he was really rough with Back Home on the Mike Douglas Show.

Still blows my mind that BW disliked his vox on "Let Him Run Wild" because he thought he sounded "like a girl."  Seems like an idea Murry might've put into his head (which is pure speculation on my part). 



 

I think I found evidence of the exact moment when Brian's voice began to change:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyooALwfxO8

Clips like that are more than Brian's voice sounding bad, its almost like he forgot how to sing, like he's some amateur belting out songs at open mike night at a dive bar.

Something I wrote about Brian's voice five years ago. It makes some points that I think are important in the context of this discussion, although I'm not sure I agree with them all anymore. The short version: Something seems to have gone awry in the early 80s.

----------

Brian has had roughly three voices in his career -- smooth 60s, gruff 70s and nuts 80s to now. And those first two voices had a lot in common. Brian's phrasing, for one. You could listen to BW in the mid-70s to the beginning of the 80s and know it was the same guy.

Example: On Jan. 14, 1981, Brian records Stevie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFUIn6HPqAk

This is not a healthy Brian Wilson. He's in the depths, although not hugely fat yet. But listen to the song. You can hear remnants of the classic voice in there. A tic he would later show live -- clipping notes at the end of phrases -- pops up, but slightly. He has that classic California "cool" sound that defines his vocals with the Beach Boys.

Just two years later (and now under the care of Landy), Brian goes into the studio to record three demos. Black Widow, Little Children and In the Nighttime. You can listen to the 83 version of Little Children here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J4tsTgQIKk

He's healthier. He's recording and touring. But something is off. The voice has changed -- it no longer sounds like the Brian Wilson of the '60s or the '70s or even two years prior. This is a version of the Brian Wilson voice we came to know through the 80s and 90s: Shouty, unhinged, with phrasing that seems off -- something has gone wrong. And it doesn't have to do with tone (which is pretty much the same) or range (which is likewise pretty unaffected).

This is just two years later. Two. Years.

It sounds -- to me -- like someone who doesn't quite know how to sing. During those two years, in some way, something happened to Brian. His voice has never been the same since. I would bet on drug-induced brain damage or a mini-stroke (and people who have mini-strokes don't often recognize that they've had them).

I don't think Brian realized that anything had happened. He didn't appear to struggle with his new voice, or act angry that anything had changed. I think he may have come to realize during his solo album that his voice was less expressive -- he talked a couple of times about how people think he "sabotaged" his performances on the album.

But it took until 1998, with Imagination, for someone to seriously sit down with Brian and deal with the vocals. And I think Joe Thomas deserves tremendous credit for making Brian sound -- well -- human again. It wasn't the double tracking. It wasn't the autotune. It was getting Brian to focus on phrasing and breath control.

This slow re-education has continued. Darian worked closely with Brian on his Smile leads. Melinda (I assume) brought in vocal coaches. And in TLOS and the Gershwin project, I think we finally have a Brian Wilson who is phrasing like a professional singer -- again.

He sounds like a professional version of his 80s voice, though. He can summon the BBs sound now and again, but he sounds like a different guy. Which, in many ways, he is.

Did Brian ever take vocal lessons before he first started to sing, back in the early sixties? Did he ever have a vocal coach during the prime of his vocals?

Well said as usual, Wirestone. It really sounds like something neurological happened to Brian in the early 1980s, which was permanent. To a lesser degree, it is similar to what happened to Jan Berry, who we know suffered brain damage in his car crash in 1966. Post accident, Jan's voice was never the same, and you could always hear the neurological damage when he sang. (Jan's post accident voice also got worse in the early 1980s, following a period when he was doing cocaine.)

The shouting thing could be something as simple as a hearing issue...as is the case with some older folks when the hearing starts to go.  Brian's had issues for...well pretty much since he was a kid.  But if it got worse...or changed...he might not even have realized that he was shouting.  He certainly did while just talking.  That seems to have subsided by degrees over these past 10 years.

Just sayin'.  Anyway in terms of singing...He sure sounds  better now than he did 15ish years ago.

He was using a vocal coach during the '88 album sessions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSLclEJ0IAQ

Sure, he doesn't have laryngitis here, he's only pretending to have it, or whatever. And it's only a coincidence that he sounded much more nasal after this date.

Now, after doing a quick Google on whether laryngitis can cause irreparable damage: http://ehealthforum.com/health/topic11838.html
"I'm having the same vocal chord problems right now. I am an alto and used to have a wide range being able to sing to high E. After a bout with bronchitis in September and being on 2 rounds of antibiotics and steroids, and an inhaler,my cough is still there and I cannot sing."
"i had brochitis when i was 19. I coughed so hard my vocal cords where damaged.  My voice still has a raspy quality and i still have to be careful anytime I get a cough."

More research: http://ent.nm.org/uploads/2/4/3/7/24375049/otolaryngology.voice.laryngitisfromreflux.pdf
"This kind of acute laryngitis rarely causes any long-term problem unless the vocal folds are damaged by overuse during the illness."

Could it have been a major contributor? It's surely possible. I seem to remember that the laryngitis Brian suffered in the 1970s were, in fact, severe cases. Also consider the highly likely possibility that he may have continued to smoke a pack a day while in this condition. What's more?
Obviously, as can be gleamed from the clip, the laryngitis wasn't a fabrication after all. Does this forced-singing count as overuse?

This is a topic I've obsessed over quite a bit and for the longest time it was difficult for me to listen to BW post 75-76 without getting really sad.  The thing that strikes me is not so much the scratchiness or gruffness but rather it begins to sound as if he is singing with his tongue immobilized.  To my ears I can hear it even as early as '75 but it doesn't really become very obvious until the mid '80s.  One of the phrases that really sticks out to me is BW's singing of "sunnydown snuff I'm alright" on BWPS.  It sounds like he does not have full articulation of his tongue.

My take on it, and certainly many others have already said this and thought it long before I did (I think it is even on his wiki), is that he developed tardive dyskinesia from psychotropic medications - made much worse with Landy's mobile pharmacy.  Recreational drugs, cigs, alcohol, self-sabotage or whatever contributed to hurting other qualities of his voice but none nearly as destructive and permanent to his overall tone and style.

Long time reader of the site.  Thanks for letting me post here.

Exactly on.

(http://media.giphy.com/media/b3u8anVaWFQ9G/giphy.gif)

What do you guys think about Brain's voice in the I Just Wasn't Made for These Times docu/album?  I hear some of that "cool california sound" back in his voice, and it somehow seems less slurry than stuff that came before and after.  I also hear some of his demented Mt. Vernon genie voice in it.

Is this pretty much the only project where Brian was trying this higher register voice?

Some of the Paley sessions, too. All recorded around the same time.


Not sure that tardive dykinesia actually does that. The impression that I get is TD has different symptoms, which can be extremely distressing to watch. Brian doesn't have them, at least not now. Here's a man with TD (warning, it's quite uncomfortable): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEKxWzvoD7M

It's quite possible there were worries about Brian developing TD in the latter days of Landy, and that Brian was massively mistreated, but Mark H.'s posts on the subject are quite interesting.

He goes pretty high in Orange Crate Art songs also. Nevertheless, it shows that during this period he was smoking again. His voice has a certain quality that can be easily associated to smoking. He regained smoothness later in the decade.

Here's one of my favorite later day Brian vocals.  "I Sleep Alone" from early 1989.  I hear some of that old sweet Brian on the verses especially, and even some nice falsetto.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an5WiAzee-w

And one of the best God Only Knows performances ive ever heard from the same show. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhfGEFkf3UY

One thing certain to me is that despite the hoarse 70s leads (from smoking, coke, laryngitis or other illness), Brian never lost his falsetto.

Just listen to the evidence..

74 California Feelin demo
75 In the back of my mind demo

Sherry she needs me
You've lost that lovin Feelin
In the still of the night
Airplane
The night was so young

Most of the MIU album

And then even after the brutal '79-82 years..
We get Getcha Back (strained but classic falsetto)
Little Children demo (crystal clear high notes)
Fat boys wah-wah-wahs
Brian's version of Heaven
Noelle on Christmas album (sick high note at the end)

Etc etc etc..

So even though the falsetto wasn't as youthful and powerful as it once was, Brian still possessed the soaring falsetto for all these years if he chose to use it.

Some nice moments on the new album too.

Brian's voice is fantastic during this 2012 performance.  His voice during the middle section of Surfer Girl (around 1:08) is amazingly close to his 60's voice.

I looked closely and it appears that Foskett is NOT doubling him...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu-bXvuPm7c

he developed tardive dyskinesia from psychotropic medications

I'll buy that.

Can't resist the scientific sounding answers!  ;)

He really did sound fabulous for that Rolling Stone set.

Depends on how you define falsetto.  (Not the dictionary definition of the word, but rather how you define it personally).  If falsetto to you means hitting high notes here and there, well, I guess Brian retained it for quite some time and still does.

I don't define it that way.  In fact, hitting high notes is only one component.  Is it smooth? powerful? Clear? Retainable over several measures?  I think the "60's Brian Voice" that we love was gone for good by 1970.  He does not possess that soaring falsetto, and he hasn't possessed it for roughly 40 years.  So what if he can hit that high note on "O Holy Night?"or nail three notes on a concert in '83?

I think Brian sounds better now than he has since the 70's, and I actually think he can approximate his 60's voice when he sticks to non-verbal vocals (oohs and ahs).  Words are slurred and very labored these days, but oohs and ahs are still silky smooth.

I completely disbelieve the tired claim that he still has that 60's voice and and times has been caught switching between the two willy-nilly.  Bullcrap.  His  thyroarytenoid muscle and other physical vocal components are no longer capable of producing that sound in a clear, sustainable way.  Non-verbal oohs and ahs are the closest we're going to get.  And honestly, I'm cool with that.

It's very difficult to be a consistent falsetto singer, as that register comes and goes depending on many factors. Brian himself doesn't always trust his ability and sometimes goes for the full voice. A telling example is the intro to Spirit of RnR from the 1990 San Diego Convention. His first attempt is at shouting the higher note, and only when he fails he goes for a smooth falsetto that -although nice- sounds nothing like his thick falsetto from the 1960s.