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I'm sure this has been discussed before - and yes - I did search the forum - couldn't find what I was after.

Can someone tell me about the "aborted" sessions with Don Was from around 1995-97?

I've always thought these sessions were originally for a new BB LP.  Was that the case?  I've also always been under the understanding that Carl vetoed the project.  How come?

We did get two of the tracks on the "Made in California" set - but were any other songs anywhere near finished?

I guess I kind of find the subject fascinating - that there might have been a new BB record with the involvement of Brian and Carl and company.

Thanks!

Here's one resource, though I'm not sure how outdated it might be:

http://smileysmile.net/OLDlibrary/timeline.html

Here's a pretty good timeline of the sessions you're referring to:

http://smileysmile.net/OLDlibrary/timeline.html

Hey Jude,

Great minds think alike. 

Thanks for the info.  Interesting read - but why exactly did Carl walk out of the session?

We still seem to only have scattered detailed info on the sessions. But several different sources seem to indicate Carl had some sort of issue with the material. It’s one of those relatively rare cases where it *may* have befuddlingly been Carl who put the kibosh on some *potentially* strong songs/recordings. One report indicated he didn’t think the material was commercial. I believe Al said in his 2000 Goldmine/Record Collector interview that he liked the material, and cited Carl as the one who had an issue. Mike mentioned in Peter Ames Carlin’s book something to the effect that they/he was willing to work on the material, though not necessarily enthusiastic about it. My recollection is that, in that book, he seems to not be particularly sure why the sessions didn’t continue.

Why Carl would have nixed working on that material, but agreed to “Stars and Stripes”, we may never know. 

Carl was also ungoing cancer treatment at the time.  Maybe he just wasn't up to recording a new album.   

I could be wrong, but I think had Carl lived, something more would've come out of that session. 

While it’s unlikely anybody would ever know when Carl was first suffering from the condition, I don’t think he had been diagnosed or undergoing treatment during most if not all of the Paley/Was sessions. Those took place in the 1995 timeframe as I recall. I don’t think he was doing any treatment until late 1996 or 1997.

He did the “Stars and Stripes” stuff after, and obviously toured into the summer of 1997.

I’m guessing there’s not a direct corollary between Carl’s health and ceasing work on the Was/Paley tracks.

This was the only conclusion I could reach. There's no other logical explanation I can think of as to why Carl Wilson of all people would choose to participate in such mediocrity as Summer in Paradise and Stars and Stripes, while walking away from what could have been the best Beach Boys album since Love You. In retrospect at least, it looks like a rare lapse of good judgement on Carl's part. I'm sure there's more to the story though then we're unaware of.

A couple of points: Carl's last real studio project was the trio with Beckley and Lamm. It's pretty easy to tell from that record that Carl's head was not in the place of the Wilson/Paley tracks, with their heavy retro vibe.

A few other things were going on here, too.

1.) Apparently, Don Was didn't think the material was as strong as it could be, so he wanted Brian and Andy to go back and do some more writing. He claims that Brian agreed.

2.) Mike wanted a bigger hand in co-writing the material, and actually he and Brian and Carl worked on "Dancin' the Night Away" (or "Baywatch Nights") after the Was sessions had already ended, IIRC. (Thanks, c-man!)

3.) Bruce was angling to get Sean O'Hagan, or a more avant-pop producer, involved.

4.) The group ended up thinking that the entire project was too complicated to sort out immediately, so they went with Stars and Stripes. Mike's idea was that an album like that could re-introduce the band (the Eagles had dome something similar) to the public, and they could follow up with new material.

5.) Brian met Joe and hit it off, so they decided to work together on new material after S&S was done. Even then, though, they worked on both BW solo material and songs intended for the group.

6.) Ultimately, I don't think the Paley / Was sessions stuff was off the table until Carl passed. Then it looked like a missed opportunity. Before that, I think everyone likely thought of it as more of a delay.

Good stuff, everyone!  Interesting that it was Bruce who was angling for a younger producer.

So, basically in retrospect it looks like a missed opportunity - but that is through the 20 years that have passed since the sessions first took place.

#4 is absolutely true.  I had the opportunity to ask Elliott Lott about both the Was Sessions and the then currently in progress  Stars and Stripes sessions in late 95/early 96. He in fact said that the band was recording the country material in Nashville but was "more excited" about the Was sessions and intended to get back to them after the S&S material was done.  The notion that Carl nixed the Was Sessions but then agreed to do Stars & Stripes is just not accurate. I mean, he may have ultimately walked out on the Was sessions, but it wasn't to do S&S instead

It’s worth pointing out, though, that a hypothetical future Was-produced album is a different concept from what they actually worked on in 1995. Carl may well have wanted to do the Was album after S&S. But he did allegedly/reportedly not think the material they did work on (meaning presumably only the two or three: “Soul Searchin’”, “You’re Still a Mystery”, and perhaps “Dancing the Night Away”) was commercial enough.

So, he may indeed have balked at “Soul Searchin’” but was okay with S&S. Obviously, there was a time and organizational aspect, to say nothing of the politics involved. There was a general idea among at least some participants, apparently, that the Paley material wasn’t strong enough. It sounds like Was felt this way to some degree. Also, it was rumored part of the issue Carl had with “Soul Searchin” was the Was-produced backing track (which we’ve never heard), which was why, prior to Carl’s death, they did the first attempt to sync the original Paley backing track to the Was-produced group vocals. In other words, while Carl may have been iffy on the material, it’s not impossible that a theoretical Was album post-S&S could have still included re-worked versions of the songs they had already recorded.

Paley would later go on to claim the stuff he did with Brian was essentially ready to go for the BB’s to work on (seeming offended at the idea that they were “demos”), going so far as to say in one interview that the BB’s could have cut vocals for an entire album within a few days.

I’ve never thought the bulk of the Paley stuff was like pure genius or anything, but the best 10 or 12, while uneven overall, would still have been better than S&S.  

Just wanted to say, great and informative posts so far. This is turning into a fantastic thread.

Personally, I'm sold on the Paley material. I think it's wonderful stuff as far as the writing and arranging is concerned. With recut group vocals I have no doubt it would rank amongst my favorite Beach Boys albums.

I've also heard from multiple sources that Carl thought Brian's material was very poor. I've got nothing but love for Carl, but he was totally wrong about this in my opinion. As Wirestone points out, the Beckley/Lamm/Wilson project was the type of sound he favored at the time or at least thought had some kind of commercial potential. That album is mediocre at best but worth it to hear "I Wish For You".

We just don't know for sure. We are speculating that a Was-produced album post-S&S would have been dramatically different than the 95 sessions. Maybe Carl wasn't happy with the state of the sessions as they were in late 95 and simply wanted to not rush that process, and Brian and Was' production of same (feeling they sounded not complete or not commercial enough at that time) and agreed to do S&S first as a group "warm up" to see how things went.  Of course, as is usual, things then fell apart. Maybe, on the other hand, Carl in fact hated the Wilson-Paley material and never had any intention at all of completing them.  I have heard things, and I have spoken to people but I was not in the room...

A few thoughts on this...

1. I've never heard that Carl thought the material was "very poor". Not up to Brian's standards or potential maybe;
2. We don't know that Carl thought the material on B-L-W was complete or up to releasing as he never released it;
3. Don't think that Carl ever confused his own writing and production abilities with those of Brian.

1. I've heard everything from "very poor", "weak" and "didn't think it had potential".
2. You've got me there. I don't know the story behind that record other than it came out posthumously.
3. Perhaps not, but he second guessed Brian an awful lot beginning with "15 Big Ones".

That's true on your 3d point. 

At least one song on BLW was released during Carl's life.

And I think that record is interesting because it suggests where Carl's head was at, musically, in the 90s. I mean, Brian didn't finish most of the Paley/Was sessions songs either, but they give us an indication of what he was trying to do at the time.

The BLW tunes are pretty consistent with Carl's MOR songwriting tendencies on LA and BB85, too, so I doubt he was planning on taking those songs in some radically different direction.

Couple of points:

(1) The Baywatch Nights/"Dancin' The Night Away" session occurred several months before the "Soul Searchin'"/"Still A Mystery" sessions.
(2) I have it on good authority that the "Soul Searchin'" track as produced by Was pales in comparison to the Wilson-Paley track (by "track", I mean the instruments). Carl reportedly never heard the superior Brian-Andy produced backing track, just the far weaker (according to sources who've heard it) Was remake. Had he heard it in all its glory, with the full BBs vocal performance as heard on MIC, he just might have thought differently. I can see his point on "Still A Mystery", though. Personally I think it's OK, but can't really see Carl being knocked out by it.

Gigs & sessions 1995 on 10452 gives a fairly accurate timeline for the Baywatch/Was/early Stars & Stripes sessions. Footnotes need a little work mind.

Has anyone seen the video material from the "Baywatch nights/Dancin' the night away"-session(s)? And were some of the other sessions - apart from Stars&Stripes of course - of that timeframe filmed?

Let us not forget that Was produced the shittiest Dylan album eva!

That one's been sitting in a stack of unopened/unplayed Dylan CDs for close to a decade now. Thanks to you, I think I'll finally get it out and play it! Gotta hear it now!  :)

How and why Carl's taste in music took such a wrong turn in the 80's is an untold story. I mean, did he ever hear XTC? How could he listen to Beach Boys-influenced New Wave stuff like that and then figure that taking the path of Olivia Newton John was the way to go.

The Paley sessions were maybe not terribly commercial, but that quasi-retro sound was what was happening in the mid 90's. I get the feeling that Carl had no idea, though, about what was happening musically past 1972.

On the other hand, he produced some great (!) albums by the Highwaymen (The Road Goes On Forever) and Waylon Jennings (Waymore's Blues Part II) around this time (mid 90s).

To your first point - who knows if I'm right on this, but I kinda get the impression that once Carl cleaned himself up (early or mid 1978), he began to associate anything outside of MOR/AOR rock and pop with a certain lifestyle that he now wished to steer clear of. Plus, to your second point, none of the hit-makers that he was friendly with (America, Chicago, Christopher Cross) were into the quasi-retro sound of the mid-'90s, either. So I think he just got stuck in the rut of thinking the MOR/AOR scene is the only way to go, and was not into getting out of his comfort zone anymore (music-wise and lifestyle-wise).

Because by music industry standards the Beach Boys were old farts by the 1980s onwards.

I firmly believe that had a full LP of the Paley sessions been overdubbed with the BB’s voices, we would’ve seen a MONSTER hit. To his credit, when I asked Mike about it, he remembered being impressed with the material, enjoying the sessions and couldn’t exactly remember why they broke down and morphed into Stripes. Although the country covers LP was seemingly his idea -- I definitely got the impression that the impetus to end work on those songs did not come from him and that he would've seen the project to fruition.

Bruce Johnston was very forthcoming to me regarding his thoughts on being in the studio for "Soul Searchin'" and "You're Still A Mystery" and seriously recording with Brian Wilson for the first time in a decade, saying, quote, "That was a courtesy to Brian for us to be there. Brian certainly wasn't at any kind of peak in those days, but we respected his history and achievements for us to go and record with him and see what it might sound like. We were just trying to support someone who had been successful and good for us. I think if you use your ears, you'll hear that those tapes don't really lift off. It's fine -- but not fine enough."

I think in light of The Beatles Anthology, and the lackluster response to the Frankenstein-ed “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love” tracks, that the (Brian Wilson is really free at last) Paley material -- not “reproduced” -- but tweaked and remixed as a Beach Boys LP -- would’ve been among the most important works of their career. I still view those songs as the definitive Brian Wilson solo LP.

Thanks Howie for that post!

Do we have a list of the Paley-Wilson songs that were planned for the Beach Boys to record? I guess not everything that Brian and Andy worked on was supposed to be Beach Boys material.

On AGD's site I see "It's not easy being me" mentioned and also one called "Turn on your lovelight". Is the latter the R'n'B classic or a newly written song?

Mike reportedly wanted to rewrite the lyrics to "Chain Reaction Of Love'.

I never heard about that! Thanks for the info!
We don't know if he had a title, do we? Or maybe he just wanted to change somethin here and there but sticking to the concept of Chain Reaction...
Boy, that would've been a cool song for the Boys. Maybe with a lead vocal by Carl

From a format definition perspective, AOR means "Album Oriented Rock." That would imply, to me, stuff more in line with Holland. AOR was most commonly associated with bands like Led Zeppelin, et al. I would say MOR or soft pop would better describe the 80s/90s stuff.

How about MOR AOR?

I'll take Under the Red Sky any day over Knocked Out Loaded.

Word.

It's obviously not one of Dylan's best, but I have a soft spot for Under The Red Sky. Some of the songs - "God Knows", "Unbelievable", "Born In Time", "Cats In The Well", the title track, and, yes, "Wiggle Wiggle" - are pretty respectable I think.

Depending on the single/track, The Beach Boys were promoted at AOR, CHR and AC (Adult Comtemporary) stations.

This seems about right to me as well. One other point is that XTC was very much an underground band in the 80s, though they did briefly cross over to MTV with a couple of songs from Skylarking. The Beach Boys, not being a band that catered to the underground since the early 70s, were very much chasing a sound that would result in airplay on Top 40, which is why they were covering songs by established hitmakers of the day such as Culture Club and Stevie Wonder (and Bruce Springsteen essentially). This of course resulted with the short term payoff of "Wipe Out" and especially "Kokomo", so it's likely that Carl would have seen the Paley material as either too anachronistic or too left-of-center to square with the modern Top 40. At least Stars and Stripes did have some chance of getting played on Country stations, though whether or not it ever did I'm uncertain (and certainly none of the songs were big hits).

While I'm not as certain as you that it would have been a monster hit, I couldn't agree more with your take on the quality of the original Paley sessions. With better vocals from Brian and the addition of the other Beach Boys, it would have gone down as one of their best post-Capitol albums. Bruce has always expressed odd (IMO) opinions when it comes to Brian's music, like the time he dissed Friends.

  I always wondered why Carl went along with SUMMER IN PARADISE but walked away from the Don Was sessions. I think he knew that people would expect more from a Brian Wilson project and wondered if the songwriting was up to par. Note also that Carl doubted Brian's ability to pull off PET SOUNDS live.

 It's important to remember that Carl, while not yet diagnosed with cancer, may not have been feeling well by this time. I remember being concerned about him after seeing the guys on David Letterman about 1996 - he looked tired.

 In a better world, we'd have gotten one last great Brian Wilson produced Beach Boys' album with Carl Wilson as a major factor. It didn't happen, but then again Carl gave of his best his entire tenure with the band (age 15-51) with the brief exception of early 1978.

Very good observation about Carl going along with SIP and not the Don Was sessions. Never considered that. As Bruce said in the BW A&E Biography, these things couldn't go on in a group where people weren't related!

By AOR, I meant what it had become by the early to mid '80s: Toto, Boston, etc. Maybe "arena rock" would be a better descriptor. Hence his composition of songs like "Maybe I Don't Know" and some of things on his solo albums. I think about the most creative he got in that time was "It's Getting Late", which I think is pretty respectable. And while not really progressive, "Where I Belong" is still knock-out gorgeous.

Bruce is talking about the songs from the aspect of using what L.A. types used to call "industry ears" - he's talking about the extra bit of perceived quality that's going to transcend into the mainstream.  He's an old industry guy and he's in a hit-oriented band (even at that late date that was the mindset), so I can understand his perspective, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

I' ve been hearing a new version of "Unbelievable" on the local college station, a soul/r&b take on the song. Glad someone recognized it was worth reviving. I'm also fond of 'TV Talkin' Song".

Keep in mind that in those years Carl and Brian's relationship was poisoned by the autobiography, which made a huge negative impact on the younger Wilson brother.

Other than depositions, etc., was there ever an "official" denunciation of the WIBN book from Brian? I can imagine that Carl and some of the others were hurt by a lot of the claims in the book. If one of my family members had a book written in their name that slandered me, I would have a difficult time saying, "Oh, I knew it wasn't you writing it." Particularly after the charade of promoting it as one's own writing. I can image it was hard to get past that.

Since it can still be found on Amazon and a few other places, I wonder how that will be addressed in "I Am Brian Wilson." Will Brian come right out and write "I know I had another autobiography in the past, but don't believe it."

I remember seeing Brian on the John Tesh show and being asked "how much of a catharsis was it, writing your autobiography?" 'Writing? I didn't write it, John. Actually, I was only interviewed for it for a couple hours; Dr. Landy did the majority of it, and frankly, he got a lot of things wrong, including his character assassination of my brother Carl." Oh wait, I only imagined that answer.

I don't know how much it affected Carl but on Christmas Day 1995 his father-in-law, Dean Martin, passed away. So I guess he also had other things in mind.

Does anybody remember the timeframe of that story told by a musician/writer who Carl had brought along to witness Carl doing a session with Brian for “Proud Mary?” My recollection is that it pre-dated the late 1995 Paley/Was group sessions.

I’m hopeful that the biography on Carl coming out at some point later this year (presumably) will fill in the gaps as far as what Carl’s deal was in the late 80’s and 90’s. When he left the band in 1981, he seemed more than willing to mention in interviews that two of his big issues was the declining live show (setlist and performance quality), and the lack of motivation to do more studio work. When Carl returned in 1982, the setlist got a bit more interesting and the live show presentation improved. They didn’t start doing a huge amount of studio work, and eventually the live show settled into a generally solid but unadventurous mode.

By the later 90’s, it was Al who appeared to be (impotently) more vocal about the setlist, stage presentation, and eventually the business setup the tour was using, while Carl seemed to back off and let Mike take over. While this sort of thing may not have been a *major* factor in the Was/Paley group stuff not coming to fruition, it may have played a role, just in terms of not being super pro-active about getting a new album done, or writing more material, or doing something different with the touring presentation.

I mentioned in some other threads that I also have noticed that, however much Brian disavowed it and however much people knew it was cooked up by Landy, that Brian’s 1991 “autobiography” damaged his already-tenuous relationship with the rest of the band, including Carl. Even after Landy was gone, Brian did little with the group for a few years after.

Thing is, Brian did very little press from 92-95. And celeb media was very different then. I don't recall him ever being pressed on the point.

BW isn't always great at taking responsibility.

I didn't see/hear ANYTHING about Brian after the separation from Landy, until early 1995, when the Don Was film was mentioned in Rolling Stone. Honestly, without Landy and his team around to supervise Brian, I expected the worst - back to the old drug and booze habits. When I saw his interview in The History of Rock 'N' Roll that spring, I was not surprised to see he had gained weight, and seemed as spacey as ever. Seeing him in IJWMFTT relieved my fears for the most part. He seemed more coherent - for the most part - than he had in the Primetime Live interview, and there was finally the promise of new music from him again.
Carl in the 90's remains a puzzle. As far as I can tell, he may have been working on Like A Brother around the same time as SIP, so maybe he was just resigned to the BB's being Mike's band, and any creativity for himself would have to be put into outside projects. You can only fight the uphill battle for so long before you just get worn down, and I think that's how he felt in the 90's. The Beach Boys had become, for better or worse, "America's Band", the traveling jukebox of sun, surf and sand, and the only thing he could do was at least make sure the music was played properly, the way it was supposed to be.

I have no idea either but I do agree that this very well could be the case. You also have to consider that during the '90s Carl was occupied with trying to keep the band together, getting Brian away from Landy and he wasn't feeling well himself (I read somewhere that he may have started feeling bad at some point in  '95). He may have been taking care of his mother at some point too before she passed away (I have no idea if he did or not). I feel like Carl had quite the weight on his shoulders in the later years and those things were much more important than adding rarities to the setlist or having artistic control over an album (that probably wouldn't sell well anyway).