The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://cdbaby.com/cd/aljardine2
With Scott Bennett and Paul Mertens from Brian's band, and Scott's friend Billy Roach. Downloadable for $1, with the money going to charity.
Very "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", but Al sounds great as always.

Where's the song? It just links me to "Miyeh - America"??

Same here initially... Try copying the link and pasting it in your browser's address bar, and it should work fine.

Song is titled "Hurry Up, Hurry Up, Santa Claus" by the way.

(http://images.cdbaby.name/a/l/aljardine2.jpg)

Thanks for the help, crazy to think its almost Christmas already  :o

Don't know what's causing your problem. Link works fine for me...

Works for me too.

OK, a short snip on the site but blimey Al's vocals are in such good shape ( to say the least )  :)

Fun little song and, yeah, Al's voice must have a portrait in the attic.

 :old

Is this going to be available from other vendors?

CDBaby usually automatically distribute tracks to Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, et al. However, that takes a while (sometimes up to three months back when I was putting stuff out through them, though they may well have got quicker), so it wouldn't be available before Xmas. Also, more of the money will go to the charity through CDBaby, as there won't be a distributor taking a cut. And when you buy from CDBaby you can get it as a FLAC download, which is non-lossy compression, rather than just as an MP3.
Scott's not mentioned anything specific about another vendor on the FB page he's put up for the song.

How in the world does he sound so young? 


Put an image in your mind of a 22 year old guy, with a guitar standing on a stage.... then play that song, and see if it sounds off.


He literally sounds like he's in his early 20's. 

Great little Xmas song from Al---also love the single cover.

Wheat germ, probably. Keepin' it clean.

Finally made the time to download and listen to this yesterday.  Fun Christmas song. 

I think 2015 was a great year for Beach Boys fans overall.  New BW album, great tours from BW, Al, & Blondie, and well as Mike and Bruce (and sometimes David). 

New Christmas singles from Mike and Al are a nice way to end the year. 

Of course an announcement of a Pet Sounds BW show in Baltimore would be another great way to end 2015.

A certainly fun, innocuous Christmas song. I was happy to purchase (and also contribute to their separate "Go Fund Me" campaign) and get a little money to charity.

I do wonder if Scott Bennett is aware that it's a running (but I think largely good-natured) joke among BB fans that Al has on multiple occasions put spoken-word intros on his songs.  :lol

I do like the idea that some of Brian's backing guys are open to working with Al separately. I've been wondering in the last few years if there might ever be any chance Al could swing a one-off show or little mini-tour and do a deep-cut setlist and use some of Brian's backing guys. Probably too expensive. But I wouldn't mind seeing a deep-cut show from Al, perhaps with a mixture of Brian's guys and a few of the old backline guys like Hinsche and of course Matt Jardine.

If Brian does give up touring, as has been hinted, I wonder if people are thinking of the possibility of "the Brian Wilson Band, featuring Beach Boy Al Jardine" touring for a while without Brian. It wouldn't surprise me, and I'd go and see that (though I'd really miss Brian, of course).

I’d love to see that, but I don’t know how plausible it is under that set of circumstances. While Brian and Al are getting along, I would guess Brian and his folks would not really want his name used like that. Even if he didn’t mind, I think that would just be another huge clusterfudge for Al in terms of band names. “The Brian Wilson Band” without Brian, while Brian is still alive, is super confusing.

An “Al Jardine & Friends” tour or something, with some advertisements mentioning he’s backed by members of Brian Wilson’s backing band, would work I think. But that gets us to the other main issue: There’s no way Al could afford it. Certainly not on the scale Brian does it. I’ve heard for years that some if not many of Brian’s tours don’t pull in a huge profit. Al’s shows would be smaller scale. I think Al could do a little mini-tour with elements of Brian’s band. Maybe Darian and/or Scott, Nicky, Probyn, and perhaps Mertens, and then fill it out with Ed Carter (who, I’m only *guessing* might be cheaper than Bob Lizik, regardless of who might be a better player), Billy Hinsche, and Matt Jardine. I dunno, that’s already most of Brian’s band, so the whole thing is probably already too big.

What I think Al *could* swing with some good agents/managers is get someone to invest in a one-off show, or a short run of two or three nights at a venue, and pay for the whole big shebang of Brian’s band and whatnot, and record it for Blu-ray/DVD and CD. There’s a HUGE gap in the marketplace for live Beach Boys archival video and audio releases (they should be doing something like what the Stones are doing with their old live stuff), and a live Al show release could do just that.

Separately, I think a scaled-back (maybe or maybe not fully acoustic/unplugged style) tour with Matt, Darian, Scott, Probyn, and a few others playing deep cuts could play well. It’s weird, because I sense Al doesn’t HUGELY care about the money at this stage. He reportedly played without pay on the 2006/2007 Brian dates. He was salaried on C50, and I doubt he makes a HUGE chunk of change currently touring with Brian. So I’m surprised he hasn’t just done some club gigs or small venues just to get out and do it. I love that he’s with Brian, and I’m not trying to be jaded or take anything for granted. But I’d love to hear him sing some stuff beyond the stuff in Brian’s current setlist, and it doesn’t look like Brian’s tour is going to be the venue to bust out “Lookin’ at Tomorrow” (though they rehearsed that for the PBS show) or “Santa Ana Winds” or even “Honkin’ Down the Highway.”

I'd love to see a small scale Al Jardine tour, but I agree with Hey Jude that the logistics would be tough. 

Maybe his friend Brian would lend him a hand financially.  If Brian gets to a point where he doesn't feel like touring, but still wants his songs out there....you never know. 

Maybe Brian could even come out during the encores at select shows. 

My thought there was that *if* Brian didn't want to tour again, *if* his band wanted to continue working together, and *if* Al felt like it, Brian and his team might welcome the extra income stream from licensing his name for the band.
Obviously, I *hope* that Brian carries on touring for a long time (and that he does so because he's enjoying it, and so on). But it would surprise me if they hadn't at least considered the possibility.

A happy medium would be something more like a true 50/50 billing. A Brian set and an Al set, with of course a section with both of them. Ideally, they could do a sort of 50/50 show but both stay on stage for the entire time. Essentially, a C50 show without the other three guys (David joining in certainly would be nice, as would Blondie), and with some of the Mike-centric stuff replaced with some deep cuts. A couple car songs with Al singing (or Brian) are fine.

One of the things I thought worked very well on C50 was that Brian didn’t have to do a ton of heavy lifting. I like the idea of Brian as a side man, a backing guy. It was pretty interesting to hear him take lead parts on “California Dreamin’”, “All This is That”, etc. How about “Santa Ana Winds” with Brian singing the Mike lines. How about Matt and Brian sharing the lead on “Be Here in the Morning.” Stuff like that. 

Definitely, I think the idea of an Al show with Brian's band is as intriguing at this stage as a Brian show. I certainly hope something like that happens. But it would be a weird sort of branding, and might not garner the best press, whether it was done while Brian was still alive or not.

I think Al might be able to relatively independently get a tour going (meaning still finding a promoter) and afford most of Brian's band if he banded together with, say Blondie and Dave, and did a super deep-cuts show with some early stuff with Dave wailing on guitar, and then a lot of early 70's era stuff. It would still be smaller venues, and Brian's guys would make less. But I wish *someone* in the BB camp would do something like that instead of these sidebands that basically just do a sort of "Papa Doo Run Run" show.

That would be very cool.  On the NPP Tour, Al handled quite a few of the leads.  With Matt, Darian, and Blondie contributing leads too, it probably took some of the weight off Brian's shoulders. 

One of the great mysteries to me will always be why a guy like Al Jardine (there are many other examples in pop music) can be so damn talented, a great singer, decent songwriter.... why a guy like him never made it big solo.  


The only way I reconcile it in my mind, and this goes for pretty much all the beach boys including Brian... is that they're all kind of amateurs.  Best music ever, best singers ever, but they never really did things in a professional way in my opinion.  Not because they are irresponsible or anything, they show up when they say they will, they treat their fans with respect, they're authentic... but they've always kind of been self-taught and seem to out of of their way to NOT make smart business decisions that might move them towards a bigger market.  

So you end up with situations like having a 70 something Al Jardine who sounds better than 90% of the musicians on the radio but yet he doesn't appear to be making any money off of it.  Whole thing is just strange.

Meanwhile Mick Jagger could probably make millions of dollars doing a solo show somewhere.  Steve Perry has been retired for 20 years, would probably make 10mil plus if he did a show somewhere.  Al sounds better than both.

Shows you don't need to excessively drench your voice in processing.  He sounds naturally good as he always has.  Vocal performances are what most bring me down about a lot of current stuff, yet here a 70 year old man can still hold his own.

Those are insightful comments... agree completely. I think you could make the case that Al and the other BBs' management over the years (or lack thereof) has had a lot to do with it too.

I'm very happy Al is in Brian's band, but I would also love to see him do a limited-run solo tour or other projects. Anything that keeps him active and shows off his wonderful voice.

As great as Al's voice is, it's a pretty well kept secret.  Other than Help Me Rhonda, Al didn't sing on any of the iconic hits from the glory years. 

Mick Jagger and Steve Perry, on the other hand, sing lead of two whole catalogs full of iconic songs. 

Al never really tried to be a solo star. He was in a band until he was in his mid-50s, and as great a singer as he is and even though he sang lead on a No. 1 hit, he wasn't the face or voice of the band. And he's not a prolific songwriter.

I'm sure everyone has someone whose music they really like who they wonder how this person never became a big star. For me it's Marshall Crenshaw. He released a ton of great music but only got one top-40 hit out of it.

I'm 50 now. My ex-wife is 8 years younger than me. When we started dating, I was 35 and she was 27. We had a long car ride, and I asked her if she wanted to listen to Marshall's "This Is Easy" compilation on the ride. She said sure, and a few songs in she said, "Why haven't I ever heard of this guy?"

I think a lot of it has to do with charisma, or lack thereof.

The fact that Al has never been a "star" on his own is not surprising. He doesn't have that type of personality. With the possible exception of Dennis, I don't think any of the guys had that potential in terms of image and personality.

So it's not surprising that Al never busted out a bunch of hit solo albums.

However, it seems like he could have spent the last 15-20 years doing smaller gigs and working on studio material. He has the vocal chops and ability and time to do that. Not "surf city" gigs, or re-recordings of hits, or quickie shows with pick-up bands. But small, intimate deep cuts-filled shows, and maybe hiring an outside producer simply to wade through his archive of recordings to pick some stuff to put out (and/or to actually "produce" Al recording new music). He would have made little money off of this over the years (at least at first), but I think he could have built up a rep for that sort of thing.

I'm guessing he must prefer to work in a group setting for whatever reason, whether it's C50, or Brian's band, or his regular backline guys in concert.

I can see the Charisma argument... I guess if you think about all the solo acts that were really big had a lot of Charisma...

Yeah - see? If Al walked out and showed us how it's done the way Aretha just did...

I don't think Al has the writing chops and, perhaps, the self-discipline to attain the work-rate necessary to be a solo star. I don't mean to be rude here, but his love of re-working old numbers is well-known.  I never saw him as a Paul Simon or Bob Dylan, but I love the guy anyhow and it's interesting now, despite the fact he doesn't have many leads that are well known to the public, that we have come to appreciate how versatile his voice is, how important it was/is to the band and how bloody good it always was and still is. I hope he comes to the UK this year. I'd love to see him with Brian (or with your own band...). I know someone who'd put you up. Just bring your guitar...  :)

I think Hey Jude hit it right on the nose!

Even though Al may not have many signature leads of his own,  he sang many of the most important parts in the hey day of the touring act because he covered Brian's parts! More people have heard Al sing Sloop, WIBN, Heroes, YSGTM, Surfer Girl etc than those who have heard Brian sing them. Think of Knebworth, his voice is all over that.

I don’t think much of anyone doubts Al could *lead* a live band (and of course an album) with his voice. I think he could have easily built a solid career on his own post-1998 by cultivating a career doing deep-cuts live shows and interesting studio material, as opposed to doing the oldies circuit like the cruise he’s doing next month on the bill with a bunch of other reconstituted elements of old bands. Either way, this would be cultivating a solid career with a smaller but devoted fan base, with some potential good critical response from music journalists. It would still not be a case of being a “star.”

But he might make more coin off of that one cruise gig than doing five or ten or twenty club shows, so that part of it makes sense.

I would compare Al to Art Garfunkel in many ways, Both are great singers with lovely, 'pure' voices, both have strong a background in folk music and early rock n' roll, but are arguably not the most charismatic performers. But they don't need to be, their voices are charismatic for them.   

Did anyone donate to Al’s cancer charity and win one of the 50 signed CDs? Just wondering what the CD looks like.

I contributed but couldn't tell whether I was one of the first 50 to do so; it kind of looked like I was, but I'm not sure. Haven't received any CD or anything thus far. I assumed it was most likely a signed copy of "A Postcard from California", as I don't think there are any other Al CDs in print.

Ah yes, that’s very likely. With the fundraising drive’s tie-in to the Christmas single I was confused whether they had a small number of CD singles. Your theory makes much more sense.

I got it from Smiley pal last year - cool song! There is vid of Al singing Little Saint Nick & he was as good as Mike. It's time for Al to make Christmas album. 1st side - original tunes in the vein of Hurry Up; 2nd side - traditionals (We wish you a merry christmas; Jingle Bell Rock). It could chart well on Billboard.