The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hi everyone

I just read an interview with guitarist Mike Campbell where he talked about learning the guitar as a kid. In it he mentioned a certain book that caught my eye.

"I had a couple of guitar books too. There was one I had, I wish I still had it – it was How to Play the Guitar with Carl Wilson [of the Beach Boys], and it had pictures of his hands. I met him several years later and said, “Hey, I had your book” and he was sort of blown away, and said, “Oh, my Dad put that together!” So I got a couple of ideas on how to finger certain chords from that"

I was just wondering if anyone had any more information about it, or better yet knew where one might find a copy. I've always loved Carls guitar playing and the unique way he voiced his chords.

Here ya go:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Guitar-Sounds-of-the-Beach-Boys-featuring-Carl-Wilson-vintage-music-book-/252450414979?hash=item3ac737a183:g:7~sAAOSwL7VWtSwi

I remember seeing a pic of that book in David Leaf's BB's bio.

There's a shot of the cover in this video, where Carl screws something up and Dennis says, "Haven't you read your own guitar book, Carl?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFEAoF7RC7Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFEAoF7RC7Y)

Amazing  :lol

Thanks Donny, I missed out on that one but it's good to know it's still out there. I wonder what year Murry put it together. The sound of Carl's Rickenbacker in That's not me is incredible too.

Listening to the SOT albums it's funny to realise how much of Carl's guitar seemed to be D.I'd. I guess it helped with isolation but it always kind of surprises me that Al would often seem to be playing bass through an amp out on the floor and Carl would be plugged straight into the console. Today it would usually be done the other way around but you can't argue with the results.  With what sounds like a bit of the western echo chamber thrown in it sounds beautiful.

This was published by Murry/SOT in 1965, sold for $2.00 american, which was good price for us at the time. It didn't really give you any real guitar playing tips, except a quote from Carl in the "publisher's notes" to practice a lot, keep up with the trends, etc. etc. . . . and have some extra strings in the guitar case.  Gee, thanks, Carl. On the last page, it has photos of Carl's left hand fingering "a few of his favorite chords" (C, G, A7, E6, Bmaj7, Gmaj7, Cmin7, and A min7) but its hard to see exactly how he's doing some of them. The standard chord symbols are on on the sheet music. I have the first five of their songbooks through the Pet Sounds album, including one for their first Christmas album that I had never seen before until it showed up on eBay about a dozen years ago. For reference if anyone's looking for them, the first one has a cover picture similar to the Shut Down II cover, the second one with a "Today" cover-like photo, the Carl Wilson book is sort of raspberry-pink with carl's picture, the next with Pet Sounds era pictures (songs from Summer Days (and Summer Nights) and Pet Sounds, and the Christmas one is just a light blue one with a Christmas-like illustration, no photos (without going over and looking at it, that is). It's interesting how some of the songs were so easy to do with just one guitar, but even then you could see how Brian's composing and arranging was really a lot deeper and more advanced than anyone would have guessed. Listening to the songs and following along with the sheet music really brought that out, once I learned some music myself and had an idea of what I was actually hearing.