The Smiley Smile Message Board

Listening to Holland today (I'm going through a bit of an early-seventies phase) I wondered how much of that is played by the Beach Boys, particularly, California Saga. I know Tony Martin is the steel guitar on "Steamboat" and there's strings on "Only With You", but otherwise, how much of Holland is played by The Wilsons, Mike, Al, Blondie and Ricky. Surely the addition of Blondie and Ricky cut out a lot of the need for "outside" players. For instance, who's the harmonica on "Big Sur"? Is Al the banjo on "California"? What does Dennis do on the LP? Anyone have credits for Holland? C-Man? AGD? Jon?

The same banjo used on "California Saga" was also used on "California Energy Blues".  ::)

Well unfortunately the AFM sheets really don't tell us anything.  I would love to hear the session tapes.  I do know Brian played drums on Funky Pretty (Carl and Ricky are the only other players on that track), and I'm sure Ricky played drums on the rest of the album, while Blondie played bass and some guitar.  Daryl Dragon is on there a lot, Charles Lloyd does the flute on California Saga, and I'll bet Carl is playing a lot of the piano (like Trader and Leavin' This Town), with Dennis playing on his two tunes.  Ricky does the Moog solo on Leavin' This Town.  On Sail On Sailor, Carl is playing the "morse code" style guitar, and I'll be he's also on keyboards.  It's been reported that Brian does the harmonica on Cal Saga, but I don't know if that's true.

Thanks for the info!

Slide guitar on "Steamboat" - Tony Martin.

(memo to self - read all of thread first.  :-[)