The Smiley Smile Message Board

Wilson Phillips Tackles Beach Boys Song

Wilson Phillips tackles a Beach Boys song on their new album and they say it’s the hardest they’ve ever taken on.
 
NEW YORK (December 14, 2010) — The hardest song Wilson Phillips says they have ever tackled is on their new album, "Christmas in Harmony."

It's a Beach Boys song called "Our Prayer."

Carnie Wilson says normally Wilson Phillips can fall into harmony naturally, but not on that song.

Their dad, Beach Boy Brian Wilson, was traveling, so he couldn't break down the parts for them, and their producer, Glen Ballard, refused even to attempt it.

So Wilson says her husband, Rob, wrote out charts for them and conducted them with a baton.

That wasn't the only hard part about making the album.

Wilson says they recorded it in June in southern California, and the air conditioning was broken.


http://www.kwtx.com/news/headlines/Wilson_Phillips_Tackles_Beach_Boys_Song_111869884.html (http://www.kwtx.com/news/headlines/Wilson_Phillips_Tackles_Beach_Boys_Song_111869884.html)

Someone psoted a link to s snippet of their version of Our Prayer a month or so ago, it was auto-tuned to death and sounded cold and sterile.

Of course it was Auto-Tuned, that's become as much of a standard for any "pro" recording in 2010 as mixing in stereo became standard by 1968, or Eventide Harmonizers and Sonic Maximizers and/or Aural Exciters became must-haves well into the 80's. It's part of our collective "sound" in 2010. Those who don't automatically Auto-Tune backing vocals fall into a niche like the retro folks who insist on paying obscene amounts of money for 2" tape reels to record with.

Having said that, I think it is a bit overstated to say no one wanted to tackle the process of transcribing those harmonies, including mega-successful producer Glen Ballard. They're not that hard to hear, and as an exercise in one of my ear training classes at college we did individual parts of Our Prayer which had been transcribed and divided up into individual parts, just like any chorale. Remember Darian S. and company did it with Smile, and it sounded just like the "original". Not saying it's easy but it's not as complex as that article would suggest.

I guess it's also a commentary on just how skilled the Beach Boys were as harmony singers - listen to the famous rehearsal of Our Prayer and they have that natural ability to blend and balance their voices, while staying relatively on pitch and not needing any kind of "fixing" via Auto-Tune if it existed in 1966. I give them all the credit due as musicians of the highest order, and Brian's vocal arrangements are second to none in that style.

It's sad to see that the art of vocal harmony in popular music has degenerated itself to the often-obnoxious beat boxing and ersatz Bobby McFerrin vocal manipulations heard on "Glee" and other a cappela showcases. If you gave some of those folks the assignment of singing "Our Prayer" I don't think they'd have a clue how to handle it.

You can hear some of it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBj9I_t5i5Y

It's not as bad as I thought, but somehow it's very...cold. That's my complain with W-P in general, and with a lot of pop vocalists. They don't have the warmth in their voices that the BBs or other harmony groups, like the Beatles, had. That's not always the case, but with W-P, they always sounded so stylized, like they were trying to sound like people they'd heard instead of singing from their hearts (Murry).

OT, but I found something like Autotuned vocals way back in 1940!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-krlgo2e8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-krlgo2e8)

Sparky's magic piano !

Can be done...  ;D

Our Prayer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYV0axHH67w)

When I watched this clip, I felt renewed hope for the new generation. Bless their hearts.  And the WP cut is very good, as well as several of the songs on their new CD.

I don't know much about Autotuning, but can it be done when they sing live?
 They look like they're singing from their hearts; maybe they've just been visited by the ghost of Murry past?

http://dutchbeachboys.blogspot.com/2010/12/wilson-phillips-performs-wonderland.html

I just heard about this a cappella contest on TV called The Sing-Off. Guess it's been on for a while, but the groups are really good. This is on topic if we're talking about harmonies. Check out the video on this page. Talk about singing from the heart...

http://www.rickey.org/?p=54872

For some reason, that clip of Wilson Phillips sounded a lot better than the one that was posted in the earlier thread.  It definitely has a "cold" type of sound - partially the auto-tune obviously, and in part I think due to the fact that the double tracking was done artificially, which always sounds cold to me as well.

I can imagine them having some difficulty with the song (it's a bit more intricate than your typical 3-part harmony singing), but as others have said, it isn't that hard to figure out if you take the time to do it.  Unfortunately harmony singing like that is a rare thing these days.

That's the "Sonovox"! I've done a lot of research on that device, quite an awesome unit for it's day. The modern equivalent was the Vocoder, and the closest a Vocoder ever got to sounding as downright eerie as the Sonovox was probably Jeff Lynne when he used the first hi-tech Vocoder of it's kind on tunes like Sweet Talkin Woman. The Joe Walsh/Peter Frampton/Pete Drake Talk Box is a close cousin but not quite the same delivery, more primitive.

But the Sonovox - that's an awesome sound. If you listen to guitarist Alvino Rey, he was the first to do the "talking guitar" schtick, using a Sonovox and a (usually female) vocalist located behind the curtain. Way back in the 30's and 40's. And a gent named Kay Keyser featured many of his band instruments "talking" as Sparky The Piano talked on that Disney record from 1947 or '48.

Major kudos to that group and their director/arranger! Proves that first you *can* stay true to the original arrangement and offer a compelling performance of the song. And second, unlike some of the current trends, you do NOT NEED A DAMNED BEAT BOX PERSON to be a good vocal group. Thank you and good night... :)

Yes, I'd say it can be done live with limitations on individual vocalists. The engineer can put the vocal track through AutoTune without the singer ever hearing it in their live monitor mix or feed, and that's actually the prime way to do it because if that singer hears their Auto-tuned live vocal feed it could throw their pitch off as they try to adjust to pitches they hear but may not be singing. The scandal most recently with AutoTune involved producers adding Auto-tune to performances already recorded on an Idol-type competition show, which they defended in the name of entertainment or something.

But yes, even the guy playing guitar at a solo acoustic pub gig if he has the right gear from Antares can Auto-Tune his vocals live in real time. How else could you do a cover of a Kanye West tune? :-D

The autotune has removed any character from the voices. I realise the Youtube stream isn't helping but my god...that sounds HORRIBLE.

Also, they're singing "Haaaaaaa" instead of "Ahhhhhh." It's not choir-y and it bugs me.

Isn't "Our Prayer" a little too eerie to be on a Christmas album?

Well, their version of "In my room" (with Brian) sounded sterile too. In fact they mostly sound soulless. They can harmonize but not sing with feeling, something the Beach Boys could very well, even when they were harmonizing. Haven't listened to "Our prayer" yet but I don't expect anything great

To be fair it's "haaaa" on the original too, it does help those phrases cut through when recording.

Would you apply this description to acts like T-Pain, Lady Gaga, Kanye, and nearly all modern top-40 and R&B music made in the past 5 years or so?

After hearing the clip, it's not like they're over-applying Auto-tune at all, in fact it's difficult to notice. I don't think auto-tune is the issue.

What an utterly insipid, shrill, not to mention shitty, version of Winter Wonderland.

Great version of Our Prayer.  Thanks for posting that.

I was a little skeptical about W-P's complaint about "not having Brian to show them the parts."  There's sheet music for the whole "Smile" album, I bought it in Colony Music for a souvenir.  Of course OP leads the book off.  All the parts are there and it's an easy transcription job.  Of course "Our Prayer" is in C# minor, like lots of Brian pieces, since as we know he likes to write on the black keys.

I bet the Huntington Beach group had the sheet music to work from, they seemed to have all the passing tones in the right places.

Maybe AGD or others know the source, but I distinctly recall one of the British university church choirs doing and maybe even recording a version of OP using the latin liturgical chant "Agnus Dei" as the lyric.

now why couldn't have Carnie's show got canceled after these 'our prayer' recording sessions happen.

Nope. Those "singers" had no charactor to remove to begin with.  :)

 ;D

Funnily enough, I came across an interview with WP where they talk about some of these topics (although not the recording of "Our Prayer"):

http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/12/15/wilson-phillips-reunited-grab-your-eggnog-and-listen-in/ (http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/12/15/wilson-phillips-reunited-grab-your-eggnog-and-listen-in/)