The Smiley Smile Message Board

Since we're all thinking Smile these days, I thought one of the more surprising things I've recently come across is the apparent fact that Hal Blaine wasn't at the "Fire" session, but drummer Jim Gordon was. Certainly the drums on that track – which evoke what Jules Siegel described as "a collapsing wall" – are a major component of what makes it so great. Does anyone know anything more about this?

Musicians on "Fire":

Jim Gordon - drums
Carol Kaye - bass
Lyle Ritz - string bass
Gene Estes - guitar (I know, that doesn't seem right: should be percussion)
William Pitman - guitar

Arnold Belnick - violin
Leonard Malarsky - violin
Sid Sharp - violin
Norm Botnick - viola
Joseph DiTullio - cello
Jesse Erlich - cello
Jim Horn - horns
Plas Johnson - horn
Jay Migliori - horn
Billy Green - horn

Thanks Andrew. Seems surprising since Hal was the go-to guy at the time.

Apparently not for Brian at this point in time - I've been checking all the AFM sheets I can easily lay hands on, and the first time Hal turns up is a 1/23/67 session for "Surf's Up". Otherwise it's JG.

Funny how Beautiful Dreamer plays it like Hal was there...

EDIT - YES, I know Jim Gordon is in jail for violently relieving himself of female parental guidance.

Anyone notice a pattern here? Which documentary has Carol Kaye showing off the bass-line to Good Vibrations as if she'd played it on the record? Now I come to learn (via C-Man) that Ray Pohlman , Lyle Ritz, and maybe even Carl Wilson were the ones to play bass throughout the released edit of Good Vibrations. If anything Carol might be on the fade section, but not likely, it looks like all of her work on the GV sessions may have hit the cutting room floor.

Someone just HAS to talk to Jim, then, and see how many Smile acetates he has stored away!

Endless Harmony, definitely. Beautiful Dreamer too, in the "extras", I think. I want to say the Pet Sounds documentary too, but I'm really unsure there.

them 'horns,' by the way: flutes.

I remember seeing awhile back that Jim Gordon is out of prison now.
Incidentally, he played on "Pet Sounds" (drums on I'm Waiting For The Day, and the famous "clip-clop" percussion on God Only Knows).
As for the drummers on SMiLE...just the other day, I went through all the contracts and came up with this:

Hal Blaine - 16 sessions (including 2 inserts, 1 Carl Wilson session, 3 cancelled sessions)
Jim Gordon - 11 sessions (including 1 Carl Wilson session w/Hal Blaine, 1 Carl Wilson session as drummer, 3 cancelled sessions - 1 w/Hal Blaine)
Frank Capp - 1 session as drummer
Frank DeVito - 1 session
Norm Jeffries - 1 Carl Wilson session
Dennis Wilson - 3 sessions (1 session as drummer, 1 session in unknown capacity, 1 Dennis Wilson session)

So Hal didn't play on any of the '66 SMiLE sessions? But he did show up on comedy skits. Weird.

IIRC, he has been denied parole each time he has come before the board. 

I've read Hal Blaine's book and also done a lot of research on Jim Gordon, this is a great topic! The way I understand the scene is that Jim Gordon was grandfathered into the studio scene in some ways through Hal Blaine, or in other words Hal took him under his wing and would get Jim to do the sessions he could not do, just like the elder statesmen like Tommy Tedesco would do for guys like Mike Deasy and Larry Carlton. 1966-67 was a very, very, very busy time for Hal and in his book he even mentions how much work he had to turn away, including some very ritzy live bookings - which he turned down because his session work paid better. One live gig he did accept was a stint with Nancy Sinatra since he had known Nancy personally since the 50's. But if Hal couldn't do it, and he knew the type of drummer it needed, he'd contract Jim to do the session because he knew Jim could cut it.

Jim Gordon was simply amazing, a young prodigy who was not only influential to other drummers at the time but also quickly became a "go to" guy for producers. One of his crowning glories of the 60's was his drumming on Mason Williams' "Classical Gas", a date which, at least according to Hal himself, Hal either could not take or wasn't around to do. Was Hal first call on that record? Who knows.

Hal developed a close friendship with Brian Wilson, and also Hal was a friend of Lenny Bruce. When Brian was going for that off-center kind of humor, that improv on a theme kind of thing, I'm sure Hal was very much in his mind as someone who could roll along with the skits, as Hal had done comedy skits on stage since the 50's in his various stage gigs. Vosse was very close to Brian, too, so therefore I'm guessing Brian had his close friend Michael Vosse who was on the same wavelength with the stoner kind of humor, and Hal Blaine was a friend who had worked the more traditional comedy circuits and could get laughs.

Remember too, around this same time, Hal Blaine was cast as a comedic foil in the Jan and Dean movie, and he had a running joke throughout the film as the straight-man against the humor going around him. He was also one of the few musicians who was in the SAG union and could appear on screen.

Here is a shot of Jim Gordon playing mallets at Gold Star, which I have posted up on the Classic Studio Sessions website:

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/Blog%20Post%201/jimgordontest.jpg)

I think most of the folks around Hal would probably agree that if there was anything he did better than drumming (and being the perennial gentleman), it was comedy.

Yes, Hal is on Wind Chimes (the second half), Look (aka I Ran), CIFOTM, the first version of H&V (that was apparently later taped over), another miscellaneous Heroes session... and of course Good Vibrations (FYI, my above tally of SMiLE sessions broken down by drummer doesn't include GV sessions).

Lest anyone think Craig & I are squaring up for a handbag session over this, I should point out that not only does he have access to more session info than I, but also - and purely arbitrarily - I set the start of the Smile sessions proper at October 1966, as that was when Brian obviously set to working on a concerted album project. Yes, there were sessions for Smile titles before then (5/11, 8/3, 8/12, 8/25, 9/8), but they're scattered. As I said, a purely arbitrary decision on my part.  :)

However, Jim Gordon did come up with one of the more famous piano parts of pop/rock music; the end of 'Layla'.

The "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" intro has been tagged as a "Heroes and Villains" section, so I guess it's possible that Hal was there for that part, which he describes in Beautiful Dreamer as "like a New Years party", but not for the body of the track...

They're shifting things around a bit by saying that in the film - if you consider "Mrs Olearys Cow" as it appears on BWPS, then yes, Hal Blaine was the guy who was blowing the slide whistles and playing the noise makers on the "Intro" when it was first recorded. But if you go back and log that as one of the 3 or 4 "Intros" which Heroes had, you could say the only drummer on Mrs Oleary was Jim Gordon.

PS - as far as Dennis drumming on those sessions, he could have hit a stick on a single tom and received a drummers credit on the AFM sheet.

You could say that about anybody. I believe Dennis was the drummer on Holidays, and a percussionist on some other Smile tracks.

This is true, I wasn't suggesting anything about Dennis other than to say being listed as playing drums with the AFM could be anything from Jim Gordon or Hal playing full kit to someone tapping out a beat on one drum.

I've heard stories of various smarmy record label types who would come onto a session, sing a few notes that would never be used, and get compensated for it, out of the band's budget and with the union if they were a member! Love the record business...

Looking over various BB AFM sheets, I get the impression Brian used to add names in order to send some extra $$$ someone's way: for example, Chuck Britz is listed as 'leader' on a few (which brought him double union scale on top of his salary from United Western), as is Diane, despite neither of them playing an instrument.

Was it the horn players for 'George Fell' that he wanted to pay extra for 'singing', because of them talking or 'singing' into their instruments?

Ha yeah I think Simon Cowell has done this

The session tape for "Holidays" proves Dennis was playing drums on that session (which BTW was in circulation long before the AFM contract was).  Carl is also on that one (probably bass), as well as a few others.

speaking of fire...

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=590333984303&oid=34250497240

COOL. 

Diane would have been legit, if she were in fact the contractor for the session, which amounted to calling the musicians or their answering service to book them for the gig. That job did get paid a union scale, and if Hal Blaine got the band together he'd collect whatever he made as a musician (eventually double scale just for him and his drums to show up) and a scale payment for being the contractor. Basically if one were generous, and to the point where it wasn't outright fraud, you could list anyone as contractor to get them the extra cash.

I wondered, was Chuck Britz in the musician's union or was he in the electrician's union, or could he be in both?

The Monkees got into some trouble when they credited their engineer Hank Cicalo with writing a song (No Time), as a similar "gift" where he really did nothing! He made enough on the song for a down payment on his house, he claims.

For Chuck to be listed on the AFM contract, he would have to have been a member of the Musicians Union.  FYI, around the time of the Party! sessions, Brian began the habit of listing the engineer(s) on the AFM contract (Chuck, Bo David, Larry, Jim Hilton), and that tradition continued for some time.  Also the contractors (Diane, later Jon Parks).

From the book "Skydog" by Randy Poe:
"In truth, the actual number of composers who contributed to Layla (although offically credited to Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon) might be closer to half a dozen- not only because of the interpolation of "As the Years Go Passing By (the first few notes of the melody became the opening riff to Layla, as played by Duane) but also due to the question of how many people were involved in the creation of the piano piece that makes up the second half of the song. Along with Jim Gordon, two other writers are said to have contributed. "Rita Coolidge wrote that, when we were still with Delaney and Bonnie, up in John Garfield Jr.'s guest house," says Bobby Whitlock. It was a song called 'Time.' The melody was actually a song, but Jim Gordon ripped it off." And according to another source, saxophonist Jim Hord deserves at least partial credit for the piece as well".

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=456175&page=3

I just saw Chuck was a member of Local 47 - I was just wondering since some engineers were members of the electricians' union, I guess depending on where they were working. I've seen Bones Howe credited as well on the musician's list on AFM contracts but not many other engineers/producers unless they played an instrument. I guess Brian was throwing a bone to Chuck that way.

It's interesting how those contracts were filed: the amount of people getting credited could have included the leader, the contractor, the arranger, and the copyist, among others. I've seen musicians take both the leader and contractor payment on AFM sheets besides musician credit, as well as a member of the horn section taking copyist credit if it wasn't done through Bob Ross' business (he pops up too as a member of Local 47), and a musician taking arranger/leader credit as well despite not playing on the date.

I'm wondering if the vocal session sheets show Brian as "arranger", where he'd get paid for it, and I'm also wondering who he'd usually give copyist credit to on his Wrecking Crew dates. It was either Steve Douglas or Hal leading the session...my point being it would be giving a bonus to whoever they chose to credit.

I might be remembering wrong, but I think quite a few Beach Boys sessions are actually noted as having "no arranger or copyist this session" or something to that effect.  Actually, it would not be hard for me to check.  *Goes to check*  Yeah, I was right, verbatim.

Pleeease do not mention that name on this board! Pure scum.  >:( ;D

I saw that too, I guess I was thinking out loud that if Brian had listed Chuck Britz just to throw some money his way, why not list whoever in the horn section transcribed Brian's ideas into notation for the session? I've seen names like Roy Caton appear in this capacity, on non-Brian session sheets. Copyist Bob Ross even shows up on more than one AFM contract I've seen, but that would be something where an outside copyist was needed to prepare charts beforehand where Brian, in my understanding, would work out the parts on the studio floor a lot of times.