The Smiley Smile Message Board

Anyone have any thoughts as to why the Reggie Dunbar credit happened? As well, on Murry's solo album, there were uncredited Brian contributions too.

I'd venture to guess it was because Murry had become infamous (both internally between industry folk at sessions like Help Me Rhonda, as well as externally by songs like I'm Bugged at My Old Man), and Brian didn't want to advertise his collaboration necessarily... and because Murry wanted to prove he could do things without his son's help. Any other theories?

My understanding is that Murry chose the Reggie Dunbar pseudonym himself. Which raises an interesting point - despite his well-known megalomania and utter control-freak persona, Murry seems to have been rather coy about getting credit for his actual contributions to the BB's music: in addition to the "Breakaway" example, I'm thinking of how Murry fought to get producer credit for Brian starting with the third album, yet he himself continued to "serve" as Brian's uncredited co-producer for many sessions to come. Apparently he wasn't as interested in making that fact well-known as he was in steering the BBs career as he saw fit.

What exactly were Brian's uncredited contributions to The Many Moods of Murry, and what is the source for that info?

Brian produced Al's tune Italia .

I thought it was Sergio Franchi, the popular ,MOR 1960's opera singer who produced Italia.

I have to ask for a clarification on this, especially the line in bold. Where is proof of this fact that Murry was Brian's co-producer on these many sessions? Down the line of those involved, from Britz to Venet and others who were involved, the consensus was that Brian was clearly running the show as far as actually making the records and making the decisions of what to sing and play along with other studio decisions. In other words, he was producing the Beach Boys' sessions. Murry on the other hand would waste more of the time giving his pep talks, spouting various orders to Chuck Britz that had no musical or production merit, randomly turning knobs and trying to "mix" these records the way he thought they should sound after Brian already arranged and wrote the songs and got them on tape...and that led to the studio legend that someone finally rigged up a fake console so Murry could twiddle away and turn all the knobs and throw all the switches he wanted just to keep him out of the way of the actual work.

Important to note, and he can say it better obviously, Stephen Desper said when Murry dropped in on sessions when he was recording the band in the late 60's, Murry would act the same way, barking orders like "Surge!" as the mix and session was happening. It added nothing to the process other than being the same distraction it was on the earlier dates with Chuck Britz.

I guess it comes down to not quite getting just yet the claim of how much Murry "co produced" with Brian, and that's why I'm asking for a clarification.

Also, we can pretty closely date the timeline of when Murry was out as the band's hands-on manager, the breaking point was at an I Get Around session which would have been late in '63. But even on the sessions leading up to that point, again on the word of people like Chuck Britz and Nik Venet (who was Capitol's assigned A&R person on the earliest dates), it was clear that Brian had the ideas and was the one who was leading the sessions and calling the shots, and early on getting a lot of hands-on experience and learning from Chuck Britz as far as mixing and other studio techniques. If anything Murry was a distraction and as that soon became clear to the pros who were there, they simply tuned him out or would find ways to work around him as he did his thing, and the real ideas and drive was coming from Brian all along.

Did Murry have input in the music? Yes. But to credit co-producer status to him when those involved in making those records Brian was writing and producing pretty much say across the board he was more of a distraction and a pain in the ass than an actual help to the sessions...it doesn't seem to ring true.

And all of these many sessions to follow where Murry went uncredited apparently, where is Murry on the tapes? If anyone is in charge and calling the shots, it's Brian, and for anyone else involved in making the decisions besides that it was Brian working together with Chuck Britz as producers and engineers do.

The fact that Murry's presence in the studio could have generated a necessity to make a fake console so he'd stay out of the way of the actual record-making process says as much about his role in the studio as producer as perhaps any other studio legend. Brian knew how to create and cut a record and how to bring it to life, and working alongside pros like Chuck Britz engineering they made hit after hit. Murry didn't have that skill, as a writer or as a producer, which is why Brian rightfully gets the credit.

Another perspective on Murry in the studio from Hal Blaine, excerpt from and credit to the original author and interviewer at this link: http://www.steve-escobar.com/?p=13 (http://www.steve-escobar.com/?p=13)

Excerpt:
SE:   So when you started doing sessions for the Beach Boys, how long did it take before you knew that there was something a lot more here to these guys?

HB:   When we first went in to work with Brian . . . And Brian was a sweetheart, and, of course, his father, was unfortunately an asshole.  In the beginning it was very infantile.  I had already begun working with the Lettermen, the Hi-Lo’s, the Four Freshmen, you know, these people who sang so beautifully. And to me, we didn’t hear guys that sang that falsetto like Brian would be singing.  If Brian wanted to record a song, and we would hear Brian singing way up here, we’d just look at each other and say, what the hell is this? We had no idea that what we were doing (laughs) would thirty years later become unbelievable!  Of course, through the years, I was Brian’s drummer and went through the whole thing with him.  The drugs, the divorce, and everything the poor guy went through.  And then all of a sudden he finally started to come out of it, thank goodness.

SE:   So I guess you had to deal with Murray, huh?

HB:   Well, for a little while, then we was thrown out.

SE:   Was he a pain in the ass to the other musicians also?

HB:   Not necessarily to us.  He didn’t have a lot to say to us.  He respected what we were doing, but he didn’t like what Brian was doing.  He didn’t want things to be done the way Brian did things.  Murray had one record that he wrote one time that Lawrence Welk recorded. and   That’s the way Murray thought everyone should be recording – the way Lawrence Welk recorded. And that’s the way he thought everyone should be recording, the way Lawrence Welk recorded. I never got to tell Murray, but I did albums with Lawrence Welk, and it wasn’t like what Murray was talking about at all.  Lawrence wanted to be part of the whole rock ’n’ roll thing, too.  You’ve got to remember that all of this music was brand new, and Murray was used to the ’30’s, the ’40’s, and all of a sudden, twenty or thirty years later he still wants to  do music that way, and it just wasn’t done that way anymore!  But Brian couldn’t convince him of that, and they were always fighting.  We would just sit there while they argued.

SE:   (laughs)

HB:  And finally, Brian got rid of his Dad.  And that’s it.

SE:   I’ve got that long tape of recording in the studio with the guys and he  sounded drunk.

HB:   He was always drunk.  I could always smell liquor on his breath.  A lot of people said he really didn’t drink.  Well, it never happened that  way when I was there. Then, when he was thrown out (so to speak), he went out and hired another group and we started doing records with this group, The Sunrays.  They had, I don’t know, part of a hit record or two, but they did records just like Brian!  I mean, Murray was producing the way that Brian would be producing.  It was so silly.


The way Hal described Murry is enlightening in several ways. The part about Murry wanting to make records like Lawrence Welk really stands out and helps define what was happening (and I can imagine Murry lecturing and hectoring Brian on this point, using terms like 'make clean, honest records like Welk does, Brian...'). Murry thought producing records like Welk was the way to do it, and it was antiquated especially for the target audiences this music was being aimed at. All the time Murry wanted Brian to make Beach Boys records like Welk, those people actually producing Welk's records wanted to make records like *Brian* was producing for the Beach Boys, to appeal to the younger audiences who would buy them and who would hear them on the radio. And Murry just did not get that point at all, but what is fortunate is that Brian actually made those hit records which defined the band as he wanted to make them...keep in mind the "Help Me Rhonda" session where Brian asks Murry "so you want the 409 sound on Help Me Rhonda?", as well as the fact that when Murry got shown the door by the BB's and actually did produce another band, he made a Sunrays record that sounded like Brian Wilson produced it, as Hal also said.

Murry was manager until he got removed from that, he still ran the publishing and business/financial affairs around Sea Of Tunes, he may have given advice when asked, but Brian Wilson produced those records.

That's what I meant when I put quotation marks around "serving" - I should have also put them around "co-producer". But whether welcome or not, Murry was very involved in the making of most of the band's records from 1963-mid '64 (excluding the ones Venet was involved with). Just listen to all the sessions on the various SOT discs that cover that era: Murry is definitely "producing" the band by telling them what to do from behind the glass while they do it out in the room. Was he a natural "musical" producer like Brian, or someone with the technical skills of Chuck? No. Was he a natural "boss" that stopped and started takes 'til the band delivered what he wanted them to? Yes. With that in mind, I find it somewhat surprising that he didn't insist on a co-producer credit for himself.

I wonder if Murry was at the Help Me, Ronda (Today version) session, because the whole back-and-forth surging volume in the outro is very odd, and I don't think it works quite properly. Almost seems like an idea that would have been Murry's during mixing, but perhaps not.

It is odd. Perhaps with Murry already making money from Sea of Tunes, he wanted to drill the idea into Brian of intentionally not letting others who add occasional input get credit. Especially after the Nik Venet issue, where Nik's contributions appear to have been overstated in terms of how he was credited. If it was indeed Murry's brainchild to deprive Mike of credits for Mike's contributions, at least it seems that for whatever reason, Murry was consistent about depriving contributors of credits when feasible, including for Murry's own credits himself.

To me, that fade-out, fade-in idea could only have come from the genius mind of Brian Wilson. I've always really dug it! But then, I'm in the very small minority who actually prefer that version of "Ronda" to the more popular, hit version of "Rhonda". To me, the first version is more like a polished "Brian production", whereas the second version is more "garage-band" like. But, it was a #1 single, as opposed to a mere album cut, so what do I know? :)

Despite the fade, I generally kinda prefer Ronda to Rhonda also! Same for the album cut of Be True to Your School. Often the original can't be beat.

When did Hal Blaine begin working with the BBs?

At the latest, July 1963 - see http://esquarterly.com/bellagio/gigs63.html
AGD ref.

I think May '63.

Did he work much with them until a year later?

I'm with you there ... No way anyone other than BW came up with that fade ... Simply because it's really bizarre, especially in the context of early 1965 pop. I always took it as the first sign of "drug music".

Hal played drums on such '63 tracks as "Surfer Moon" and "Our Car Club", but those were both cut with other artists in mind, becoming BBs tracks later. He accompanied the group on timbales for "Hawaii", and I believe he drummed on the single version of "Be True To Your School", which has Wrecking Crewmanship written all over it.

The credit "produced by Brian Wilson" was and is accurate, that's why Murry or no one else got that credit on those releases. On the earliest Capitol material, Nik Venet's name had to be there because that's the way the business was at that time - the label A&R man got that credit because that was the system, especially with a band both in and barely out of their teens, in the days before the "producer" role was defined as more of what Brian was doing than Venet was doing with the BB's. But even Venet knew as soon as it started to roll that Brian was the hands-on guy behind the sounds, not him, not Murry. No one else was getting those sounds - and the fact Capitol allowed this young guy to go to an outside indie studio rather than the Capitol tower even at that young age says a lot: The line was, if Brian could deliver those sounds elsewhere (i.e. Western), we're OK with it. Pretty amazing to buck the corporate studio structure like that, especially at that age, and it wasn't based on Murry's studio pep talks, incessant barking, and ballyhoo salesmanship or anything else - It was the sounds Brian was soon delivering to his label. Hit records that made money for the label.

No matter how much Murry barked orders and tried to futz with the mixes, the guy who had the talent, vision and ran the actual show in the studio was Brian. Consider that Help Me Rhonda session everyone has heard: Murry was invited to come down to the session after being fired as hands-on manager. It seems like he couldn't control his own impulses that day and started slipping back into the behavior that got him kicked out of the recording process in the first place. Did he add anything to what Brian was already doing by barking orders at the guys through the talkback? Did his pep talks and hectoring to "sing from your heart" and half-baked praise contribute anything to the process which was already up and running as Brian was producing yet another hit single to be? Absolutely nothing. He was a distraction. He tried to exert whatever control and power he thought he had over the recording process, and it was all empty bellowing. They laughed at him and mocked him.

Is there any reason to doubt that what we hear from Murry on that tape, combined with what Desper said he did even years later than this by yelling "surge here!" as the actual work was being done, was anything beyond the way he acted a majority of the time in the studio? Or if someone takes that Rhonda tape, all 40 minutes of it that got out, as an example, would they assume Murry was producing the session because he was both the loudest and the most frequent voice heard over the talkback? It was all bluster and throwing a power trip around as the actual work was being done, work that led to a successful single with Brian Wilson producing as he saw fit. All of Murry's talk was pointless.

Just as pointless as Murry's knob-twiddling and "mixing" work that amounted to him getting a fake console to play with while Brian and Chuck did the actual work of writing, arranging, producing and mixing hit records. Murry liked to hear himself talk, and even more he liked to throw a power trip on his son(s) whose talent he may have been more jealous of than we even know he was.

"Produced by Brian Wilson", credited as such because it's accurate.

Slightly off-topic, but how and when did the infamous Help Me Rhonda  tape with Murray lecturing everybody on it, leak out? Was that from the SOT boots, or separate from those? I can only imagine what the public reaction must've been like at the time when that tape finally went public.

Also, in the Help Me Rhonda session, Brian's very controlled patience and repetition of "times have changed" sounds to me like someone who's been going through exactly that scenario for a few years. It's not new. Brian sounds like he's been trying to get his dad to back off and recognize that times have changed, musically, for a while.

Nick Venet told Murry the label would no longer pay for anymore sessions outside of Capitol's own studios, so Murry made a deal with Nick contingent on the chart performance of the very next 45 - Little Deuce Coupe (which was recorded outside).  If it went top 10 Nick would back-off and pay for the session, if it did not make top 10 Murry would have to get Brian to return to Capitol's studios (because in the final analysis it'd be Murry who'd have to foot the recording bill out of publishing royalties).  Murry won and Nick didn't bring up the subject again (or at least for another 4 years, at which time Murry was no longer involved in those matters).

Why Brian Wilson & Murry Wilson didn't have co-producer credits on the record labels - because simply it'd look stupid.  Murry knew this intuitively

So basically Capitol was OK with Brian using outside studios as long as he delivered hit records for Capitol...just like I said. When the singles were sounding as good as they had been since the band's first Capitol release Surfin Safari/409 which was cut at Western, and Brian wanted to cut at Western instead of Capitol's tower, it was hard to argue with the results.

I don't get the line about producer's credit...are you saying Murry should have gotten credit in your opinion? What Murry knew intuitively played out quite well in the way he handled the band's finances and screwed over his own family. As far as talent and ability, Murry could bark orders and turn fake knobs all he wanted while Brian actually produced the records.

Credit where credit is due - Murry was their manager, he didn't get a producer credit because he didn't deserve one. "Produced by Brian Wilson", that's accurate.

there's contention that on the early recordings Murry could've claimed co-producer credit--that's the issue of this topic discussion--if he'd wanted to assert himself there.  Brian was a neophyte and Murry had to facilitate his sons' songwriting & recording desires insofar as possible.  Although things changed before too long Brian was more comfortable having Murry at the sessions too,  so his input may or may not've warranted co-producer credit sometimes.  Fortunately I think, he didn't pursue this.  Murry agreed that recording at studios completely of their own choosing (instead of @ Capitol) was beneficial as it gave them unique control of the final recorded product--provided Capitol footed the bill (the spectre hanging over Murry's head was getting the session bills forwarded to him for SOT to pay).  If Murry had lost and recording returned to Capitol's studios then we'd almost certainly see nothing but albums with 1 hit single plus 10 filler tracks--the usual formula then.  

My impression was that the choice to record outside of Capitol was driven primarily by the fact that the Capitol studio was a big orchestra studio that didn't work well for BB music.
Getting away from the suits may have contributed, but I don't think Capitol was at that point saying that if you are in Capitol studios you must use Capitol producers and have a Capitol selected track listing. I think that these are sort of separate little battles, not one big deal.  And, regarding the bills going to SOT, properly the vast majority of that would've been Brian's money, not Murry's. Properly, Murry would've just been supporting Brian and the band by performing some legal functions and helping where he could, but then backing off. That's a parent's job. ETA: That's a parent's job when the offspring are that age and pursuing adult functions in the "real world"

Was "409" produced by Murry?

As per c-man, what do the tapes show, if anything?

Producer is a loose term that can cover a range of activities with the recording process.  George Martin's main role as he defined it was to work with Lennon and McCartney on the songs, making arrangement suggestions and adding keyboard parts and orchestral parts.  In addition he had input into what singles were released and determined the song sequence on albums and what songs were included.

On the other end of the range is Tom Wilson, Dylan's producer.  He suggested and hired musicians to play with Dylan and rolled tape, stopped takes if there was a mistake or technical problem, and that was it.  Slating takes was his main contribution.

Murry definitely had ideas as to the sound he wanted on the early records - listen to him on the Surger Girl album sessions telling Carl and David to go up on the treble control on their guitars, he wanted lots of top end - unfortunate now that we have the SACD mono mixes on CD because they are painfully bright.  Input into the songwriting - probably nil.  Input into the singing delivery and what constituted a good take - probably a fair amount, but it's unclear if that input was ever taken seriously by Brian or just tolerated and ignored.  I suspect early on Brian may have paid more attention to his dad's feedback than later but who knows, that's not something we can determine.

My point?  I think there have been credited producers that have had less impact on the music than Murry did at the beginning, so it is not unreasonable to ask why Murry never wanted a credit.  With his role in Sea of Tunes it was unnecessary?  He wanted to give his feedback but didn't want the responsibility of producer where he no doubt knew he was out of his depth?  The whole fight to give Brian the credit for producing and removing Nik Venet would seem a little hypocritical if he was to try and then attach his name as co- producer?

With Capitol studios, there was the idea that artists signed to Capitol would record in "the tower", for reasons financial and otherwise. The Capitol studio was fairly new in 1962, it had just opened in the mid 50's. To make a long story shorter, Capitol's bread and butter was Frank Sinatra in the 50's, along with Nat King Cole. Sinatra was actually the first artist to officially "open" the studio in a well publicized event, but he didn't sing. In a bit of PR hoopla, Sinatra actually conducted an instrumental session as the first session held in the new studio, I believe it was called Tone Poems Of Color, I'll need to look that up.

By the late 50's, Sinatra cut ties with Capitol. Not just that, but Sinatra started his own label "Reprise", began to cut records exclusively for Reprise, and got his fellow Rat Pack buddies like Dean and Sammy to start cutting records for his new Reprise label. Beyond THAT - and this is where it kind of ties into the Beach Boys later - Sinatra along with Bing Crosby funded an engineer from the Chicago area named Bill Putnam when he acquired United studios and then Western soon after. So as the young Beach Boys went into Western to cut those first records with Chuck Britz, and some soon after, they were basically going into the studio that was their own label's rival, not to mention what I'm sure were hard feelings both political and financial with their former artist Frank Sinatra who had basically left them holding the bag after taking what could have been at least half of their income from the previous decade with him when he started his own competitor label Reprise and bankrolled a competitor studio in Putnam's United/Western acquisition.

So there could have been some reasons beyond the surface if you consider that side of it.

The fact that Brian preferred to cut records at Western, made better sounding records at Western, had more freedom at Western because it was an indie and not beholden to strict union rules as far as the staff engineers worked, and was delivering hits pretty consistently after a certain point was almost a no-brainer. And as long as it was bringing in money to Capitol, and giving them a "teen" act to promote on their roster and make money on that scene, the leverage was in favor of the Beach Boys.

It was an important component to both the sound of the records and the way they were made, because in the "old guard" union system that staff engineers worked, a "kid" like Brian wouldn't be able to work as hands-on with an engineer as he did with Chuck Britz. That was a *key* element in how Brian developed his skills in the studio. If it were done solely at Capitol with Venet overseeing everything, there would have been hits but not the longevity and creative growth that happened with Brian's producing and music in general in the years 63-66, as mentioned.

If anything Murry was the manager and the "adult" in the room which gave Capitol some reassurance that they weren't going to be financing a bunch of kids partying in their studios and wasting time. As soon as they heard what Brian could do,m and how he was putting these songs together to record them, it became clear this guy was special, and he had the talent to see these records through. It wasn't Murry - of anything, in the earliest days Capitol saw him as the guy giving them the hard sell in favor of his kids' band, as things played out over the first year into the second, it became clear as well that Murry was more of a distraction and a hindrance to the process, as Hal Blaine said "a pain in the ass".

Murry did not have the talent or the skills to produce a record like Brian did. He could bark orders, he could schmooze executives with his salesmanship, but when it came time to getting a song idea through the whole process into having a final fully mixed production for the label to press and sell, he didn't have the ability. Which is why trying to suggest he should have gotten a production credit, to me, makes no sense.

He was the business side of it, no one denies that. But his ability to produce records as his son seemed to have a natural gift for doing (with one ear, no less...) was lacking.

Wait. I'm sorry but was "Surger Girl" an intentionally hilarious pun (in which case - hilarious!) or was it a typo?

Thanks for the great elucidation, GuitarFool.

Replying to Bicyclerider's post about the role of "producer", it's important to note that a band or an artist in general producing their own records was pretty rare in the early 60's, if not unheard of. The corporate structure of the music business, especially labels, was that when an artist was signed to the label, that artist would be assigned to a producer. The title itself in those days was more often "A&R", as in artist and repertoire. It was the position in the label that was the liaison between those artists and the label execs who would make sure the artist delivered something to that label in return for their investment.

But Brian Wilson, I'd argue, was one of the first in a major label situation to come into that structure as both producer and member of the group, in other words the Beach Boys were a self-contained act. The A&R man didn't need to scout out demos of songs he'd think were right for the band to record, he didn't need to hire arrangers and other musical roles to bring the songs to life...with Brian you had a guy who produced, arranged, and wrote the songs too.

In our more modern terms, he was one of the earliest "producers" using the job description we know it to be. In terms of 1962-63, there were very, very few artists who were as self-contained and handled all those roles which were usually doled out to different people, under the control of what in 1962-63 would be the "producer" or A&R exec. In Beach Boys terms, that was Venet on those earliest examples, doing what was then the expected job duties. But in terms of making the records, it didn't take long for Brian to do what we think of a producer doing in the studio in modern terminology...and Venet was out of the picture, and "produced by Brian Wilson" became one of the band's calling cards.

I never cease to be amazed at the speed and proficiency of BW's self-education in composition, arranging and production. Just prodigious and astounding.

in the Made In California booklet Murry is in fact given producer credit there on the early recordings, like '409' (his name was not on the original Capitol 409 45)

Murry's studio abilities were lacking, but Brian's abilities initially were only in vocal arrangements (where he blew everyone else out of the water) and songwriting (to a degree).  They worked as a team (Murry & Brian) in the studio initially until Brian got the chops to do all things a producer should do himself (at which point Murry was fired, an inelegant exit but perhaps gradual was not Brian's way).  Brian was less than articulate for a time so Murry 'helped' fill the silence with his paternal comments welcome or not

You sound like you have intimate information that could only be gleaned by someone "on the spot."  Was that the case?

I suppose I s/b flattered my informed outlook is considered by someone intimate, but I assure you it can be gleaned otherwise

Ok. Just checking. You never know!

So what exactly didn't Murry get credit for that you think he should have gotten, if there are any?

Brian had the chops and was developing them constantly well before Murry got fired. It's interesting to trace some of that development by listening to the artists and song Brian was writing and producing outside the Beach Boys. He had more freedom to experiment on those.

[/quote]

So what exactly didn't Murry get credit for that you think he should have gotten, if there are any?


[/quote]


I think the original question was: did Murry think he should have gotten credit, or did Murry attempt to get credit?

those exact answers are unavailable, though the point already has been well-made that nominal producers have been so credited on records although their input apparently was less valuable than Murry's

Brian liked to have Murry around in the studio (apparently even after his firing, or should I say dismissal) but as he grew he liked it less and less.  Nothing terribly outrageous there.

Other artists that Brian produced then did not have hits as good as those recordings were, unfortunate but unfortunately also a telling point.  Because Murry was omitted from the recording process of those I wouldn't go so far as to say

modifying my post (due to an intervening one), call it a firm belief if you want but I'd say Murry never sought any formal production credit even if his input approached the 50/50 threshold (on this song or that)

Was Murry producing the Sunrays beginning Summer/Fall 1964?

I interpret the evidence as indicating Brian trying really hard to get his dad's approval and to maintain a relationship with him, rather than Brian appreciating his production efforts.

yes, but I also think Murry wanted to maintain a relationship at least as much.  if not production efforts, Brian liked it when Murry particularly dug one of his new compositions

M
My guess is that Murry thought of Brian as an extension of himself and didn't need to seek credit. Brian was Murry to Murry. Once Brian pulled away as an individual, he retaliated when he could with the sale of Sea of Tunes.

As Peter Reum has written in his blog, The Beach Boys was a family business. Anyone who has been involved in that particular dynamic knows there are hidden landmines.

Perhaps the two incidents are completely isolated, unrelated, and mutually exclusive, but I still do ponder if Murry's mindset of Murry himself apparently not seeking credit (which seems somewhat out of character from what I would imagine of him, considering how much he wanted to interject himself into the process, and show how much he was needed for success to happen) could have played into how Murry apparently desired to not properly credit Mike for Mike's contributions. Was he seeking to vicariously live through Brian and keep every possible non-Brian credit out of the mix, even himself and family like Mike?

It's easy to think that Murry sought to simply make things better for Brian's pocketbooks by excluding Mike, but it is really an odd coincidence, at least in my estimation. Could there be more to it? It is hard to understand many of Murry's actions, of course. I just think that if one believes that Murry excluded Mike out of greed to benefit the Wilsons, why didn't Murry try to get Murry's own name credited (and not as a pseudonym) when possible? If Breakaway had been a hit, wouldn't Murry have wanted his own name on it, if only for bragging rights?

One would think that at *some* point along the way, Murry's actual name would have popped up on a BB credit. I wonder if Brian or the other Boys deeply did not want Murry's name on the credits for Breakaway, as well as some of the early material, which I feel Murry could possibly have finagled a way to get a co-producing credit (properly earned or not) if he had really set his mind to it, Nik Venet-style. Not that Murry had the record company clout and political power of Venet necessarily, but I still think it could possibly have been done on a song or two.

sorry double post everyone

CD......very thoughtful and insightful post.  Personally I truly think you have hit the nail on the head as to why friction started in this band so long long ago.  I always wondered why it took Mike until 1990-ish to file a lawsuit claiming music credits he felt he deserved in the early 1960's and was never paid for.  We're talking over 25 years !!!  The current Mike is obviously smart enough to realize what he obviously missed in the 60's era.  In the 60's, I truly believe Mike was more enamored with the  "extras" from touring....ie...women...parties (tho he didn't drink back then :-) and maybe even fathering children out of wedlock, than he was to truly understand how the music business worked .  Yes Murry was a pain to all of them, but to think he truly looked at himself as Brian..so far as to protect Brian's future earnings stream going forward and shutting Mike out, seems very rational and believable to me.....For what its worth.

Here's my point - Murry assumed control of many Beach Boys sessions (most, in fact) from '62-early '64 (excluding the Venet Capitol Studios sessions), and bossed the band around. He called the shots as far as whether a take was good enough to proceed, or whether they had to start over again. This is true for both instrumental tracks and vocal overdubs, as can be heard on both the SOT series AND the officially-released session excerpts. As others have stated, Brian was probably OK with this at first (and the Wilson Bros. definitely took Murry's side in the battle against Venet), but by early '64, the BBs had had enough of Murry in every professional sense (except, apparently, his running of Sea Of Tunes Publishing - either that, or they couldn't legally remove him from that role).

Did Murry deserve a co-producer credit? Well, probably as much as Landy deserved an Executive Producer credit on Brian's first solo album: whether what Landy did was ethical, practical, or even welcomed is beside the point here - the things he said and did during the production of that album, IMO, do indeed warrant that title (in fact, there's plenty of people who think it could have been a better album without his behind-the-scenes meddling - which speaks to the impact his involvement had on the final product). But I don't think Landy was in the control booth, dictating the proceedings during takes the way Murry often was (at least, there's no evidence of that). And by "proceedings", I'm not talking about the technicalities of reverb, EQ, compression, limiting, etc. - I'm talking about "OK, guys, you can do better - treble up those amps - pick up the pace, you're retarding - enunciate more" - that kind of thing - over and over, for every take. On a recording session, if someone is calling the shots to that extent, they are in fact acting as "producer' (or co-producer), whether they are credited or not. And, Brian and Carl have both been quoted as saying Murry helped produce their early records.

The role of record producer can involve many things, but for the most part it can be seen as the equivalent of a movie director, which in itself can involve different roles, but basically the director is the guy or gal who has the overall artistic vision of the movie (like Brian), as well as the person who stops and starts takes, and coaches the actors on their performances (like Brian, and also like Murry when he was there). Most big movies also have a "director of cinematography", which is a more technical role, as well as, of course, cameramen, who can be compared to recording studio engineers. And then there's the administrative side of record production - I laughed and shook my head in disbelief when I read Gary Usher's assertion in "The Wilson Project" that Brian wasn't actually serving as co-producer on their mid-'80s collaborations because he didn't know or care anything about scheduling, budgets, etc. By this time, most big-name record producers had "production assistants" who looked after all those mundane tasks, leaving them to focus on the music: Usher should have known that, and accepted that as his role in the partnership, while understanding that Brian was co-producing with him in a musical sense. If they had scored a major-label deal, they could have hired themselves a production assistant, and Gary wouldn't have had to do all those administrative duties, either.

One last thought - after the BBs fired Murry as their manager, he stayed away from their sessions, but only for awhile. He was back in the booth for some of the Today! vocal sessions ("Do You Wanna Dance", "Please Let Me Wonder", "In The Back Of My Mind"), again calling the shots, and three years later, he did so again on some sessions for the Friends album. Since he was no longer their manager at that time, how can one characterize his involvement in those sessions, other than as co-producer? And what did he do on the "Break Away" session to actually score a co-producer credit that was more substantial than what he did on those earlier sessions?

I agree with c-man, the only thing like evidence so far shows Murry's role was more than manager and that he was at least a co-producer for some period. It seems to me he could act as a producer and did which is also corroborated by the Sunrays.

Cam - The Sunrays thought Murry walked on water. Which is somewhat expected since he basically took them out of high school and got them in a professional recording studio and elevated them into a different level of the music business with the sole (devious) purpose of sticking it to his sons who had fired him. Murry wanted to make a surf band that would be "better" and more successful than the band who had fired him and didn't appreciate the "good advice" he had given them. So the Sunrays got some records released, but as Brian was alleged to have said, by the time Murry got the Sunrays out there surf music of the type Murry wanted them to do was already passe and pop music was moving forward.

As Hal Blaine said, Murry was often lecturing Brian on the way records should be made, and wanted it to go more like the way he thought Lawrence Welk made records. Then when Murry actually did fully produce a band, he made a Sunrays record that sounded more like what his son Brian had already done and basically trademarked as a "sound" several years earlier. So Murry was again behind the times and didn't even seem to get the point that by the time the Sunrays records came out, it had, as Brian said, already been done and was passe, especially as fast as trends in pop music were moving at that time. Brian looked ahead, Murry looked back. Who ended up being right?

The Sunrays' most famous single made it to around #50 on the charts, and that was it. Meanwhile Brian was one of the most talked about *PRODUCERS* in the years 1964-65-66 with a handful of top-5 records and now legendary albums to his credit, done on his terms while Murry still wanted to ride the wild surf with a group of high-school age musicians from the neighborhood. So much for Murry's plan to go one better on his son. Brian was right.

Harsh but true.

If barking orders and giving commands and saying whether something was good or not as takes were being done warrants a production credit, then by listening to that Help Me Rhonda tape (to use an example that has been more widely heard and discussed) it could be shown that Murry should get a credit as producer on that record. Right?

But consider Brian invited him down to the session (all of that talk and details are in conversations on that tape) not to produce but to watch the proceedings. And what does Murry do? He lapses into the same behavior that caused him to get fired at the earlier sessions. Sure, he's the loudest, he's the most frequently heard voice on the tape, and he's throwing in all kinds of opinions about the performances.

And as I said before, no one is paying attention or taking in anything the guy was barking at them. They were mocking him.

Yet, what he's doing on that tape falls into the definition C-Man offered above as far as what would warrant a producer credit. Even though he's not actually "producing" anything except hot air, and bad vibes that day...and most anyone who hears it cringes at what an asshole he sounds like and how he's getting to his sons, especially Brian.

Do you think this warrants a producer credit on Help Me Rhonda based on Murry *trying* to call the shots that day? And in terms of the behavior he exhibited on that tape, consider that the type of empty bellowing we hear from Murry as he thinks he's producing or calling the shots at the session was more the rule rather than the exception.

I see nothing that would warrant giving a guy who showed up at sessions and made a nuisance of himself who more often had little or no effect on what actually got recorded and release a producer credit.

Brian Wilson earned the credit, he gets the credit. Murry gets the reputation he deserves.

GF - I can clearly remember first hearing a few measures of The Sunrays on the radio, and thinking "for a second" - that they were the "Boys," but within a half minute knew they were a wannabe "copycat" outfit.  They lacked the "vocal subtlety" of the BB's, the vocal quality of the blend, and were sort of "processed"  (we won't use "that" word.)  And, you (and Brian) are correct; it was already passe.  :lol

One of the most telling moments on that Help Me Rhonda tape (and that gets referenced so often because it is one of the few unfiltered examples of dialogue between Murry and Brian) is where Brian asks Murry this:

"So you want the 409 sound on Help Me Rhonda?"

And the answer was obviously *yes* based on Murry's Sunrays records. Which again is also ironic because when Brian was doing the sound Murry carbon-copied for the Sunrays, Murry thought Brian should be making records the way Lawrence Welk made them.

I'd be surprised if more than that was necessary to show how Murry on a most basic level just didn't get it, despite all his talk and bluster.

Surfin' Safari was a three way combination of Brian, Murry and Venet producing, after that it was essentially all Brian with Murry just getting in the way of things.

Weren't the Sunrays an established band by the time Murry "discovered" them?  Not that familiar with The Sunrays.

I hear you, but none of that disqualifies Murry as a co-producer "barking orders and giving commands" on some of the BBs records, even if sometimes the Boys considered some of his co-producing as passe.  Maybe someone will come up with something definitive as to whether Murry was or was not a sometimes co-producer.


 

Would the word of Chuck Britz be considered definitive?

An excerpt from Chuck Britz talking about the first sessions they did at Western, with Murry, Audree, and Gary Usher also in attendance:

"As far as producing, indirectly Brian was producing everything even at that early stage. As far as I'm concerned the total commitment of producing was from him. He was beautiful, an all-American kid who knew what he wanted and was pretty sure of himself."

Sounds definitive to me from the guy who was as close to Brian in the studio process as anyone. And this was on the 409/Surfin Safari demo material before Venet and Capitol even got involved.

OK. We’ve got quotes from Britz, Desper and Blaine that Murry was not constructively producing (eta: and Venet if you want to credit that). I’ve not seen any quotes from anyone actually involved saying that Murry did anything constructive, production-wise. Are there any?
C-man makes a strong argument based on session tapes but where c-man says "...And by 'proceedings', I'm not talking about the technicalities of reverb, EQ, compression, limiting, etc. - I'm talking about 'OK, guys, you can do better - treble up those amps - pick up the pace, you're retarding - enunciate more' - that kind of thing - over and over, for every take. On a recording session, if someone is calling the shots to that extent, they are in fact acting as 'producer' (or co-producer), whether they are credited or not. And, Brian and Carl have both been quoted as saying Murry helped produce their early records," I have to think about the difference between calling shots and calling the shots. Were Murry's called shots adhered to? Or were they patiently listened to then ignored? If there's evidence of a significant difference in outcome based on Murry's shots, then this would be production.

Also, there are two posts above that credit Murry with making choices to benefit Brian financially. As Murry extracted money from Sea of Tunes while he was co-owner, and kept the receipt from the sale entirely, and as he, reputedly, had BBs billed for the costs for his solo album (and perhaps his other studio experiments in the 1960s) and as he and Audree separately had substantial housing upgrades during the 1960s, what evidence do you have that he was motivated by a desire to benefit Brian, vs. himself, financially?

I really don’t get why, without significant evidence, people will work so hard to attribute positive actions to people (see earlier Landy threads) for whom there is significant evidence of negative actions. Is it because it’s important to prove that “all people have good in them?”

Not Venet on this session.

I meant Surfin' Safari the album.

Apologies for not being a mind reader.

Wrong - the results of that particular session were junked, and the band returned without Murry the next day to record the final vocals as heard on the record.

But let's just say they HAD used the vocals from that session - the question would then become, how much did they follow Murry's orders on that particular session? If they had followed this orders, then yes, Murry "co-produced" the session. If they didn't, then no. The answer is dependent on the extent to which the person trying to produce actually influenced the results.

For the Surfin' Safari and Surfin' U.S.A. album sessions at Capitol, Murry was not present - he is not heard on the session tapes, and sources have indicated that what would have been his normal place in the control booth was occupied by Venet. For the hit singles, recorded at Western, yes, he was present.

I would definitely credit Brian with co-producing the Capitol sessions along with Venet, even though he received no official credit. The one time they were co-credited with production was on the Honeys' singles - and here's a description of that arrangement: "According to Nik Venet, the earliest Honeys singles were recorded with Venet producing from the control room and Brian directing within the actual studio". (Brad Elliott's book "Surf's Up", pg. 176) From what we hear on the Western session tapes, that's also how it worked with Murry and Brian - Murry giving commands in the booth, Brian directing from the floor.

But, how much "production" was really involved with those BBs Capitol Studios tracks - other than the tone of Carl's and David's amps, the natural sound of Brian's bass, Dennis' drums, Mike's sax, and of course the group vocal blend. I haven't listened to any of those cuts in awhile, so I don't really remember if there was much (or any) reverb added in mixdown compared to the natural ambiance of Capitol's Studio A. So how much was there for the producer to do on those records, anyway? Just making sure the band was tight, which Brian did from the floor, and deciding when a take should stop or start, which was Venet.


 

Emily, to your first point - yes, the band adhered to Murry's commands most of the time on these sessions, in terms of stopping and starting takes, paying smoother or faster, trebling up the amps, etc. Sometimes they did not, like when Brian rejected Murry's suggestion to come in later with the piano on "Fun, Fun, Fun". But Murry still "co-produced" that session, IMO, because he gave orders that were followed.

To your second point - if you're referring to my agreement with Landy's co-producer credit on Brian's first solo album, or with many peoples' assertions that Landy saved Brian's life in a literal sense - sometimes you gotta give the devil his due. Landy was, in many ways, a horrible person, as was Murry. Does that mean they never did any positive things that benefited Brian or the band? No. It is what it is. It's like Manson deserving songwriting credit for "Never Learn Not To Love". He did in fact write the original version of that song, under a different title. Dennis "re-wrote" it, if you will, but Manson in fact wrote it first. He didn't want credit, so he didn't get it. But in reality, he deserved it - despite being the most despicable person to ever cross paths with the band, and one of the most notorious killers in history. I reject everything he stands for. But, objectively, facts are facts!

The producer in terms of the job description Brian held (if not helped define) also has the overall vision for how the final outcome will sound, and in almost every case (and according to other comments from Chuck Britz), that was Brian's deal as well. And from what Chuck witnessed, most often in the earlier sessions with Chuck Brian would have already taught and rehearsed the guys on the vocal arrangements before they got to the studio. It was in the year 1963 going into 64 that Brian's growth and learning curve was amazing, according to Marilyn for one, he was soaking up everything he could about cutting records, and writing and recording at a fever pitch...and that included sitting in on and observing Phil Spector producing at Gold Star. It was either Hal or another musician who remembered seeing Brian sitting in the studio watching intently, and people were asking who he was.

This was 1963. Brian was learning and applying all of this that he was taking in. And you can hear it - Notice when he starts to incorporate the "doubling" overdubs of the Boys harmony parts to thicken the sound into what became a sonic trademark of his records, and also how once he sussed it out, he began experimenting with Spector's techniques and using them on his own records. But that's common knowledge among fans.

What isn't as common knowledge is just how much work and self-teaching this man did in 1963 to make himself and his records what they became, which was records that many in the business wanted to know how he made them.

The learning curve was incredible in the span of just about a year, 1963. But according to Chuck, Brian on those first Western sessions like 409/Surfin Safari was *the* producer. And I cannot see apart from Venet being there for Capitol's corporate and financial reasons how that role changed as much as some would suggest.

No arguments there. But I would also take as definitive the word of Brian and Carl, both of whom have stated that Murry helped produce their early records. I think Brian even sounded grateful when saying this, even though there was obviously friction as time went on. Folks, if two people are in charge of a project, they both deserve that credit, even if they are butting heads throughout, and even if one doesn't always take the other's advise. This is all objective, but true - even if one was far less brilliant than the other, and became more of a thorn in the other's side. If they both influenced the result in a commanding way, they both "produced", or "co-produced".

Craig - not arguing at all that Brian had the "Visionary" aspect of producer locked up - I'm just talking in practical terms. Brian and Murry fulfilled different aspects of the producer role on those sessions. But they both "produced".

Stephen Desper's observations (some reprinted in the Carlin book) state that he'd be recording with the band, they'd get word that Murry was coming and hide the pot and do whatever else, and they'd basically lose however many hours Murry was there for as he did the old barking orders routine. And he wasted everyone's time until he left, and they got back to doing what they had been doing just fine, thank you, before he showed up, which was actually making the records free of the distractions and pep talks and empty orders.

The guy didn't change at all, and I have to go with Desper, Blaine, Britz, and others along with the scant recorded evidence we can reference which most have heard and say Murry as described by Desper was the same Murry as heard on the Rhonda tape and that was the same Murry that came into Western that first day with Chuck and the band to cut a demo. In the early days he may have been more tolerated, but once it became clear who was actually being listened to and who had the ideas and the vision for these records, Murry got relegated to a fake console and was given a few hours of the band's time to waste while he was humored before the actual work resumed.

I'm all for getting facts straight myself, but I'm a little incredulous at wanting to go back and give Murry Wilson some overdue co-production credit for essentially barking orders, telling David Marks to put more treble on his amp, and calling takes bad or keepers especially since most who were involved - unless there is someone in the band or in the inner circles of the band - trying to say otherwise.

"Produced by Brian Wilson", that's the proper credit where applied.

I guess what I'm also factoring in is the way Murry deliberately screwed his sons and his band on many fronts acting as "manager" and then as the custodian of Sea Of Tunes throughout the 60's. In terms of producer credits, consider one of the lesser-discussed lawsuits of the late 60's was filed to recoup a 7-figure amount that Capitol never paid Brian on his producer points, as terms of their contracts. Brian won that case. Then there was the Smile-era "breakage clause" case against Capitol, which also found the label had failed to pay the band hundreds of thousands in earnings, and the whispers were that Murry knew this was going on but turned his head. It wasn't his money, it wasn't Capitol's money, it was money the band had earned, just like all those payments Brian earned but had to file a suit to actually collect.

Then there was the several hundred thousand in earnings Murry refused to pay the band in an act of spite after he was fired. Again, not his call, not his money, and if brought to a court he'd be found guilty of malfeasance or a similar charge. The band earned the money, it wasn't up to Murry to decide to spite them by withholding it from them.

Then there was the classic "Many Moods Of Murry Wilson" album, which Murry bankrolled by dipping into a reserve fund the band had set up to hold some of their royalty income. Murry basically stole money from the band to bankroll his own vanity project of an album.

This is a father (and uncle) doing this to his own family - inexcusable. Criminal, even, in it's devious and spiteful nature. I'd say as a personal opinion if there are efforts to go back and give him credit for things he rarely did or had little effect over, and thereby remove a portion of the credit from those who actually did that work, there are many, many other priorities to tackle before elevating Murry Wilson into what he always claimed to be but was not.

I don't think anyone has argued that Brian wasn't always the Producer when he is credited as such.  If Brian was also a Producer, an uncredited Co-producer, on some or all sessions credited to Venet, by the same token, Murry was also sometimes an uncredited Co-producer to Brian's Producer in a seemingly narrow window of time it seems to me. Not in the same way as Brian, not always welcome, sometimes just to humor him, etc., etc. etc.. Brian's credit is undiminished even with Murry's sometimes co-production.

--then I would agree that he, rightfully, could claim a credit.

For clarity, I brought this up mainly because people were saying Murry was making choices for Brian's financial benefit as opposed to his own. That was more in my thoughts than the Murry-production discussion overall.

For your points, I'm going to break this down to different mini-subjects:

Manson - this whole thing is just so awkward... Yes, he should have gotten credit. There's some claim that Dennis paid him in some form to keep his name off, but they clearly didn't have written contract and such an oral agreement on something with such long-term ramifications with such an imbalance of influence may not have held up in court had Manson chosen to pursue it. Also, I agree with those who argue that one should be able to buy or sell future earnings if one is properly advised, but that buying or selling credit is perhaps another issue.
The real awkwardness comes in with - what to do if Manson is given credit? I would think that at this point it wouldn't matter, but at that time it would have meant that they should pull the song and recording from publication/release, which would have been a shame.

Landy credits - this for me hinges on two things: how he obtained the credits; and whether he actually earned them. I am unaware of strong, specific evidence of what he actually contributed in terms of writing and production. I've heard lots of stories about him bringing in his lyrics and making production decisions, but I've also heard stories of those decisions being scrapped and things being secretly reworked later, etc. So, if there's evidence that what he actually wrote/produced is on the released material, then we have the latter of the two factors resolved. For the former, I'm a strong believer, and it is the law in the jurisdiction we are discussing, that one should not profit from crime. If Landy obtained the credit or the ability to interfere/"collaborate" through coercion or undue influence, as I believe occurred, then he should  not have rights to profit from his contributions whether he made them or not. This is actually the law and I believe that had it been pursued in court, Landy would have legally and rightfully lost at least his profits. Technically, if his credit could remain without profit, that's probably the right thing to do, upon calm consideration, but Landy has forfeited any chance for me to use much energy defending anything on his behalf by otherwise being such a scuzz.

Landy saving Brian's life -I agree he did. What bothers me is sometimes the context in which people bring up the life-saving. That's in discussions in which person A says something in terms of evaluating Landy as a person, as a human with benign or nefarious motives or character and person B responds, "Well, he did save Brian's life." That bothers me because it implies that this action is benign when there's no evidence for that. If someone hires me to go save poor doomed little Lindsay Lohan's life (knock on wood) and they give me tons of money, and the right to hire goons and whisk her away to a private location and have complete control of everything she does with no interference for a year, I could get her off of her illegal substances as well. And I would not necessarily have any benevolence in doing it. I'd be getting paid. Landy was being very well-paid .What did he do next? He took advantage of the fact that Brian had no personal support system to try to steal everything else Brian had and came very close to killing him.  So with Landy, we have lots of evidence of his intent being negative and as far as I'm aware no evidence of his intent being positive.
If someone want to say he saved Brian's life. OK. But if they use that to ameliorate his reputation to any degree, not OK.

--if you want to discuss Landy further, perhaps we should go back to the Landy thread so as not to irritate other people on this thread.

So, I don't have a problem with people saying facts. Not at all. But, as with the Murry financial thing, I've seen on many threads people ascribing positive motives and actions to Murry and Landy without evidence multiple times (I don't think you, particularly). Many people seem to have an impulse, not just with regard to Beach Boy people but generally, to look for positives from someone who has been shown to do something negative and to believe they found something positive with no particular evidence. And I wonder about this impulse. I don't think I have it. I have a similar impulse that isn't always activated, but often when someone's demonized I will defend the negative actions (this impulse has never yet been activated for Murry or Landy, I'm afraid). But I've never tried to find different, good things that baddies have done to, I guess (?), balance out the bad with the good.
I'm just babbling at this point. Anyway, thanks for your response :)

I agree with this.

I feel this very much. If some omniscient court were to go back and sort through all the threads and reallocate funds where they were actually due, the result would be a big loss for Murry and a big gain for Brian and Mike and some gain for the remaining BBs. So it's easy to begrudge giving anything to Murry over here when we know he already has so much stuff that shouldn't be his over there.
For me, there's also in the Help Me Rhonda session that I don't hear him saying anything useful so it's easy to imagine him bellowing around at lots of sessions without actually doing or saying anything useful. And this would fit with Blaine/Desper/Britz.
But, if c-man's right that he did influence the outcome, then he could rightfully claim credit, though I would begrudge it because I know he stole so much else from his kids.
One more "but" - I also think that a parent's proper role in a case like this is to support their kids in their efforts and help where possible without expecting payment or credit, but that's clearly personal philosophy.

It's known that Murry helped on the sessions that got the lads the deal with Capitol, that Surfari and 409 were used on the debut with Venet 'offically' producing the other tracks, so it's fairly clear (at least to me!) that I was talking about the album.

I do not.

Influencing the outcome is NOT grounds for getting a producer's credit, which is more than just a name listed in liner notes. Let's not stretch the definition to include everyone from the assistant engineer to the guy playing a saxophone on the session to the roadie carrying the equipment into the session who may have had an idea that ended up making it onto the final release. When we start stretching definitions like that, anyone can try to go back and retroactively grab credit for "producing" a record that isn't warranted nor is it deserved, and with that come other implications that aren't worth going into right now.

If that definition were the case, then someone could probably convince a court to take up the issue of who produced the Beatles records and sift through the percentage of musical or sonic/production ideas that came from the band, Norman Smith, Geoff Emerick, or one of the other EMI staff and try to make a case that their ideas affected the results in a commanding enough way to warrant a co-production credit instead of George Martin being labeled the producer. If anyone tried to do that, the fan base would justifiably start a revolution and put so much shame and bad feelings on the person trying to claim that, it would be a PR and personal disaster. Rightfully so.

There are certain facts that are accepted, one is that Brian produced those records which we're talking about no matter how loudly Murry gave them orders.

Do we just ignore what Chuck Britz said, who apart from the band themselves was one of the key people actually involved in this process? He said Brian was the producer, that's pretty definitive and conclusive wording from a guy who was there.

This is uncomfortable because I think there's a gray area. So it may seem like I'm "playing both sides" but I actually think there's subtlety involved.
Yes, if there's someone just hanging out  in the studio who makes a suggestion and Brian says "hey, good suggestion, let's do that" then no, that shouldn't get a producer credit.
When someone, like Carl, works as Brian's sounding board - "Carl, what do you think? Would it sound better to do x or y?" then there's a gray area. At what point is he co-producing? Is he being consulted on everything? Is Brian requiring him to be in the studio during all productive hours because he's an integral part of the decision-making and Brian can't really move ahead without his participation? Then I'd think credit would be due. But there's somewhere less than that where Carl's just helping.
So, is Murry self-invited? Is he inserting himself where not required or desired? Is he deferred to as a "decider" or does Brian think "eh, ok, I'll take that suggestion" or "nah, I don't like that idea" at will and generally make decisions at will without deference to Murry's preferences? How much does Murry affect the outcome? How much is he leading/guiding what happens? I don't know the answer to any of these and I think these and many more questions would have to be answered to come to a conclusion. And, I think there's part that remains gray and it just remains a judgment call.

So, I should not have been assertive previously about "Yes, he could rightfully receive credit" or "No, he couldn't". I think there's so much to consider that I don't know.
I learned from this! Yay!

But, I will reiterate that I think as a parent the right thing to do is not take the credit whether he rightfully could or couldn't.

Maybe some of this comes down to either a misunderstanding of or an unfamiliarity with the process of making a record. It's a structure like any business structure, where there are jobs assigned and performed, yet the ideas begin flying around like mad as soon as the process kicks in. Again, if influencing the outcome of a song/recording is a consideration, you'd have almost every engineer, and tens of thousands of drummers, bassists, and other musicians coming forward to claim a production credit on some classic record that made a fortune. Everyone from the drummer who suggested a different groove or pattern to the bass player who suggested leaving the verses as only drums and bass under the vocal. Production just doesn't get credited that way, and it should not either, imo. Especially retroactively.

Credit like a producer's credit is not a judgement call. Nor is it something to go back and rewrite retroactively, unless the credit given originally was so egregious a mistake or intentional omission that a case could be made. With the Beach Boys, neither of those is the case.

Thanks, GuitarFool. I've actually thought that through with song-writing and arranging. A violinist might suggest making a section more staccato and the conductor or arranger might agree that it's a good idea but that doesn't now give the violinist credit for arranging or eventually the whole orchestra will have credit. There is the one (perhaps more), person who has the job of taking ideas, his own or others, choosing among them, putting it together and implementing the final decisions.
I guess what I'm not clear on with Murry is, on those early sessions, was Murry deferred to? Would he make a suggestion and Brian would decide whether to implement it? Or would Murry decide whether to implement it? I think if Murry had the power to decide, then he was implicitly being regarded as producer to some degree, even if he took rather than was given that power.

Regarding the actual on paper credit - I don't advocate changing it. And, I assume, that there was a firm agreement on whom would be credited before they entered the studio and I assume that nothing dramatic enough happened to warrant changing that.

I guess I haven't been thinking about the question of "should the credit be changed?" but the question of "based on what actually happened in the studio is it reasonable to think of Murry as being a producer in effect on some of the recordings." I should've been more clear on that.
I feel like I'm tap-dancing here and communicating very poorly. But I'll try to express myself again - I'm not clear what Murry's in effect input - and consequent influence on output - was in the studio. If he was deferred to by Brian, or over Brian on the part of others, then I think it would be reasonable to think of him of having played in effect a producer's role. That's all.
Kind of if I'm arranging a piece and Loren Maazel shows up and says "do it this way, that way and the other way" and I say "OK" and do, or the instrumentalists say, "screw Emily, we're doing what Maazel says," what should happen and what can happen? Well, if everyone's being nice, Maazel will give me a pat on the head and leave me with my credit. But I will offer him credit (or co-credit) due to his effective input. And some decision will be made. If there's a corporation involved, I'm sure they'll have their (perhaps definitive) say. But, in history, it's not unreasonable for people to say "Emily has the credit of arranging that piece but Maazel really earned a credit as well."

The real tragedy is that Murry and Landy never got to collaborate. There's a pair that deserved each other!

(http://s9.postimg.org/g2luxyj0f/untitled.png)

Finally! A historically accurate release!

Here's a question... on the early material, does Nik Venet deserve to be credited in any producer capacity (Producer or Co-Producer) any more or less than Murry Wilson, or for that matter, Eugene Landy on the BW88 record?

It seems from what I've read that Nik shoehorned his credit into material that he had no business taking that credit. Maybe moreso on some tracks than others. Now, obviously I'm grateful to Nik for getting the BBs onboard with Capitol, and he's an integral part of the story, just like Murry for biologically fathering his sons and legitimately promoting the hell out of them in the early years, and Landy for helping to save Brian's life in late 1982. Not a conversation where I'm trying to discuss the bad things those last two guys did, that's a whole other topic.

Granted, Landy did ALL sorts of horrible stuff, which I suppose one could say his credit removal could be considered "punishment", in addition to wanting to set the record straight about his actual involvement, and to avoid a bad guy from continuing to profit off Brian.

But if, for example, Landy left the BW scene right after BW88 was recorded, and did not stick around until 1992 and attempt to get into Brian's will... would actions still have been taken to remove Landy's name from credits? Would the name have stuck around on future pressings, Nik Venet-style? On the same token, does Nik Venet's name deserve to retroactively be taken off the early records? Or does the credit just stay put because he wasn't a horrible person like Landy, and it would be too much legal trouble to deal with at this point?

Because as far as I can see it, Nik Venet may have about as much claim to producing or co-producing the early records as Murry has. Which in actuality is not very much at all, yet *possibly* slightly more claim than zero. I guess if Nik deserves credit, does Murry too? Or do they both not deserve credit for the early albums, and only Brian deserves it, but Nik's credit is just something that everyone has to live with (and perhaps nobody in the BB world is particularly upset about at this point, unlike the Landy credit)?

The demo tape that got Nik Venet excited to sign the Beach Boys was produced by Murry, with Brian's help, according to most sources. Nik supervised the tunes on Surfin'Safari that were not part of the demo tape. On Surfin'USA, Lonely Sea was a Murry/Brian production, and Surfin' USA was Brian.The instrumental tracks are Brian, and the rest of that album is most likely Brian with Venet approving the final mix, which is why he was given the production credit on that album.

Is anyone claiming Murry deserves some sort credit for producing an earlier session Britz describes where Murry wasn't even in attendance? Or later sessions where Murry was allegedly deceived?  Or sessions where Desper says Murry wasn't acting as a producer? I didn't think anyone was.  I don't think anyone has suggested the official credit for Brian (or Venet) should be revised in the future, have they and I missed it?

I believe the claim has been restricted to the early sessions where c-man says some of the Boys themselves credit Murry with helping as a producer where those claims are corroborated by the tapes c-man mentioned.

Then what was Chuck Britz talking about in this quote I posted earlier? Who does he say was producing "everything"? This from the engineer of those sessions in a decades old interview.

I thought you said it was about a particular session.

Personally speaking, I'm certainly not "advocating" for any person to get a credit, or for anyone to have a credit taken away.  Nor am I defending Murry or Landy, or trying to somehow get them their just "due". Nothing like that at all.

I'm just speaking in hypotheticals, and trying to understand peoples' opinions, and whether or not people (Venet, Murry, Landy) were credited or not credited for reasons that make any kind of consistent sense. Not that consistent sense is something in large supply in BB-land, but it does seem that either those three guys all contributed roughly the same amount of actual contribution as BB/BW Producers to tape (ie. not really much at all - although not necessarily completely zilch either, and/or that they essentially were *mostly* background noise/interference during Brian's producing)... but despite this, the three guys are inconsistently either credited, not credited, and did (or in Murry's case, apparently somewhat inexplicably did not) seek to be credited for any imagined or actual contributions.  

If after the 1st 2 albums were released, with Venet's name present, subsequently post 1963, Venet had done some very unscrupulous thing to the band, would the band have retroactively delete Venet's credit? It seems that his credit has roughly as much (or as little) weight as Landy's (or Murry's, despite Murry's name not being present). Obviously, few people could be as big a scumbag as Landy was, but if Venet (nothing against Venet personally, just using him as an example of a guy who contributed very little yet got a credit, much like Landy) had done a horrible action to the band, it seems that they'd have tried to retroactively remove his name if they legally could - Landy-style - right?

Using Landy's credit removal as a case study, it almost seems the only reason Venet's Producer credit is only really still there is because unlike Landy, Venet just faded into the background for the most part, and didn't inflict any scumbag actions worthy of retribution on the band.

What?

Um...409/Surfin Safari...the first songs they cut with Chuck at Western.

Chuck Britz contradicted what Peter Reum just posted. Murry may have been involved but it's hard to argue with the words "producing everything" and this line: "As far as I'm concerned the total commitment of producing was from him."

I'm sure someone will find a way, though.

To be fair to Nik Venet, I think this was Capitol's deal more than his. It was just the business process and he was following it, as far as I understand.
It's not my impression that NV was actually producing the record in any real sense.


Obviously I have no clue what would have happened, but he would still have been using undue influence in order to enforce his involvement illegally, so should
not have been awarded remuneration or reward of any form even if his input were included on the output.

Venet's credit is there because that was part of the contract and part of the label corporate mechanism when the Boys signed to Capitol. I've already covered this, but to recap: At that time, when an artist signed to a label, the label assigned a producer to that artist, actually the more appropriate job title for that time was "A&R" exec to oversee the recording process.

RCA assigned Chet Atkins to "produce" or be the A&R guy for Elvis when RCA signed him from Sun. Chet basically did nothing but play some rhythm guitar, and admitted calling his wife when Elvis and the band got fired up and started to record so she could watch the show he was putting on in the studio. Elvis basically produced that material, even calling takes good or bad, but RCA needed an A&R liaison and that job was given to Chet...who got producers credit but didn;t do much hands-on producing as we know that job would later become.

Brian *DID* produce and do the things we would say a producer would be expected to do in modern terms. Venet had to be there like Chet had to be there with Elvis as per RCA procedures. Whatever he actually did, it was in the contract that Venet would be the producer. Just like Chet. Just like Tom Wilson with Dylan.

Simple as that.

True, but in any case, the end result is that you have a guy (who didn't actually produce a record) getting to make money and get royalties in the future. It's odd that this was just allowed to transpire (and continue in perpetuity), considering how the only other guy in the BB story who finagled entire albums' worth of credits, had his credit removed. IMO, it seems like they both should have had credits removed, or neither should. But I'm sure that emotions understandably drove the Landy removal decision too, and his actions were obviously considered (and obviously were in fact) ethically off-the-cliff horrible.

Yet... there is a very inconsistent crediting result between the 1st 2 BB albums, and BW88, which doesn't make much logical sense to me.

Fair enough, and it makes sense that if that was simply the corporate approved crediting structure of the time, that things transpired the way they did.

That said... just speaking in terms of fairness of who ACTUALLY did/didn't do what, and trying to keep our emotions and feelings about people like Murry or Landy out of the decision... do you think it's fair to say that Venet, Murry, and Landy all are consistently deserving of no producing or co-producing credit? And by "deserve", I'm not talking about ethics where a bad person who did a bad thing doesn't deserve the same rights as others (I'm specifically trying to remove that from the conversation, to just strictly talk about the facts of what got recorded on tape, and who contributed to it) - speaking in those terms, Venet doesn't really deserve a credit anymore than Murry or Landy, right?

I assume that Venet's name being there makes about as much sense as the John Lennon co-writing credit on "Yesterday": in-name only, for contractual reasons, but in reality, something completely fabricated and inaccurate.

My bad, the discussion of Murry not being at a session was regarding HM,R not the session Britz was referencing in the quote.

So this would be another session which is ruled out by testimony, still leaving the rest of the early sessions claimed where the Boys and the tapes testify.

I think it's a little fuzzy what Landy actually succeeded in doing in production. Do we know to what degree his decisions made it onto the album? (though, actually, please don't answer that. It would end up another whole kerfluffle.)
I think that if I make the assumptions that I think you're making then I'd agree that none of them were actually producers in a practical sense.

Now we're getting into legal territory, and that's where giving these credits becomes more than fans discussing it. Venet got that credit because that's what was agreed by contract. Just like Chet Atkins is still listed as producer of those early RCA Elvis records, that was the way it was done. The Lennon/McCartney songwriting credit remained steadfast because they agreed on that credit for everything either one of them wrote for the Beatles, and they stuck to that agreement.

Go even further...should we go case-by-case and try to recoup "points" on a major hit album for the producer who signed a deal to get a one-time lump payment versus signing for a percentage and points on future sales? It all goes back to what was agreed, unless some kind of deception or outright fraud and malfeasance can be proven legally to show someone got cheated out of a rightful credit.

Murry...look at what those who were involved say he did. It's fine for fans to debate back and forth as long as it doesn't get taken to the point of taking it further to try to win Murry some producer credit (and all the financial implications that would come with such a thing) and have the credits changed in the official histories of this music.

If we start to reshape the definitions of what qualifies someone to receive a production credit, it would literally open up the floodgates for potentially hundreds of thousands of people from engineers to disgruntled former band members to try staking a claim on a producer's credit on a hit record or album based on their input, anything from a sonic hook created by an engineer to a conga player on the session who suggested extending a solo break that became a trademark of that record. It would be ridiculous.

And again I'll ask in return - Can what Chuck Britz said about Brian producing those earliest session be disproven? If so, then by who?

The Landy issue actually parallels what would be standard in almost all court cases. If one side calls a witness, and that witness is proven to be a liar, anything else that witness might say or claim in testimony is immediately rendered basically useless...no matter how valuable. It's part of the vetting process to ensure that a witness called will not get caught perjuring themselves in testimony. because once that happens, anything that witness said before or after the lie is garbage.

So if a court of law saw proof that Landy claimed writing credit on even one song that he never had the right to claim, all of his other claims no matter if they're valid or not, have doubt cast on them and his word means nothing.

So if it is shown that Landy put his name on something he had no hand in writing or producing, anything he claimed aside from that would be in doubt in a legal sense. You lie once on a legal document...everything else goes out the door. That's the consequence of lying on contracts and other legal situations, which songwriting agreements are when the forms are filed and signed.

So Landy shouldn't have lied and claimed credit on something he had no involvement in writing. The baby goes out with the bathwater. Rightfully so. He screwed himself by claiming fake credits.

I guess it just shows that if Venet had done something unscrupulous behind the scenes leading to him getting the credit that he indeed got - but the 1st 2 albums got recorded in the identical manner, with Venet's minimal involvement being identical and unchanged - that the band would possibly been able to remove the credit down the line.  

It is weird that the business (which it is, first and foremost) is really about lawyers finding ways to get people other than their clients to not have credits if at all possible (regardless of what they did/didn't contribute). But those rules shouldn't apply to simply having a discussion on this board regarding our opinions about what's right or wrong. Contracts shouldn't be king.

Outside of legal technicalities... I don't think Venet's name being present (or the Elvis credit, in your example) has any more or less of a logical right to be present than, say, Murry or Landy have a right to have their credit present, or Lennon's name being on "Yesterday". If Lennon had zero involvement, his credit is pretty ridiculous (as Paul surely thinks), even if that's the contract they signed years before. Yes it's business, yes it's just how it goes... but that doesn't exactly make it "right", anymore than it's "right" for Mike to not be a credited cowriter on songs he did in fact cowrite. My discussion is more about what's "right" in our estimation, and less about crediting falsehoods that are legally allowable to transpire.

I think that Venet would have retroactively been stripped of credits if the band could legally have done it, even if they otherwise were grateful to him. Venet's one saving grace was that it was simply Venet playing by the official record company sanctioned rules at the time. In this case, it really isn't about who did or didn't do what as a Producer, just what a person or corporation is legally allowed to get away with.

Again, nothing against Venet, and certainly not trying to score points for Landy or Murry, I have absolutely no agenda in saying this stuff, only just talking about hypotheticals out of pure curiosity, because many inconsistencies abound... but it seems that Venet/Murry/Landy's crediting (or lack thereof) should more or less hold identical weight, if we are to take scruples out of the discussion and just talk about who got what on tape. However, due to circumstance and technicalities, of those three guys... one guy never had credit, one guy had credit (but had it removed), and one guy has retained credit all along.  

I'm not claiming that what Chuck said was wrong - just that there's more to the story. I'm sure Brian absolutely produced everything from the beginning, as much as he could with Murry being there in his way. But I also believe Murry was producing as well. I've heard tons of BBs sessions tapes, and what Murry was doing from the control booth in terms of "directing" was a more brusque, blunt, and less articulate version of what Brian did on the sessions to follow (after Murry was gone and Brian moved from the studio floor to the control room). The one aspect of production which Brian had that Murry did not, was the genuine artistic vision. That and a better personality. :)

As for what Desper said - that's a bit different. He's saying the group humored Murry until he left, then did what they wanted. Therefore, I would NOT credit Murry with co-producing those records. But on the stuff recorded at Western for the first five albums, it didn't work that way: Murry stayed in charge through the final take, and therefore IMO was fulfilling an important aspect of production.

And regarding the legal thing - Joe Thomas is not credited with co-producing TWGMTR, just with "recording" it. Yet I'm think we all know he produced it at least as much as Brian. But he's not credited with production, undoubtedly because of the worded agreement that was reached by the parties involved.

Another point to make is that it's widely known that George Martin did not serve as producer on every single Beatles session: he was infrequently absent, as early as "Yellow Submarine" But they always had someone sitting in the both to guide things along, whether it be Martin's assistant, or whomever. These people are not credited on the records, of course, and I'm sure that's because the contract reads that George Martin alone be officially credited as producer. And I'm not saying those folks had any kind of artistic vision, but rather "produced" in the same practical sense that Murry did (minus his boorish mannerisms). They ARE given credit with producing, however, in the official history of The Beatles sessions, written by Mark Lewisohn.

Getting back to the BBs, both Ed Roach and Geoffrey Cushing-Murray have shared that THEY acted as producer on particular Beach Boys sessions (Ed for a "Love Surrounds Me" session, probably for keyboard overdubs, at Kaye Smith in Seattle, and Geoffrey for Carl's lead vocal on "Goin' South", at Shang-ri-la in Malibu). I could be wrong, but I'm assuming neither of them had any hand in the "artistic vision" side of the productions, but rather the "practical" side of needing somebody in the booth to oversee the proceedings, listen objectively to what was being performed, offer advice when they felt it was needed, and coach/inspire the artist to the best possible outcome. Does that mean they were the sole producer of those cuts? No, but they certainly produced those particular sessions.

Lastly, am I advocating that the official producer credits be changed to include Murry as co-producer on the early stuff? Not really, because I know that won't happen, any more than Brian will be credited (or co-credited with Murry) for producing "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Shut Down": even though I know Nik Venet was no where near Western Recorders on the nights those tunes were recorded, he is legally designated as "producer", so that's how it stands - for eternity, seemingly.

Yeh ... credits in the Beach Boys world are not exactly accurate. Just look at the production credits on the "Ten Years of Harmony" (likely the most accurate) vs. the credits on the original album releases.

I personally think Brian produced the 2012 album about as much as he "executive produced" the MIU Album. Brian Wilson productions are distinct. So are Joe Thomas productions.

There's an interview with Hal Blaine about the "Everything I Need" recording ... How Joe Thomas basically ruined what Hal thought was a great record:

http://www.steve-escobar.com/?p=13

Just playing Devil's Advocate and no disrespect to SWD... but we're talking about the earliest BB sessions here, 1962-63, and he didn't come into the scene until the late Smile era (unofficially), or Friends (officially). Did he listen to those earlier sessions, or is he recollecting sessions from 1967 on ? Just seeking clarity here.

Yes, because quotes about a session held in 1996 -- which Brian still produced! -- are totally applicable to an album recorded in 2011-2012.

You don't know what you're talking about, and are making yourself look foolish.

This is why I rarely post on this board these days. [These sort of personal, mildly confrontational unprovoked responses]

Sounds like Brian Wilson:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FRc_ao2NrIk

Sounds like Joe Thomas:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnuQrHdNRQ

... Basic point being that since 1978, most releases that bear some variation of the famous "Produced by Brian Wilson" credit have -- to my ears -- been fairly heavily "sanitized" and cleaned up for release. There are tons of examples of this.

Re. the early sessions, I don't think it is all or none.  I don't think anybody is challenging that Brian was a producer (credited or not) from the beginning. Not every session from the beginning was at Western and Britz wasn't at ever session from the beginning but still I bet almost everyone will agree that the gist of his claim about his first session for the BBs applies universally to most of the sessions except the ones where Brian bowed out as producer.

That does not rule out evidence for Murry also sharing to some extent an uncredited role of producer on some of the early sessions for which there is taped evidence and band member witness (it would be nice to see those quotes).

[accidental post]

A peace maker. Yay!  :hug

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Carl Wilson, published in the New Jersey-based music paper Aquarian (April 6, 1983), prior to the band's April 8th appearance at Brendan Byrne Arena:
Interviewer: "Your dad managed the group at the start, didn't he?"
Carl: "He co-produced our first record too. He produced "409", "Shut Down", and the first session of "In My Room"."

And here's part of a radio interview with Brian Wilson, conducted by Nikki Wine on October 4, 1980, for The Grapevine program on KHTZ, as reprinted in the BBFUN newletter of November 1980:
Interviewer: "When did you actually start producing records for The Beach Boys? How many records into the whole thing did you take over?"
Brian: "Well, I took over in 1962, mid '62. Nik Venet was producing us in '62, the early part. I took over, well actually my father was producing after Nik Venet, then I took over after my father. That's what happened."

I think there are also more recent examples (like in the last 15 years or so) of Brian crediting Murry with helping to produce the early records.

Again, I wouldn't ever say that Murry produced any Beach Boys records by himself (except maybe the demos that got them signed with Capitol), but that rather he was co-producing with Brian. And even though Brian told Nikki Wine that the first record he himself produced was "Surfin' U.S.A", he also told her that Nik Venet didn't do much other than call out take numbers - which means, if Venet wasn't "fully" producing those records (not there's really much production on there, as I mentioned earlier), and Murry wasn't around for those - that means Brian was, in fact, co-producing with Venet by default (no doubt in the style that Venet himself was quoted by Brad Elliott as describing). And, drummer Frank DeVito recalls that Murry was in the booth for the "Surfin' U.S.A," session - so I can readily envision that as being a Brian-Murry co-production.

Here's another quote - from a Brian interview recorded June 7, 1985 for Westwood One Radio, as reprinted in the February 1986 STOMP!:

Interviewer: "You kind of became the studio leader of the group."
Brian: "In a sense, yeah."
Interviewer: "...and you produced."
Brian: "My dad was too though, he was kind of the leader. He was our producer but I learned, he and I learned from this guy (Gary Usher) how to record, this friend of ours, we were grateful for that."

Thanks.

What caught my eye originally was the line in bold, especially "many sessions to come". As it progressed over the next few pages, it got into a wide range of related issues, including what warrants a production credit and various people who were involved weighing in on the matter. Brian would say Murry contributed to several songs, but the main producer (apart from those where Venet actually was at the helm) was Brian Wilson.

And I still disagree with the notion that contributing to the final outcome in a commanding way is worthy of a production credit, for the same reasons I've already mentioned. We'd see all kinds of musicians, engineers, studio staff, and whoever else coming forward with assorted "proof" that they had the idea which propelled the song to great success and how they should have been a credited co-producer based on that idea. Chaos would ensue, and it would be more along the lines of shaking the tree branches and having all the debris fall out rather than people who had legitimate claims...just like any number of ersatz songwriters who come out of the woodwork to say they had the idea for some mega-hit record and want a piece of that pie. Most of them are cranks and hucksters.

Someone being in the booth and giving advice is not a producer. Murry gave all kinds of orders, acted like a drill sergeant, berated and hectored the band (and other staff present)...and hardly anything he said was taken seriously, and when it was his name got mentioned. Ideas like speeding up Caroline No to a higher key - THAT made the record, but that's not worthy of a production credit. That was advice asked for and given, then advice taken...not co-production. He didn't ask for nor did he get producers credit because he didn't produce the other stuff either. And had he gotten it or demanded it, he could have made a lot more in production royalties and points...that 7-figure sum that Capitol failed to pay Brian throughout the 60's and which he had to file a lawsuit at the end of the 60's to actually receive. Brian earned that money by producing those records, just like Venet got credit for what he was contracted to do, and George Martin got credit for the White Album even though he was on holiday for weeks during the sessions. That's how it works. What's the line often thrown around..."but they signed the contract!" Exactly. Unless said contract can be shown to be fraudulent or and outright lie. As some of Murry's contracts were indeed found to be decades later. Another plate for another meal.

My issue was not as much fans chewing the fat and discussing this stuff back and forth, that's cool. It's when and if something official happens to try and retroactively go back and rewrite the entire definition and job description of "producer" in order to do something other than that which fans are discussing and debating on message boards. Because that is a whole different ballgame, and it's quite possibly as ugly as anything could get, both from a PR and personal standpoint. It's the kind of backlash that would happen if someone in the Beatles organization would try to strip either the "Lennon" or the "McCartney" out of that writing credit in order to somehow benefit from doing so. Not good. Not necessary.

Just to restate, the line "many sessions to come" is specifically what stood out. I don't see the proof of this.

So you're saying you would agree that Murry probably "co-produced" the specific records Carl and Brian say he did? If he did, I would argue that he also co-produced most of the third, fourth and possibly fifth albums, based on his actions being identical to those on the sessions for the ones mentioned by Carl and Brian. In other words, "many sessions to come".

I suppose we can argue about how many is many if that seems relevant to whether or not Murry was an uncredited co-producer.   Despite any of our opinions about what constitutes a Producer or how many is many, we have members of the band not only defining Murry as a Co-producer but Brian himself defining Murry as a Producer.  That seems pretty definitive enough to me.

Here's a quote from David Marks' interview with Ken Sharp for RockCellar Magazine (the expanded version, as posted on the Friday Night Boys blogpost, Sept. 21, 2013), in which David gives Murry some credit for actually influencing the sound of the early records:

"When we first did Surfin’ Safari, Surfin’ U.S.A., and Shut Down at Western, I think Murry got his way a few times. He was obsessed with the guitars being all trebly, which actually benefited the sound overall. You’ve gotta give Murry a little credit there but for the most part Brian was very frustrated with Murry interfering with his musical expression. Brian knew what he wanted before he would go into the studio."

So even though Brian had a vision of the sound he wanted, Murry still prevailed in getting some of this own stamp on those records, sound-wise. That's in addition to the coaching/commanding actions he took as Brian's un-credited co-producer.

So I'm understanding this, is it being said that a suggestion to put more treble on the guitar would warrant a production credit?

[PREFACE: I don't know if Murry deserves a minor co-production credit or not. Sounds like it may be in order for some of the earliest Capitol recordings. And obviously, Brian was the legit Producer for the Beach Boys recordings from Surfer Girl to Friends in my opinion. So I don't think re-writing history and changing label credits serve any function. But for academic purposes, it's an interesting discussion.]

I think a "treble up!" suggestion may or may not constitute a co-production credit, in general.

If someone happens to be in the studio and says, "hey guys, it might sound cool to hear more highs on the guitar amps", then the musicians try it, and like it, and the assigned producer of the session agrees, then I'd say that would not be deserving of a co-production credit.

A different scenario in which a person in a position of authority is INSTRUCTING (as opposed to suggesting) that the treble be turned up (particularly if the musicians or official producer may not be in agreement), and that makes it to the final record ... I think this would be an example of co-producing -- especially if the guitar sound is an important aspect of the production.

... But we're not just talking about the treble suggestion (I think that was just a possible example from the David Marks quote). I'd say the quotes from Brian and particularly Carl are more telling, as presumably are the session tapes that c-man is referring to.

Again, whether it does or doesn't in our opinion, Carl and Brian say Murry was a Co-producer and a Producer of the group.

Under those definitions, the majority of the tens of thousands of engineers who were manning the board on a session that turned into a hit record since 1960 could file a claim for a production credit or retroactive "points", and to me that is absurd because they were the engineers and not the producers. Because the engineer on any given session could whack the treble on any of the tracks to give it more punch in the mix along with adding any number of sonic hooks to a given song strictly by doing what engineers do, and those engineers in doing their job made these calls dozens of times an hour during a session without someone like Murry grabbing their shoulders and barking orders at them.

There is a big picture here - again, fans discussing this back and forth is one thing...as you said Donny,  and which I agree 100%, going back and rewriting the history and changing label credits serves no function at all. If it ever should reach that point, and it should not.

With the Beatles alone, people could spend months parsing and putting under a microscope every track they released to go through and credit exactly who did what if the definition of producing a record is stretched to include adding more treble to a guitar track for one example. As already said, it serves no purpose and it would be - literally - a farce. Unless there are legitimate, 100% guaranteed examples where someone legitimately was contracted to produce a record, they produced that record, and through fraud or deception or outright lies didn't get compensated for that work.

So the albums Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, and Shut Down v2...albums 2-5 in the discography...what exactly did Murry do? Should we start pruning track by track to pick out which suggestions Murry made which made it to the final mix and release, but by bit? "Extended bridge, idea by Murry Wilson?" Apart from suggesting Brian wasn't the producer as credited, or that the credits "Produced by Brian Wilson" which have existed since 1963, what purpose does doing that serve? And why do it? Should all bands' catalogs of classic albums go through the same microscope of scrutiny to make sure every idea that got spoken by someone in or around the band, including management, gets credit?

Here's one to try. Does Dick Lester deserve a production credit for the song "A Hard Day's Night"? Because it was Dick Lester who, in the studio, told the band the film scene he had in mind needed a powerful chord to come crashing in under the scene to kick off the action. That's how George Harrison, John, and Paul came to create that most famous of all "what chord is that?" chord moments in rock history. Without Lester saying it was needed, chances are it wouldn't have been there. Did he produce that song specifically, should he get credit on all releases of the song?

I say emphatically no. Yet Lester qualifies more for such a credit than Murry's "production" that included talking and talking and more talking while Brian was doing most of the actual calling the shots.

Totally unnecessary.

For how many songs? The bulk of three albums released in 1963 into 1964? I don't see that being accurate any more than Murry's 'directions' on Help Me Rhonda qualify him for a producer's credit on that single. Bits of ideas here and there versus overseeing full albums' worth of material, yeah - he was their manager. Managers of all forms of entertainment might do what Murry did in telling their actor and dancer clients certain things that led to something big or successful...but they're managers, not producers.

Murry got credit (and paid) for managing the band until he was fired. Brian got credit (and had to fight in court to get paid) for producing the band's records and albums. Right? Right.

What's the issue?

The issue is "Brian and Murry not crediting each other properly". 

The how many is enough that Carl and Brian say Murry was a Co-producer and a Producer of the group for that many recordings. 

What is your issue with Carl and Brian's testimony about the way it was for them in their band?

I think these are all fair points, especially the Beatles example. I'm trying to see both sides of the story, yet it's still obviously tough to find the real answer since it's ultimately subjective, particularly with Carl and Brian stating the production input from Murry (who I'm no fan of, by the way!). If any Murry production credit was earned (not in actuality earned on paper, but earned in terms of what's right and fair), I suppose it might just be a smidge here or there. I don't know how that computes to a co-producer credit. When Mike gets a songwriting credit for "Good Night Baby", it seems only fair that the same would apply for any contributions on a similar small, yet not entirely negligible level by Murry, as well as for Dick Lester. Either that, or all such claims (including Mike's) are bogus.

I'll pose this question again... nothing personally against Venet, I'm bringing him up simply because he's the only guy who fits the bill for this unusual example... but do you think it fair to say that Venet and Murry (and Landy, for that matter) gave roughly the same amount of input to the recording process, and that - legal/contractual technicalities aside - ultimately they all deserve the same level of credit (nada)?

I might add, I think that's probably a fair viewpoint to hold, because I can't figure out why (in simple terms of who deserves what), any of them deserve a credit over another. Either they all do, or none of them do, even if Venet certainly never did heinous things like the other two guys. I don't know why it's "right" that Venet gets to keep his credit if he contributed nothing (or next to nothing), and yes I am aware that this was simply the way things were done back then, but again I'm talking about what you and I think is right and fair, outside of what a contract stipulates. After all, Brian could have smoked a bunch of hash and drawn up contracts stating that Jasper Dailey was co-producer of Smile if he wanted to!  ;D Doesn't mean Dailey contributed (or in actuality, deserves) anymore than Venet, from a producer's credit standpoint.

Ultimately, I lose no sleep over who gets what credit, I just am curious as to why there are inconsistencies in terms of what people think is fair and just, when we take out the Venet early '60s contractual reasoning out of the equation.

Enough to warrant a co-credit? Doubtful. But clearly Murry was performing producer duties unoffically on those early sessions, reguardless of whether he was asked to or not.

An engineer sweetening the sound a little here and there (with no objections from the producer) would fall into the "suggestion" category I mentioned above, in my opinion.

But I do believe that this type of suggestion could also be considered producing. In fact, we often hear Brian doing just that on session tapes ("Carol, can you turn the highs up on your guitar?", etc.). So in my opinion, it comes down to context, and what the person's role is in the proceedings.

Murry's defined role was manager. And he was certainly an authority figure in the early world of the Beach Boys. So I suppose the question that I'm interested in in this discussion is: What role did Murry play in the Beach Boys' recordings? Why was he there? Conventional wisdom says that he was a failed musician trying to make it vicariously through his sons, and was initially a good, go-getting manager who opened lots of doors for the group. But is that it? What exactly was he in the studio for? If he truly was just a nuisance, then so be it. And we have quotes from folks like Chuck Britz saying he didn't do anything helpful. But then we have quotes from Brian and Carl saying he helped produce. And we have session tapes where Murry sounds as if he may be co-producing. I may not be remembering this correctly, but I feel like a read a quote from Brian once, in which he said something like his dad helped him learn to produce.

I don't follow the Beatles stuff, but the example you cited above would most certainly not warrant a production credit. It's a simple suggestion, which the producer can take or leave.

But I'm not sure the David Marks quote about turning up the treble is the best example to focus on.

It sounds to me like Murry most likely had altogether more input than Landy or Venet. As someone (I think GuitarFool) pointed out above, we don't know what Landy contributed, but we know he lied about it. We also know that lots of sabotage of his contributions took place (which is good, imo). So who knows in the end what Landyisms got on there?
Everyone seems to agree that, in terms of sound production, Venet had virtually no contribution, though if you are talking about the "project manager" role of a producer, he did book studio time, etc.
It sounds like Murry, on some portion of early work, had sound production input to a degree.
Note: I in no way advocate changing credits.

Just thinking that the crux of the debate here may be: was Murry the boss of the proceedings?
I mean, we all agree at this point that suggestions can come from all over the place and that, even if the person making suggestions was a loudmouth, it's still only a suggestion unless you're the decider,like George W.
Is there evidence that, ultimately, BW wasn't the decider?

I thought the crux of the debate was whether Murry THOUGHT he was (co)boss of the proceedings and if he did, why he didn't seek credit for himself, being the glory hound that he was. ???

To be specific, we know Murry co-produced (with Brian) the group's first Western session (resulting in "Surfin' Safari", "409", and "Lonely Sea"), and produced the demo of "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring" - he's officially credited with such in the liner notes of the officially released Made In California box set, and years before that, he was unofficially credited with producing both sides of their first Capitol single in Brad Elliott's seminal discography "Surf's Up! The Beach Boys On Record 1961-1981". Additionally, Carl is quoted as saying Murry produced "Shut Down" and "the first session of 'In My Room'" (co-produced with Brian would be more accurate). Brian's comments that he (Brian) produced "Surfin' U.S.A." but that his father was producing after Venet, David Marks' naming that song as one on which Murry "got his way" sound-wise, and Frank DeVito's recollection of Murry in the control booth for that session indicate another Brian-Murry co-production there. Session tapes reveal Murry in the booth and in control for the bulk of the Surfer Girl album, the "Little Saint Nick" single, and the basic track and guitar solo of "Fun, Fun, Fun". No session tapes have been found for the new tunes on the Little Deuce Coupe album, but beings as how those sessions were between those for the Surfer Girl album and the "Saint Nick" single, I'd say Murry's role there was likely the same as on the sessions surrounding them.
 
If Beatles session tapes showed that Brian Epstein was in charge of some of their sessions, giving the kinds of orders that George Martin in fact did on Beatles session tapes (notice I said "orders", not "suggestions"), and no one else was, and two of The Beatles were on record as saying he produced or co-produced some of their early records, I would consider him to be producer or co-producer of those records, regardless of how the credits read. And if another Beatle said he deserved some credit for getting their records to sound a certain way, and that those records were probably the better for it, then I would just consider that to be further evidence. This would all be IN ADDITION to his role as their manager.

Um, I don't think that was a suggestion. :)

Aren't Carl and Brian addressing that when saying Murry was sometimes the co-producer and sometimes the producer?

If you're asking me, frankly I don't know enough to make an assertion and I am listening to (reading) people who evidently know a lot more than I do and I hope can come up with a definitive answer, but I'm thinking that maybe the hard information only brings us 50% of the way and the rest is conjecture, so nothing definitive can be concluded.

"Someone sitting in the booth and giving advice is not a producer"

On the contrary.  You seem to have some fixed false beliefs about what constitutes a producer.  Not everyone fits the George Martin mode, as I've pointed out there were many "do nothing" producers who called out takes (or let the engineer do that, as at Abbey Road) and let the artists dictate how the session would go - Tom Wilson for example.  Murry's input into the sessions is completely compatible with a role as "producer."  He had input into the final product.  And was considered a coproduction or producer by the artists themselves.  I'm not sure what there is to argue about at this point.

Guitarfool thinks that if we, on this message board, accept c-man's and Cam Mott's arguments, it will turn the music industry on its head, spawn thousands of lawsuits and destroy Brian Wilson's reputation in the music industry.

False beliefs? Since I've actually been paid (real money) to produce songs, demos, and a few full albums in the past, I'd say I'm aware of what a producer does.  :)

And in those dealings I've also seen people who literally don't know what they're doing start throwing empty orders around the room more as a power play than as actual constructive commentary. Reminded me quite a bit of the descriptions of Murry in the studio given by Desper and Blaine among others. The recording process can be as much of a psychological trip as it is getting down to the actual business of recording music, especially when you're dealing with people who are paying you to record their music.

Serious question. Why focus on only Murry's credits when there are some highly regarded post-Capitol albums in the Beach Boys discography where a case could be made that through his innovations and contributions, the engineer (Stephen Desper credited as Chief Engineer and Mixer) could easily be given a co-production credit on any number of songs if not the full albums like Sunflower and Surf's Up, based on the standards being applied to give Murry credit retroactively. Stephen did more for the final outcome and sound of that music than Murry or Venet offered in 62-63. Maybe "produced by The Beach Boys" or even assigning credit to Carl Wilson in those cases should be taken to task next, based on some of the standards that open the door for Murry's retroactive crediting.

I don't think that's a fair thing to say.
As pointed out by many people here, it's a job with many interpretations, which actually in the end supports what GF is saying, not the reverse. If there are many variations in a role's definition, then the crediting is more dependent on situational understanding (hopefully captured in an agreed-upon document) than any objective measurement.
So whether someone was "a producer" would depend on how the role was contractually defined for that production at that time.

If you think of a corporate project manager - the PM's involvement in the production of a product can vary wildly; in some cases a PM might be a hands on producer or contributing architect, making actual implementation decisions; a PM might delegate many typical PM tasks to other people; a PM might stay aloof entirely from production,  acting strictly as scheduler and high-level organizer and budget manager. There is an institute that defines a public definition of project manager, but it really varies from job to job. Hopefully, a PM has a document specifying what the corporation defines his or her job to be on that project.

With a record producer, it seems, as with corporate pms, there were several models:
-a Spector kind of model - full out hands on in-the-end-the-product-really-is-his;
-a Nik Venet type role (no longer often credited as Producer, but it often was then) - a scheduler, more of a by-the-book-project-organizer-and-corporate-liaison than a part of the creative team;
-a George Martin sort - contributes creatively, guides the sessions, and is the corporate liaison; and I'm sure other models as well.

If things are structured well, contracts will explicitly define the role of the producer, he/she will perform the role as defined, get paid and credited according to the contract and there should be no controversy.

But that still leaves room for different contracts to have different definitions of the producer's job.

What's being debated here isn't really clear. There's a jumble of posts about what Murry Wilson actually did; and a jumble of posts about whether what he actually did should be considered producing.

In order to discuss the latter effectively, an agreed upon definition of producer would be needed. Then one could apply what one understood Murry Wilson to have done to that definition and have a yes or no, by that definition.

Regarding credits, whatever definition of "producer" is agreed upon here may not be the definition that they were working with at that time. As with the PM analogy - in the end, it's a job and if the company gives you that title and you do what you're supposed to do, then you're the Producer whether or not you got involved creatively, delegated some of the work, were out sick or on vacation some of the time, took suggestions and input from others, or even allowed someone else to boss you around on things that were your own responsibility. If it's your title and you don't get fired, you get to put it on your CV and the other people don't.

So, I think GF is right, on the one hand, by essentially saying, "it doesn't matter what Murry did in the studio, he wasn't the Producer, so he wasn't the producer. And giving input or even making decisions doesn't make him the Producer." (correct me if this is a false characterization).

By the same token, I think it's reasonable for others to say, "But the things he did are things that are often done by Producers so while I don't consider him to be the Producer (a contracted title), I do consider him to be a producer (a conceptual role)."

I know that this comment contradicts others I've made before. Like Obama, I reserve the right to have an evolving opinion. And I consider it far from definitive.

Nobody is making a claim that Murry should retroactively be given production credits. The question was 'if Murry did do things that could be considered producing duties, why did he never seek credit at the time?'

Plenty of other production credits to discuss (I've mentioned a few earlier). The "Produced by the Beach Boys" credit, as it appeared on Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and Friends, I personally think was Brian's "out" -- I think he was still producing the records, but did not want to put his name on the credit.

That was not the original question. It's been put out by a few people but it's evident from reading the thread that that's not the main thing people are focusing on.
But, I think my latest comment applies to that: the decision was based on the titles and job descriptions as they were understood by the participants at the time, hopefully explicitly set out, but maybe not.

Whoa now. GF2002 is just opining his perspective from his experience. I can't speak for GF2002, but let's not get carried away.

In this case, imo, Carl and Brian's perspective trumps GF2002's perspective.

Stop me if I've told this before......(I'm gonna tell it anyway)........FWIW I asked Jim Lockert, like 15 years or so ago, about the whole band getting Producer credit on some albums he engineered and he said he didn't know why. He said Brian was the Producer on the albums and the Boys just offered suggestions which Brian might try or not.

So again Lockert's perspective subject to the band's perspective. I've seen Alan Boyd mention in passing a 60's interview where Carl says Brian was the Producer of Smiley I believe. Anybody familiar with that or any other information?   

Although worded differently, it was the second question/point asked in this thread.

This dovetails nicely with what Dennis told DJ Pete Fornatale in 1976: when Fornatale commented on how it seemed that the Beach Boys were pretty much Brian Wilson's vehicle and vision (or words to that effect), until that seemed to end with a "thud" right around the time of Smiley Smile, Dennis replied that it happened because Brian decided that the albums would now say "Produced by The Beach Boys" instead of "Produced by Brian Wilson". Which implies Brian was still, indeed, still the de facto producer, and merely wanted to take some pressure off himself by crediting the whole group. I would add that I've heard Carl state in an interview (around 1988) that "Do It Again" was the first time HE became involved as a producer. But I'll backtrack just a bit to say that, in my opinion and based on having heard the session tape, that Brian and Dennis co-produced "Little Bird" from Friends, and that Murry (yes, Murry) was there, co-producing, on "Meant For You" and "Transcendental Meditation". And possibly others on that album. But otherwise, yes, I think Brian was in full producer mode until mid-'68 or so, which is when folks speculate he may have been institutionalized, and came out "not quite the same". That's when the other guys truly had to step in and become producers, and we see them credited individually on 20/20 as a result.

As for Desper, yes - I could easily envision him warranting a "co-produced by" or "associate producer" credit, or something to that effect, for Sunflower and Surf's Up, if such a credit was being retroactively given (which it isn't).

Weird about Murry in the studio during "Transcendental Meditation". I have to say, that particular track stands out to me as having a bit of an old-time, unusual sound with the big band type feel. While it may have been all just Brian directing the horn players to sound a certain way (or perhaps the musicians themselves just having freedom to do their thing), and maybe is just Brian trying something different... some of the song almost sounds like it would have the input of someone else (from a different time than Brian) calling the shots a bit.

Almost like the Dick Reynolds sound on some BB Christmas songs - which again, sounds quite noticeably unlike Brian, as those songs are in fact unlike Brian (who didn't arrange those Christmas song parts). I wonder if "Transcendental Meditation" is another example of a situation like that. Of course, I could be dead wrong - it's just a theory.

"... no guys, 'TranscenDENtal Meditation CAN' doo-be-dah-dah-do-dee ... come on Al, treble up, 'it's COOOOOL!!!'"

 :lol

I guess Murry's favorite James Dean film was Treble Without a Cause?

The implication - which has been suggested to me more than once - is, of course, chilling.

Agreed-- that comment landed with a heavy "thud" when I read it too. My lord, what that man has (or may have been) subjected too...

And no one in their right mind would have suggested otherwise. I was just replying to a comment I found funny about me having some fantasy version of what a producer did when for a few years I actually did work as a producer and made a few albums for paying clients. No smash hits, unfortunately.

What I find curious though is how after posting Hal Blaine's perspective (someone who worked in the studio when Murry was there with the Beach Boys and when Murry was producing the Sunrays), instead of acknowledging it, Cam, you followed up with questions about when Hal actually worked with the band, the timeline of the Sunrays, etc...I can understand wanting to set the record straight but unfortunately nothing exists to answer your questions which would cast doubt on Hal's perspective since he was actually there to witness Murry in the studio. And his perspective was that Murry was an asshole, and he wanted Brian to produce records according to his fantasy version of how Lawrence Welk made records in the 1950's while Welk wanted to make records like Brian was making in the 1960's to appeal to the teen audience.

Then...Chuck Britz. If anyone was right there in the trenches as all of this was going down, from that first "real" session held at Western instead of a living room studio like the Morgans had, and if anyone was as hands-on and vital to the actual process of making these recordings as anyone, it was Chuck Britz. And he said from those earliest sessions it was Brian producing those records.

Cam - What would you reply to Chuck Britz if he were still with us and said exactly what he said in that quote? Would you argue with him?

I never discounted what Brian said about whatever songs he'd say Murry contributed to. To restate yet again, the issue was how much credit would people be willing to give Murry on albums from 62-64 beyond the few that Brian would point out? And how far would it be taken to the point of changing the credit as it appeared and still appears on those albums?

I'll say again, Murry was the manager, and got paid and credited as such. If what he did beyond that warranted a production credit on any of those albums, it would have been there. But take a look at the credits on Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, and Shut Down vol 2. One of them has Capitol thanking "Beach Boy Brian Wilson for producing what we consider to be the finest Beach Boys album yet", the other reads "Arranged and Produced by Brian Wilson", and the other says "Produced by Brian Wilson".

I see no reason to go back and change that. And if, as said, no one will be advocating that or trying to make those changes in some official capacity anytime in the future, then that is just fine with me. Because to do so would serve no purpose. There are plenty of facts to be looked at under a microscope and parsed and picked apart...Brian producing these classic records ain't one of them.

Changing the credit on albums is not something I spoke to at all and I would not be in favor of it. Did anyone advocate retroactively changing the credits? I don't remember it.

Re. Hal and Chuck: I did what I did with the claim from Lockert and looked for corroborating evidence. Ie. the Boys opinions, etc.. No one brought it up, but according to Desper, Lockert wasn't at ever session during his tenure, just like Chuck and Hal weren't at every (or even most?) sessions during the timeframe we were looking at regarding Murry. If I was able to follow everything.  So that shades the claims of all three. And just like with Lockert, the Boys'/Brian's claims regarding who was the producer would trump the opinion of all 3 guys who were only present some of the time in question.

On the issue of changing production credits, it's good to see the opinion overall seems to be against it.

On the issue of weighing and shading the various comments and perspectives, consider both Brian and Carl were sons talking about their late father. Compare that background to a professional studio drummer and several professional engineers who were there as employees to do the job of making records for the Beach Boys. Again, not that I'm weighing the comments that way, but if that were being done, you'd have the difference between sons talking about their father versus "outsiders" who were there to do a job and were not connected to the family. Which of the two would possibly be a more unfiltered account of what was observed during these sessions?

My first thought is angry kids would be less likely to over credit their old man I suppose.

Again regarding Murry, also consider those "outsiders" seem to have not been at many/most of the sessions in question yet on the other hand I'm sure they are mostly correct about the sessions they did attend and, as I think I've made clear, I too believe that Brian was the pre-eminent and legendary producer during the timespan he chose to produce but with occasional production and co-production by Murry. Murry who didn't get, or apparently want, credit for for his producing/co-producing.

I'm not even sure anymore we are in disagreement.

I kind of don't think you are.

Hah! However things played out it's sorta cool to imagine that something like your quote above may have actually taken place, with Murry still insisting that the guys treble up.

On one of the BB radio specials I recall Carl talking about Friends (don't recall if he was referring to the album or the single, I think it was the album), anyway he said something along the lines of (I'm going from memory here, so this is not an exact quote), "Friends was basically done by Brian and our Dad".

Concerning the early credits, since Brian and Carl both stated that Murry produced or co-produced some of their early stuff, that's all I need to hear to recognize that he did. We all know that Murry ultimately became a pest in the studio, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't have contributed valuable producer's type guidance in the early days.

Exactly, there is no arguement.

One last thought from me on this subject - in response to gf2000's assertion that Chuck's and Hal's recollections of Murry being more of an obstacle in the studio than anything should be taken as discounting the idea that he had any real production influence:

Hal was at none of the 1962 sessions and relatively few of the sessions from 1963-early '64 (really, only a few songs during that time), and then only the basic tracks, not the vocal overdubs: "Our Car Club", "Summer Moon", "Hawaii", probably "Be True To Your School", "Fun, Fun, Fun", "Pamela Jean", and some other of BW's outside productions. I don't think Murry was present for the tracking session on the first of these, and I'm not sure about the second. My point is, his exposure to Murry during that year or so was limited in scope compared to the total number of sessions for which Murry was present and acting in an unofficial producer's role.

As for Chuck, I think it quite possible that his memory of the fake console being set up for Murry to have something to "tinker with" comes from later, rather than earlier - I think it likely that after Murry was fired as their manager and "banned" from the control booth, then stayed away from their sessions for about a year before returning for some of the Today! vocal sessions, that THAT'S when the drastic measure of the fake board was undertaken, to stop Murry from having any control over the records' sound in a technical sense. Maybe Brian or Chuck said something like, "Uh-oh, he's back, and I just know he's gonna try to twist some knobs while he's up here - what do we do?" The resulting solution was a desperate means to what was envisioned as an unpleasant end. I have no proof, though, so it's just speculation. But what seems to be Chuck's downplaying of Murry's in-studio role could be clouded by his lasting memory of Murry trying to hi-jack the "Help Me, Rhonda" vocal session. Regardless, it's trumped by Brian's and Carl's statements, on multiple occasions, that Murry did indeed help produce some of their records.

So Carl name checks their first "record" as co-produced by Murry.  So either recordings for their first single or first album? Single I assume.

For Murry as Producer Brian specifies after "early 1962" until whenever Brian took over.  Carl also specifies 409, Shut Down, and the first sess' for IMR.

I don't know how all of that lines up but according to his sons that would be where we can hear what Murry's uncredited co-production/production sounded like and might be guidance as to what other recordings may have been Murry colabs producer-wise.

Maybe - to answer the first post in all of this - the reason why Murry didn't get nor did he seek a production or co-producer credit is in the comment above.

Perhaps Murry was doing what he thought a *manager* should do, and giving advice which was along the lines of what he thought a manager did for the band he was managing. Thus, he got credit for and paid for being a manager, as I've said earlier. He thought he was giving valuable manager's type guidance, and that's what his role was - manager.

When it was shown through the actual sessions and the recording process that Brian Wilson was the one with the vision, and the one "leading" the group and providing the musical directions, it was made even more clear who was producing the records when Capitol gave him credit (and thanks) starting with the Surfer Girl album. Venet's credit was gone after that, Murry's name wasn't listed as producer...because Murry wasn't producing and perhaps didn't think he was producing as much as he was trying to fill the role of manager. Musically, he didn't have the skills or the vision to do what Brian could do in the studio, and at least by Surfer Girl Capitol even conceded and erased Venet's credit entirely.

Keep in mind too that this exact time was when the role of producer if not the role of the recording studio itself was beginning to change dramatically from what it had been to what it would become. The "studio" was a separate instrument in itself, the sounds and technology played more of a role. The "producer" definition was being shaped by those like Phil Spector, and with indie studios like Gold Star and United/Western, there were less stringent rules and more experimentation allowed. That's how all of it developed too. It wasn't a case of getting an artist and a full orchestra into the studio and recording a live performance, then choosing the best takes. It was actually building up the song in the studio and using whatever then-new techniques and technology was available to help create sounds that were not going to be geared for a live performance on stage, but rather a "record" in a new way of thinking.

Perhaps try to pinpoint when *Brian* started to do things like double the harmonies through overdubs and start using studio sounds as Spector was doing. Perhaps around Surfin USA.

And consider there are reports that Brian was - through 1963 - actively going to other sessions around LA to observe, and to soak in all of what he saw and heard going on. It was new stuff, sometimes radically different from even a few years earlier where they'd be looking to capture a full live performance rather than build it up track by track. It was a guy like Spector with Larry Levine using echo and reverb, a guy like Stan Ross doing all kinds of crazy stuff, it was the logical extension of what Les Paul was doing with his "new sound" a decade earlier by pioneering some of the same techniques.

It was the time when producing a record focused as much on the producer's role and the role of the studio as much as on the artist and the material. The old "A&R guy" role, as Venet, Tom Wilson, and others filled, was being replaced and reshaped by Wilson, Spector, etc.

Murry was still in the 50's mindset. Capitol was still in the practice of assigning an A&R guy like Venet to a new artist. Chuck Britz is there when the Beach Boys first come to Western, and he saw firsthand what was happening and who was putting forth the musical direction (and vision) for the music...and as he said, it was Brian. In about a year's time, Capitol conceded that too. And they conceded that and gave Brian full credit more on what he was doing than some "bet" between Murry and Venet. If Brian wasn't doing the job, Capitol would not have agreed to take Venet off the credit and put Brian on. Capitol as a multimillion dollar label is not going to affect their finances on the back of a bet between a manager of a band who had just been signed a year prior and the word of one of their youngest execs. If Brian wasn't delivering, Venet's name on the records and presence at the sessions would still have been a factor. But Brian was delivering.

I think - again - Murry thought he was doing what a manager should do for their client, and to him that included managing the studio activity as well. But in terms of bringing the songs to life, his son Brian was the one making it happen much more than Murry, no matte how much Murry was managing.

In terms of modern lingo, Murry could have been "micromanaging" the band in ways that could have a negative effect on the processes he was trying to micromanage. But that's what he thought his role was in terms of 1962-63 until the band couldn't take it anymore and canned him.

Listen to the Sunrays album which Murry produced. Consider the year that came out, and consider it was what Brian was doing early in 1963 when he was producing the Beach Boys. The Sunrays were Murry's spiteful attempt to promote a "surf band" that would be better than his sons who had fired him, and it ended up sounding like the music which Brian had already done and moved ahead. That's what Murry would have had the Beach Boys sounding like instead of Help Me Rhonda, California Girls, and Sloop John B. As Brian said "the 409 sound on Help Me Rhonda"...that was Murry in a nutshell. Before that, it could have been "the Lawrence Welk sound on I Get Around". He didn't get it.

Murry was an anachronism, from the time he wanted Brian to make records like they did in the 50's to the time he tried to one-up Brian with the Sunrays and sounded a few years out of date when he did.

And to sum up once again, it's good to see that even with a majority of those posting to this thread, there doesn't seem to be support for going back and changing any production credits in an official capacity any time in the foreseeable future. That's a good thing. They shouldn't be changed.

Maybe we are just not going to agree on this. If we are disagreeing.

I've considered it but to me it is after the fact in this case and for a different group of guys and a distraction from what Murry actually did produce/co-produce for the BBs.  We don't have to depend on speculative comparables or unrelated material when Carl and Brian have pointed us to some of the material Murry actually did co-produce and produce for the BBs. 

You asked for something concrete to compare what Murry actually did produce, and that's the Sunrays album. No argument, just delivering an answer to the request. Listen to the Sunrays album, keeping in mind when that came out, and that's perhaps the best example of Murry's production ideas.

Not doubting the Wilson brothers regarding those early songs/sessions. It's when it goes beyond those earlier tracks and into 1964 that I challenge. But since there isn't much support if any at all (at least here) to change the production credits any time soon, it looks like the credits will stay the same as they should.

Do we have to?

Sunrays leader RICK HENN just had a birthday (see Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/richard.henn.9 where we're 'friends').  I really dug his LONGBOARDS RULE

Aw, I was looking for "Murry's uncredited co-production/production" but I understand about after 1964, did someone in this thread challenge that or advocate for retroactively changing the Producer credits?

I'm dredging up this old thread, not to restart an argument, but rather to add another instance of Brian stating Murry served as their producer early on - and that he (Brian) actually learned something about record production from his dad (as controversial as that may sound) - just so we can have these statements all in one tidy, consolidated place:

To this:

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Carl Wilson, published in the New Jersey-based music paper Aquarian (April 6, 1983), prior to the band's April 8th appearance at Brendan Byrne Arena:
Interviewer: "Your dad managed the group at the start, didn't he?"
Carl: "He co-produced our first record too. He produced "409", "Shut Down", and the first session of "In My Room"."

And here's part of a radio interview with Brian Wilson, conducted by Nikki Wine on October 4, 1980, for The Grapevine program on KHTZ, as reprinted in the BBFUN newletter of November 1980:
Interviewer: "When did you actually start producing records for The Beach Boys? How many records into the whole thing did you take over?"
Brian: "Well, I took over in 1962, mid '62. Nik Venet was producing us in '62, the early part. I took over, well actually my father was producing after Nik Venet, then I took over after my father. That's what happened."


and this:


Here's another quote - from a Brian interview recorded June 7, 1985 for Westwood One Radio, as reprinted in the February 1986 STOMP!:

Interviewer: "You kind of became the studio leader of the group."
Brian: "In a sense, yeah."
Interviewer: "...and you produced."
Brian: "My dad was too though, he was kind of the leader. He was our producer but I learned, he and I learned from this guy (Gary Usher) how to record, this friend of ours, we were grateful for that."


we can add this (scroll to about 4:38 in the video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hokN_2MQH-c