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We lost Carl Wilson on this day in 1998. I can't believe it's been almost twenty years! It feels like it was only yesterday. It hurts just as much. I remember the cold, empty feeling, seeing Carl's picture with "In Memorium" below it every time VH1 would cut to a commercial. The world seemed a little colder that day.

Goodness me, I feel old.

 :'(

I can't help but to think how badly Carl is needed, given certain events of the past five years or so.

Agreed Jay... :-\

Although, I feel a bit guilty saying or thinking that. After all, Carl gave pretty much his whole life to the group. I really think he was the glue that kept everything together. He even performed when he was very sick, and desperately needed to rest. The guy earned his right to rest in peace, you know?

He certainly did. I have three birthdays to celebrate today. But I'm celebrating them elsewhere. It means I can mourn Carl here.

Rest In Peace, dear Carl.  :'(

A few years ago somebody made an epic post about Carl that ended with "God save Carl Wilson". I'd love to see it again but I wouldn't know how to start in finding it.

Carl was the glue that held the group together. As soon as he was gone, it fell apart. My wish for him is that he could have spent a little more time just doing what he wanted to do, but that was Carl, always thinking of others first.

I always wished that Carl could have been around to experience audiences finally willing to embrace non-"hits" and well known numbers. I get the sense he first fought (circa 1981) and then became resigned (by the 90s) to doing the same setlist. Not because he didn't want to do the deeper cuts (as evidenced by Carl and Al being into the late '93 "boxed set" setlist), but because he sensed audiences would reject a bunch of deep cuts.

It's ironic that in 2012 the band was able to do a 61-song setlist at Royal Albert Hall with songs representing so many albums and eras, whereas in the 90s even when they played Wembley it was 30-35 songs with all the meat and potatoes numbers.

Here is the "God save Carl Wilson" post:  (If you go to search button and type "God save Carl Wilson" you will find it

From my first memories of reading about him, the first thing I thought about Carl Wilson was this - what you see is what you get. Of all of the Beach Boys, Carl was the least prone to bullshitting. He was certainly the warmest and most inviting of any of them. A perennial albatross, always up in the air, doing his own thing while still being democratic with the group.

Brian essentially had Carl as his right-hand man. And Carl was always around for his brother. And we all know that Carl was in genuine awe of his brother's talents. For someone as sensitive (in a good way) as Carl, watching his brother slowly burn out personally (forget creatively, that's a THREAD), especially when his brother was the reason he managed to become famous and successful could only have been among the most crushing blows ever dealt to him.

When Brian retreated, a whole lot of responsibility went onto Carl's (as well as Dennis') shoulders. Early on, forced to scramble and improvise around Brian's inconsistent bursts of creativity, Carl was able to develop into a much more talented artist at a rate almost as amazing as Brian had a few years before. And Carl's hard work was certainly of great artistic merit, and led the way for the band's evolution from America's preeminent pop group to a great recording and touring rock band. The world caught on too late to Carl's efforts, and by the time they were recognized, the band was starting to slow their progression to a crawl, finally sidestepping, and taking a huge step back. While I am quite sure Carl was not one to piss on or try to lessen the value the band's initial success, all of his work from when Brian stepped back to when the oldies show came running back in full force must have been disheartening for him.

There is, of course, this one conflicting story, which came from Jim Guercio, who had mentioned to the band back in late 1973 that while the shows were good, they were too loose and the audience was inconsistently entertained depending on how well-versed they were in the Beach Boys' music. He recommended that they add more of the oldies to the setlist. And the response from all of the touring band was a unanimous "yes". Where this fits in is anyone's guess.

The Beach Boys were certainly easily convinced by the almighty dollar to jump on the relentless touring bandwagon once Endless Summer became successful. There was money to be made, and they jumped at the opportunity. Sure, it's one thing to be artistic but quite another to be artistic and working from gig to gig just to survive. Carl, as the leader during their period in the desert in the early 1970s, was quite aware of that kind of burden. Their finances dropped fast, and by 1971 they were financing their tours with Brian's royalties. And this is where the conflict comes in.

Carl did want to be an artist. But once confronted with a rapidly declining Brian and Dennis on and off stage, his own troubles with Michael and Al, his marriage falling apart, and his drug and alcohol problems, he was forced to choose what was more important to him. And this was where the Beach Boys, while they were his bread and butter, became secondary to family.

Carl was able to exorcise his demons, and he wanted to have his brothers cleaned up and brought back to prominence within the group. He was a man of great patience when it came to Brian's often embarrassing live performances and rapidly lackluster studio work, and the issue of Dennis and Michael being at each other's throats would have driven most sane people over the edge. Carl was diplomatic and let Dennis off for a time to get his act together. And Dennis was able to get back in decent shape for a bit before spiraling out of control again.

But once it became obvious that it was a situation of life or death for both Brian and Dennis, Carl decided enough was enough. Family had to come first. His brothers and cousin took priority. He was instrumental in getting Brian back under Landy's care, which, while it was a bad move in the long run, was at least enough to allow Brian to return to a healthy frame of mind. And he certainly tried what he could to help Dennis. Dennis was guided by his own whims and not even the patience of Carl was enough to convince Dennis beyond a few couple-day stints in rehab. Carl even let Dennis stay with him at one point in 1983 when Dennis was homeless.

The loss of Dennis was the first blow. You can see it all over Carl's face in the press conference video the day after Dennis died. Something inside of him was gone. He had lost one of his brothers, and Brian was slowly going back to being himself. Carl's responsibility as the leader of the Beach Boys was still of importance to him; he wanted to be sure the fans were treated to a good time every day they performed. Everyone knows the stories of Carl's charity and kindness with the fans. Family still came first. I will never say that Carl gave up. He was too good to just give up on the Beach Boys and the fans. But they did become a lesser priority. And that's why as time went on, his input in the songwriting department slowed to a crawl.

When it came to the reunion in 1995, I'm sure Carl had modest expectations as to how Brian would deliver. But it soon became obvious, no matter how great the material was, that Brian was essentially being controlled again. Not by the drugs, but by his handlers. And this was something of which Carl wanted no part. He wanted to work with Brian, not with Brian's handlers. And Carl being the lucky person to put a half-hearted vocal down on Dancing The Night Away? I would have thrown up my arms and walked out too. It was a circus. This wasn't his brother he was working with. He was working with his brother's handlers. He preferred to do the right thing and walk away. And honestly, considering what Brian's subjected us to in the last fifteen years, Carl did us a favor. The show would go on, but if Brian wasn't going to be himself, then Carl wanted nothing to do with it.

It amazes me that people have the gall, the fucking nerve, to say Carl "gave up". Need I remind anyone what Carl did when he was diagnosed with his cancer? He went right back out on tour. He was the consummate professional, performing every night. He was certainly not without difficulties while doing so; he was confined to a stool for most of the shows, standing up occasionally when he took a lead vocal, and always for God Only Knows. He needed oxygen after every single song. A lesser man would have taken a cancer diagnosis as a death sentence. Carl Wilson kept putting himself out there until he couldn't anymore. People then say that Michael was a motherfucker for saying that he couldn't bear to see Carl onstage and wanted him gone. He couldn't bear to see Carl onstage in the condition he was in. I don't know how that makes Michael a motherfucker. And it's not like Michael wanted Carl "gone". He wanted Carl to try with every part of himself to beat his illness and get back out there. And I'm quite sure Carl wanted that too. Anyone who doubts that is a truly sick individual.

Carl Wilson was a trooper right until he breathed his last. He was, by far, the most levelheaded man in the group. And he was one of the lucky ones who was around to receive all of this adoration from his fans, rather than receiving it posthumously.

He didn't give up. Nature stepped in. Carl Wilson was not a quitter.

God Save Carl Wilson.

goshdarn, that's a great post. Gives me chills.  :o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUiWjUYUhOg

God Bless Carl & Meros !

Great post except for one thing, who are the handlers?

There was another thread where somebody once talked about seeing a video of Carl with the group in 1997, and Carl was sitting in a chair. I'd love to find that thread, and ask the poster about that video.

R.I.P

Jay - Yes Carl did sit in a chair often that final summer. Also he & his wife Gina did the 1997  summer tour by tour bus & didn't fly between  concerts with the others.  He made most of the summer shows but did miss some.
Even thou Carl hadn't smoked for 10 years it  along with second hand smoke from playing smokey venues in earlier days  were the cause .

That long post says some nice things about carl but have you read the whole thing? It's ridiculously disrespectful towards Brian. What the hell does it mean "what Brian has subjected us to these last 15 years"??? A few clinkers sure but a lot of great music and some great concert experiences. The post illustrates the dysfunctionality of bb fans. Why does a post praising carl have to trash Brian? Carl and Brian's musical tastes may have diverged but if he'd lived I'm sure he'd find some kind words for some of his brother's work since 1998.

Exactly, who are the handlers?

For many of us, this was the day "the music died".....

Brilliant singer and underrated producer.

Great post about Carl! Brought both a tear and a smile for his greatness as a performer, moreso as a man.

Especially with no context, that post about Carl is just weird. We all love Carl and his work with the band, and I think we could all highlight many of his virtues, and that's saying something considering how private the guy was.

But that post is just weird; why the need to bash Brian and defend Mike against imaginary attacks?

It's certainly warranted to point how all of the politics and other dysfunctional BS Carl put up with. But that post also makes a lot of assumptions about Carl's motives, especially surrounding Brian in their final years together.

And setting aside the loaded, charged "handlers" term, does anybody here actually have any first hand information or insight into how Carl felt about those "around" Brian post-Landy, in particular once Brian got married? Didn't Brian stay in a conservatorship for some time after Landy? Brian essentially, one could argue, was forced into having a court-appointed "handler" at that stage. Considering everything that had gone down, does anybody really think Carl would have advocated for Brian to just be out on his own with *nobody* to help him the second Landy was gone from the scene? Was not Carl made aware of Landy's overmedication during the 80s and early 90s? Wasn't that a main crux of getting Carl more strongly involved in extracting Landy? Carl had to know Brian needed help once Landy was gone.

I'm not sure how much "handlers" impacted those '95 sessions. Is that post implying that Carl felt Don Was or Andy Paley were "handlers" or some sort of interlopers? Also, why would the post single out the unfinished, fragmented "Dancing the Night Away" and ignore "Soul Searchin'" and "You're Still a Mystery?" Kind of convenient I think.

Remember, this was the era where Carl was dressing up with the rest of the band in goofy costumes doing music videos for "Problem Child" and "Crocodile Rock."

Carl and Brian continued to have a strained relationship, but I think this post kind of implies it was all due to Carl feeling Brian was being "controlled." Maybe that was a factor, but I think the decades of ill-will, Landy stoking the flames of discontent regarding Carl and the rest of the band, and the pseudo-autobiography all contributed to straining their relationship.

Make no mistake, I wouldn't have blamed Carl for quitting the group in the 70s or early 80s (and frankly I wouldn't have blamed anyone in the band for doing so). He had plenty of beefs, and had his head screwed on in way not much of anyone else in the band outside of maybe Al did (and I think it took Al being exiled from the band in 1998 for Al to really become more of a calm, wise sage regarding the band).

It was a Jason post. It is worth noting that in that late 80's interview that Carl did (where he admitted that Mike was the leader) , Carl enthusiastically praised BW 88.

Sorry to be late on this and not posting right on the date of Carl's tragic, premature passing.

The first eight paragraphs in "God Save Carl" are right on. After that a different voice takes over, making the reader feel that the essay has been hijacked.

I think Carl may have felt by 1995 that without a complete return to form from Brian, it would just not be worth the effort to go the distance to make a new LP's worth of material. IIRC much of the material for those sessions eventually wound up on Gettin' In Over My Head, which is to my ears one of Brian's weakest overall efforts. My sense is that Carl heard this in the material, and decided to opt out until Brian had gotten back to a higher level of output. Sadly, he was stricken with cancer the next year.

Wonder which leads Carl would have done for TWGMTR...

That translated 1989 Carl interview is a super interesting one. I believe the BW '88 track he singles out is, surprisingly, "Let It Shine." When I read that when someone here translated it a few years ago, my jaw hit the floor and I remember thinking "Why couldn't someone have hooked Brian *and/or* Carl up with Jeff Lynne for some more tracks?"

Carl certainly had a higher opinion of BW '88 than Mike did when Mike was asked about it in the early 90s. Predictably, Mike's beef seemed to be less about specific musical moments and more about the fact that the Beach Boys weren't on it.

That '89 interview was also interesting in that the interviewer was surprisingly kind of calling out Carl (or rather the band as a whole) for the band's boring setlists.

Here's a link to the interview as posted here awhile back:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,15607.msg369021.html#msg369021

Carl may well have had some legit political and personal reasons for being apprehensive about working with Brian in the mid 90s.

But I have no problem saying that Carl may have simply been, in my opinion, wrong on the quality of the Paley material. I don't think that material was all A+ material. But "Soul Searchin'" and "You're Still a Mystery", which it should be noted are the songs presumably Brian and Andy (and Don Was?) chose to present to the other BBs, were excellent and arguably better than anything the band had worked on since the late 70s.

I know Bruce has also gone on record implying he didn't think Brian was up to snuff creatively during that time. But this all reminds me of those guys in Chicago complaining in the early 80s about all the Peter Cetera ballads. The question becomes, "Well, what are *you* guys brining to the proceedings these days?" I love Carl, but his "Beckley-Lamm-Wilson" stuff kind of puts me to sleep. Mike had just helmed a stinker with "SIP." Bruce wasn't writing or offering much of anything (maybe he was writing ten albums of material behind closed doors, but he never presented anything apparently). I haven't heard Al say anything negative about those sessions, so his glacial pace in doing his own material can be excused in this particular case.

Brian's still probably kind of f-ed up from a decade with Landy, yet goes in and knocks out *more than an album's worth* of material with Andy Paley, but the Beach Boys come in and cast aspersions on Brian's stuff? They were either being pretty darn hypocritical, or their reasons for not working more with Brian in that time frame had far more to do with interpersonal stuff and politics than it did actual musical reasons. Yes, "Saturday Morning in the City" is dreck, and several other Paley tracks are rather "meh." But there was a good basis for an album, and it certainly wasn't a case of Brian being tapped out creatively. The band had *released* albums during earlier periods where Brian was creatively spent (e.g. "LA", "KTSA").

I just think it's odd for several members of the band to throw their hands up in the air and call it a day after recording "Soul Searchin'" when they were only a few years removed from having done this:

(http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/452/019006_34.jpg)

Man, to have been a fly on the wall of those '95 sessions...I think the BBs had a terrible time trying to "thread the needle" on their own in this time frame, and Carl's response may have been as much pent-up frustration at seeing how difficult a process it was going to be to stay on the straight-and-narrow and get a project finished--and possibly projecting ahead to a less-than-satisfying result commercially, which would simply put all of them back in the same situation they were already in. I'm sure Carl saw "Kokomo" as a dead end, crash-burned-and-buried by SIP, but he also knew that Mike would still be in there gunning for that type of material--and what he saw coming from Brian just didn't get them over the "roadblocks stumbling them." It must have been a shock for Brian when that happened--he was used to Mike's second-guessing, but to have Carl express reservations...I mean, Brian had become used to Carl finishing his work for him!

Carl and Brian's relationship was highly evolved and went through many permutations over the years. I've often wondered if Carl's desire to get SMiLE out in the 70s (fueled by Reiley and the media) might not have inadvertently fed into Brian's ongoing malaise, and that it might not be coincidental that SMiLE did not get re-addressed until after Carl passed away. It's such a complicated set of interlocking factors, based on very intimate interpersonal relations...the sad thing is that they didn't get the chance to work it all out before Carl passed away.

What in the hell is this picture from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGYbvZ7OFX8

Enjoy!  :lol

RIP Carl, who was a brilliant vocalist, the glue that held the band together, a great human being, and all that good stuff. But I won't say he was incapable of making a regrettable decision with regards to the band. All the members did at various times.

Here's something to ponder. It seems that in the last decade or so of his life, Carl had become more firmly in the Mike Love camp with regards to his decision-making in the band. Dare I say, it almost seems like Carl became somewhat of a yes-man to Mike's desires, sort of akin to how Bruce is these days. Maybe that was Carl just focusing on wanting to provide for his family and not rock the boat (because of feeling emotionally spent trying to do anything that was more artistically risky). Maybe he was just being passive, and I could never fault him for being out of emotional energy to fight, after what he'd been through for so long. But perhaps Carl was actively trying to "stick up" for Mike out of family love at this point. I dunno.

Carl's opposition to the Paley material really indeed is a head-scratcher, so I'm trying to ponder what the factors could be. Because a good chunk of that material (especially the songs they did record) was GOOD. Very solid, despite a few clunkers in the bunch. So I literally don't think the reasoning had to do with the *actual* quality of the songs, because the better material from that batch is UNARGUABLY good and certainly better than lots and lots of BB material from the preceding decade and a half.

I think it had to be due to some sort of politics.

In an attempt to connect the dots... what did *Mike* think of the Paley material? Was Mike pissed in 1995 that he wasn't writing with Brian alone in a room, the way he would go on and on about being pissed about an outside collaborator being present in 2012? Because I wonder if it's possible that Mike was venting through Carl. That is, I wonder if Mike was internally, behind closed doors, making a stink to Carl about being upset that another non-BB collaborator was working with Brian, and got Carl onboard (who seemingly was on the Mike train of thinking in general at that time) with not liking that Paley-heavy songwriting arrangement either. The Brian/Mike/Carl strained relationships at that time had to have been some sort of factor too, I would think. They were strained and dysfunctional in a unique way, different from the way that the Brian/Mike relationships were also differently dysfunctional strained in 2011/2012.

I could see that Mike might have been of the mind that he could get better results if Carl was the one pushing the Mike agenda (ditching outside collaborators, and poo-pooing actually decent material that was largely cowritten by outsiders, solely for that reason), instead of Mike himself doing that agenda-pushing. (Which of course would be super ironic considering Kokomo and all the then-recent stuff that followed was written by outsiders, with some BB member input). Carl of course could think and make decisions for himself, but maybe he was still being utilized to be the one to deliver a Mike-dictated agenda, as a point of view would probably have had a better chance at going through coming from a Wilson. To me, it just smells more like a Mike decision (based on numerous past examples) to put down good material because of political/ego reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the actual quality of the material.

Who knows, this is just a theory. Whatever the reason(s) - and I suspect there were several - I really think the quality of the material is a red herring. And even though quality is subjective, and even though the bandmates can't necessarily always be objective in deciding what is quality and what isn't, something just smells fishy in trying to imagine that Carl *actually* thought and fully believed in his heart that the quality of that material was subpar enough as to kill the project. That doesn't add up. Because the better Paley songs were good in a non-oddball, non-risky way. I can talk about how I love Love You, Adult Child, etc all day, but at the same time, I could *understand* why somebody might object to some of that material, even though I disagree. But the better Paley material is up there with the better TWGMTR material. Solid in a "this material is not remotely potentially embarrassing to the brand" kind of way.

Issues related to band politics, perhaps one band member's ego, and the band being pulled in the direction to ALWAYS fully live up to the infamous Jack Reilley quote seems to be more of a likely culprit, IMHO.

To throw a completely different theory out there... could it be that after 1992 and the massive flop of SIP, that the band made a decision that the next entirely new album of BB material was going to be held up to a really high level of quality, and that it was thought that the Paley material just didn't cut it? I suppose that theory holds less water if one considers that they released and heavily promoted the terrible Stars & Stripes album in 1996.

I just wish Carl was still around, for SO many reasons. It was a tragedy of such major proportions for the family, the band, and the music world. We live in a far less awesome place without Carl's presence.

Hello everyone! I'm back.

Important to note that the '95 reunion didn't actually fail -- it just turned into something else. And actually was the beginning of the chain of events that led to Brian's current activities.

Consider: Landy departs in '92. Brian works with Andy, but he also keeps his options open by collaborating with Don Was and Van Dyke.

The BBs are roped into recording some Paley tunes in 95. Some are lukewarm about the material, but there's also the question of Don Was. Do they want this outside producer? Sean O'Hagen drops by at a certain point.

And then Brian, likely remembering "Warmth of the Sun" given that he'd recently re-recorded it with Don Was, suggests recording it as a duet with Willie Nelson. Connections are made, and Mike senses the opportunity to follow the example of the Eagles, who had recently scored with a country covers album serving as an appetizer for their reunion.

Joe Thomas enters the picture -- not only can he produce audio and video, but he runs a small record label.

The band jumps into the country project. During that time, Brian and Joe start to work together, and they start to come up with some arresting material. (Whatever you think of the production, Lay Down Burden and Your Imagination are solid songs.)

Brian and Joe aim for a solo album, possibly because Joe has already gotten a glimpse of the complicated BB band dynamics. Andy Paley is shunted aside as the recording and creative process shifts to Chicago. The Beach Boys keep touring.

And then Carl gets sick. Who knows how much of a fuss he put up about the Paley material, but I doubt he or anyone else thought that would be the LAST CHANCE he had to work with Brian and the band. Heck, he and Brian were planning to have Carl appear on "Imagination" in the featured guest spot role that has become familiar through the GIOMH and NPP projects.

Carl dies, but Brian and Joe's album still ends up coming out (on a label owned by Eagles manager Irving Azoff, I should note). A touring band is put together.

Brian hits the road -- and the rest is history.

The point is, none of these events was discrete. Everything evolved and flowed from one stage to the next, often intuitively. And Carl was lost during the process, to everyone's regret. Yet Carl of all people must appreciate now, from his vantage point, the emergence of Brian as a mature recording and touring act had its origins in that BB reunion.

Because of course it did.

Wirestone is back! Time to start a 15 big ones ad campaign. ;D

Yeah, I think all the elements that could be in the mix of how things went down are now on the table. Thanks to Wirestone for filling in some of the areas that I was also thinking about vis-a-vis the subsequent results after the '95 sessions bogged down--and for doing it so succinctly.

I do think the rest of the band had (more or less justifiable) issues with Brian as a result of what was (from their perspective, particularly thanks to the Second Landy Era..) twenty years of instability and absence. The fact that they were at least partially responsible for that clearly became lost in their "frog in the pot" perspective on what was happening to their career, and this may have just increased levels of intolerance and grudge-jockeying.  I personally don't think that the Paley material was "the answer" to what the BBs needed in '95, and I suspect that everyone was gun-shy given how much other stuff had gone down in the very recent past (prime lawsuit time, it was!), so I would subscribe to the "overly elevated standards" mentality as certainly being in play, if not dominant. And remember that Brian was getting great press in this time frame from the Was documentary and OCA--something that probably stuck in a few craws.

I don't think Carl could remain completely free from thinking this way, which may explain how that went down. From there, I think Wirestone has it right--and folks should also be giving Melinda some credit for providing a more stable base for Brian. All (almost all) reports are that Marilyn is a good person, but she was very young and what she had to contend with is something that almost certainly cries out for a good bit more life experience to handle. For Brian, Melinda and Joe Thomas were the right people at the right time--and, as Wirestone said, the rest is history.

Thank you for that.

And welcome back!

There actually was one fly-on-the-wall account of a session, which was originally published some years back. C-man re-posted this article in several parts in an old thread. Here's a link to the first part (and then just continue on in the thread for the other parts):

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,4774.msg78087.html#msg78087

It's interesting that it's Mike and Brian who seem to be having a weird (though perhaps funny?) antagonistic thing going on during the session. Carl is typical Carl, going so far as to give traffic/driving tips for the best route from the studio.

I don't think Carl was being a yes-man for Mike in that timeframe, he was more likely playing the peacemaker between Mike and others. Anyway, my observations from the early- to mid-90s: Al and Carl shared dressing rooms and sometimes spent time together socially, Mike and Bruce shared dressing rooms, etc. But I also observed Carl staying apart from the other guys, hanging out with his wife. I lean toward him "being out of emotional energy to fight."

Oh man I'm so sorry I asked :lol. That screenshot HeyJude put up is like an alternate universe 90s cheese cover of Their Satanic Majesties Request.

Also, Wirestone, so glad to see you back here....great post.

And this is a key point; I don't think there's much extant evidence that Carl was like pounding his chest during the sessions saying how bad the material was. I think there was a lot of political stuff. He reportedly did walk out of a later session (I think this may have been the "Dancing the Night Away"/"Baywatch Nights" session), but apparently not for musical reasons.

It sounds as though Carl never even got to the stage where any material was being vetoed. So it was more a case of several participants (potentially everybody outside of Brian other than Matt Jardine and maybe Al?) being rather "meh" about the material, and easily swayed to move onto something else. Mike told, I believe, Peter Ames Carlin that they were willing to do the material, but not necessarily enthusiastic. Howie Edelson has related what Bruce told him in an interview:

Bruce Johnston was very forthcoming to me regarding his thoughts on being in the studio for "Soul Searchin'" and "You're Still A Mystery" and seriously recording with Brian Wilson for the first time in a decade, saying, quote, "That was a courtesy to Brian for us to be there. Brian certainly wasn't at any kind of peak in those days, but we respected his history and achievements for us to go and record with him and see what it might sound like. We were just trying to support someone who had been successful and good for us. I think if you use your ears, you'll hear that those tapes don't really lift off. It's fine -- but not fine enough."

Keep in mind this was the guy raking in coin at this same time period by croaking out the bridge to "Summer in Paradise" every night.

To which the obvious follow up is, "Bruce, what did you think of the SIP material when you heard it? Did those tracks lift off?   Or is it just  that you have such higher expectations of Brian than Mike?"

Jesus, this is the same group on Pet Sounds!!!! :lol

Hard to believe, ain't it?

Dear God

I want BW in the video standing forlornly with a copy of pet sounds.... :-\

To be fair...that song was part of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin tribute album "Two Rooms", which also featured artists such as The Who and Eric Clapton in addition to the Beach Boys.  That album sold over 1 million copies in the US alone and went platinum.  The video was commissioned by the label and I'm not sure how much, if any, input the band had on it. Problem Child, well, that's another story....

It's certainly odd to us but not unexpected when, as you mention, the Beckley-Lamm-Wilson project is more where Carl's head was at musically. I could've seen Carl pulling a late-period Peter Cetera, signing with a label like River North and duetting with Az Yet. Of course, to be fair, he would've sounded great doing it.   

Another follow up is to consider what the Beach Boys sans Brian were able to do after the Kokomo success in terms of putting out something (anything?) new of quality to keep the momentum going...nothing. In terms of crafting a new album, we got Summer In Paradise. I agree - Did that one lift off? Did the band playing a terminally long version in concert for the next years after the release do anything to lift it off? Did the band featuring the song in a Baywatch episode when that show was a massive worldwide hit do anything to help it lift off? No.

What I do remember is Don Was saying that Brian wanted to get back with the Beach Boys as soon as he was free of Landy. And Don Was facilitated that. But look where that went.

Brian came into the fold for Stars And Stripes project, did the video, made some live appearances and on TV shows...he was most involved in what was perhaps the best track to come out of the project, the Willie Nelson track...after that, not as much if at all in some cases.

As Wirestone said, Joe Thomas picked up the ball and ran with it and at least facilitated getting Brian back into the studio and working on new songs while the Beach Boys were still tourin'. Who knows what may have happened with some of his songs had the band rallied around another project instead of splitting into factions more focused on the touring than on cutting records with Brian.

And back to Baywatch...after they did get Brian back, they had him on the beach for a video to a song which he had no involvement in. Pointless. Brian's expression in the video says it all.

So Brian came out of it by the time 1998 rolled around with a solo album and a solo tour once thought impossible, along with a band of musicians who, for lack of a better term, "got it" and understood the music with a reverence that some in the Beach Boys I don't think brought to the table.

It worked out for him. He went out on his own with a great band and musicians who facilitated new music being written and recorded without the Beach Boys and all the baggage. Maybe that's where some of the jealousy that played out over the next few decades up to the present intensified.

Well said as usual...a couchman could almost understand it.

Seriously, though, you made a bunch of good points.

I think the mistake in the reunion sessions was to rely strictly on Brian and his 'handlers' for the material. Brian hadn't been a fully participating Beach Boy for many years. The way forward should have been to take the best of Brian's material with Paley, and get some new songs from the other BB's (if they had any). I'm sure Carl and Al had a few tunes stored away. I can't fault the guys for being a bit suspicious of Brian's new group of people - they'd been screwed before by Brian's 'handlers'.
It's also possible that Carl looked at this potential album differently than SIP. SIP was Mike's baby; if the new album was to be Brian's baby (be my baby?), Carl knew the critics and fans would be paying closer attention, and if it was anything other than Brian's best, it would be savaged in the press. Carl didn't want to see Brian destroyed again by critical reaction to his work.

Handlers?

Let's not forget the fact that Carl and the rest of the group were hearing music tracks arranged by Don Was. It's easy for us to say that Soul Searchin' and Still A Mystery are great songs, when we've only heard the Andy Paley tracks for the songs. For all we know, what the group was hearing might have sounded like SIP part II.

BW's hands on hamburger... ;)

I believe c-man confirmed in the aftermath of the MIC set what I had already read a long time ago (and what my ears told me), which is that the one and only version of "You're Still a Mystery" we've heard all these years is the Don Was-produced backing track. This would also explain the flipped production credits on the two "reunion" songs on the MIC set. Was's name is last on "Soul Searchin'", and first on "You're Still a Mystery."

I don't know if Brian and Andy Paley did their own pre-Was version of "You're Still a Mystery" (it certainly seems plausible of course). But if they did, we've never heard it.

So the version we've heard of YSAM is the same version Carl heard (obviously with the exception of Brian's re-recorded '99 lead on the MIC set).

As for "Soul Searchin'", Carl indeed heard a different backing track from what we heard. It's certainly possible the Was backing track was vastly different. I tend to wonder *how* different it could have been considering the "Paley" version must have been at more or less the same tempo (and certainly of course in the same key), as they were able to graft the Was BB vocals onto the Paley backing track without any digital stretching or pitching or anything like that.

Was tended to use excellent session musicians (check out the guys playing on IJWMFTT), and his productions of that era sounded nothing like Terry Melcher's production on "Summer in Paradise." SIP was using drum sequencers, while Don Was used guys like Jim Keltner. Don't get me wrong; I was never 100% convinced Was was like the perfect guy to be producing the band. But, I think his attempt was to be something like what Joe Thomas ended up doing on C50; a guy with production skills and musical skills, but also a sort of organizational guy that could keep everyone playing nice, and almost a sort of A&R guy. I think Was could have produced a good album, and my main beef with his stuff from that era was sticking his backing vocal guys on everything. Presumably, with the *full* BB complement in place, he was not going to use those guys on a full BB album, so I think it could have been good.

I dunno. While Brian hadn't yet released new stuff when they recorded those reunion songs, it was by the end of 1995 that Brian had released *two* albums, a documentary film, and he seemed to survive all of that with relatively solid reviews. No, "Orange Crate Art" didn't burn up the charts as if it was "Smile II", but Brian got more critical notices for his two '95 albums than anything the Beach Boys had done in the studio in eons. So even by the end of 1995 before they had finished "Stars and Stripes", Carl had to know Brian was "okay" in terms of critics.

I would definitely say using the "Pet Sounds" format for the 1995 sessions, in terms of writing and even partially recording songs before the BBs even entered the picture, was not necessarily going to engender unbridled enthusiasm. Add to that the weird political stuff of recent years with the autobiography, the awkwardness of not having worked together a great deal in the studio (and certainly they hadn't had Brian full writing and then helming a sessions for years), and both Don Was and Andy Paley were in there involved in various capacities; it was certainly a minefield of *potential* issues considering the dysfunctional BBs could be sidetracked by any *one* issue (or seemingly none at all) let alone numerous.

I think it's worth noting that that one track, and that one video, is not some sort of huge deal or huge turning point for the band. It's not even the worst one-off or tribute album track they had done. Al and Carl's lead vocals are good on that one.

Having said that, they still presumably chose that whole package deal with doing the song and then doing the video. Nobody was forcing them (perhaps an individual Beach Boy or two may have been outvoted on doing it, but probably not considering they had done numerous one-off soundtrack songs and whatnot in the previous decade).

I would guess the "Problem Child" situation was relatively similar, the difference being instead of the label running the tribute album, the band was dealing with the movie studio putting out "Problem Child."

But yeah, the basic idea is that Bruce's comments on the '95 stuff are rather rich considering the band hadn't been trying to reach any artistic peaks in the previous 10-15 years.

The people surrounding Brian in 1995 were people who had proven track records in the music business. Not a sociopathic wannabe rock star with a mid-life crisis.

P.S. Welcome back, Clay!!!

Andrew Doe has always maintained that the Andy Paley tracks are what is circulating, and the unbooted Don Was tracks are what the group was working with.

Consider the source, though. If he told me 2+2 = 4, I'd have to ask him who was showing him the flash cards and got no credit for it.

It does look like in the past some folks thought/assumed both "Soul Searchin'" and "You're Still a Mystery" were paste jobs with the Was-produced vocals grafted into old Paley backing tracks. Which is confusing, because I always had it I my mind since discussing this in the late 90s online that only "Soul Searchin'" was a paste job.

I remember it was in the late 90s, as I recall, that Mark Linett posted on the old usenet newsgroups the story of how, while Carl was still alive, they had grafted the BB vocals onto the old Paley track as an experiment. He specifically mentioned only "Soul Searchin'." The narrative always seemed to me to be that Don Was came into the project, and re-cut a couple of backing tracks for the BBs to add vocals to, and Carl apparently had issues with them, and specifically "Soul Searchin'."

Additionally, my ears always told me that YSAM sounded more like a Was track. Some of the instrumentation and arrangement sounded atypical of most of the other Paley stuff (though apparently both Was and Paley were involved in the "Was backing tracks").

C-man did confirm in a post (and it took me forever to find it) back in 2013 that "You're Still a Mystery" retains the backing track produced by Don Was, Brian, and Andy at Oceanway:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,16796.msg417108.html#msg417108

So we have a Don Was backing track to "Soul Searchin'" that we've never heard, and possibly an Andy Paley backing track/demo/alternate version of "You're Still a Mystery" that we've never heard.

Yeah, didn't take much to derail these guys. And I will never get why Carl could have issues with the Wilson/Paley/Was material, yet be in favor of the Stars and Stripes project. That album ranks even lower on the scale for me than SIP.

There are several decisions made by Carl regarding the music and Brian's involvement in the band that are questionable to say the least. And it is also ironic that the band was leery about Brian getting involved in making the records beyond what Bruce said was a courtesy, yet within that same year there was Joe Thomas who at that point had no connections to the band prior to setting up the Stars & Stripes album asking that Brian be involved in the project. As soon as Brian made Willie Nelson's involvement a condition for that to happen, the project - according to Joe - took off and other country acts began signing on, following Willie's lead.

So Brian had and was building more of a cache and demand for his participation in music projects after his "return" in '94, except within the band he founded with his family. Ironic.

It's tough, because all of Carl's sentiments are now fed to us as indirect hearsay. I think there's enough evidence to strongly point to Carl having misgivings about various things to do with Brian in that era; I don't think those relating how Carl felt are trying to be misleading.

But I'd say some of the "alleged" issues Carl had were more legit than others. Balking at the Paley stuff in light of what Carl had sang on before and after with the Beach Boys? That seems much more difficult to agree with. But Carl's misgivings about Brian touring PS with the band in the 1996-97 timeframe? That's not completely nuts. Brian hadn't been touring regularly solo yet, and hadn't done a full-length show/tour with the Beach Boys since 1982, and hadn't really been a integral beginning-to-end participant in shows since either 1965 or, arguably, the 1977 shows where he was playing bass and was super energetic. So I could understand Carl's misgivings in that area (and indeed, Brian's early 1998 TV/video appearances were pretty shaky, especially that "Farm Aid" gig). But even then, as I've said in the past, the band could have easily put together a PS tour back then. It's not like Brian would have had to carry the show. Carl and Al would have taken plenty of vocal slack. Brian could have participated in the same way he ended up participating on C50, where he didn't have to carry the whole show.

I do think Carl knew the circa 1996/97 touring backing band could not adequately do all of the PS tracks, but again, they could have just hired more musicians for such a tour. But I think that gets back to Carl just not yet seeing it as viable to do Beach Boys shows with a huge, expensive backing band and filling the show with a bunch of deep cuts. I think Carl would have needed to see what Brian started engendering in 1999/2000 in terms of his live presentation. 

This is a little off topic, but I always thought that Bruce's "courtesy to Brian" remark was a pretty shitty thing to say. He might as well have said "We're giving Brian the honor of producing a record for us, The Beach Boys".  ::)

Actually, I would not be surprised if Carl "balked" at it, because he of all people knew how hard it would be to "sell" a somewhat different sound for the band to the public, who'd been "frogged-in-the-pot" for twenty years by that point with the classic BB sound as the "way into" their music. He probably recognized that as much as he'd tried to take things elsewhere, those efforts did not pan out in reinventing the band's identity and that, like it or not, there were reasons why the band had to kow-tow to something like what Mike was advocating.

Neither "Soul Searching" nor "You're Still A Mystery" have sufficient connection to that sound--compare to "That's Why God Made the Radio." They are pretty good tracks, but they weren't tightly enough aligned with the classic BB sound to bring off a level of commercial success that would have opened the door to more adventurous songwriting. And I think Carl could sense that. I don't see it as a question of "well, this is so much better than SIP so we should just do it" in his mind. I think he knew if they were going to do a "Brian Is Back 2" that Brian would really need to be back. And it wasn't quite there.

As Wirestone said, Carl could not have known that a year later he would be mortally ill and that these aborted sessions would have turned out to be the "last chance" of the group to pull it all together. He was probably hoping that Brian would keep plugging away and find a new take on his old groove, and was willing to cross his fingers in terms of that coming to pass. It took awhile, but Brian did do that.


Bruce had been set up to evolve into somewhat with "extra entitlement" because he'd been specifically called back in to pull off the production that Brian was not pulling off in the late 70s. It says something about where Carl was at in the late 70s that he was not the choice to do this, as had been the case when Brian retreated in the late 60s.

So Bruce probably couldn't help but see himself as the "sane" choice in a "sea of madness" that had run the BBs aground. Remember this is a guy who in the late 70s made a strange joke about being the "Albert Speer of the Beach Boys" and technically innocent of much of the "craziness" in the band (it's that hidden "Nazi reference" in there that points to the kinds of things many of us have sensed simmering underneath Bruce's professionally sunny demeanor). By the mid-90s this must have been well "baked in" as a subliminal mindset, which did not remain hidden from view at that time, in part because--as noted in an earlier post--Brian was getting sensational press for the Was documentary and for Orange Crate Art. From the band's point of view, Brian had done little or nothing for their benefit since the late 70s. Note I am not agreeing with such a POV, but I can definitely see it coming into play at the time.

Prolly the sweatest male voice I ever heard.

It's true that Brian was getting very positive press from OCA and IJWMFTT, but neither of those cd's sold at all. Brian was a cult artist. The Beach Boys wanted to be hitmakers again. SIP was a failed attempt at another Kokomo, 4 years too late. Mike probably thought S&S would help them build a base with country audiences. I think, by this point, Carl was looking at the commercial potential of these projects, too. If it was gonna come out under the Beach Boys name, it had better be commercial. If he wanted to do something more artistically expressive, he could do that outside of the band - as he did with Like A Brother. Too bad, then, that Carl and Brian did do more work together, but I think their relationship was very strained after the Landy stuff. I'm not convinced Brian wanted to get away from Landy - he was brainwashed into thinking he needed him, so that made Carl the villain in that story. It seems to have been very awkward between them. And as I watch the S&S video, it occurs to me that it must have been a little strange to Carl to be bringing Brian back to lead things. Carl had been the musical leader of the band for a long time. No one challenged him. Now Brian is back as the producer.