The Smiley Smile Message Board

20 years ago today, Carl performed his final show with the Beach Boys. Thought this was worth a mention. He is missed.

It is. Do you know if this show featured as audio or video? At least the Carl bits, do they exist?

Sigh... I still miss Carl.

Thanks, Eric. What a heartbreaking thought. He certainly is missed...

I was at his second-to-last show the night before at the old Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel. For many years I thought that this was Carl's last show until I read a couple of years ago that he performed in Atlantic City the following night. I'll never forget Carl performing God only knows and standing after being seated for most of the night. Very emotional night and a great performance by Carl under difficult circumstances

He's very missed. I'm so glad I got to see him live in '93 (my first BB concert). He was definitely my favorite member of the band at the time. What a great man and a gentle soul.

Carl was the glue that kept the boys together. The Beach Boys will never truly be the Beach Boys without Dennis or Carl.  

Agreed. Life was so much better when they were around.

It was a band back them with Carl, not the  tribute act it has become with Love.

True.  :(

Thank you, Eric Aniversario, for remembering this and starting this thread.  My apologies for being late to the party.  Carl always impressed me as a gentle, spiritual sort of person who gave his best for the fans and the Beach Boys, even prodding them to act like 1981 was just as important as 1961 (during 1981, when he went his own way for awhile).  God bless us, every one.

Carl Wilson WAS The Beach Boys (the touring band, at least). Carl would be 70 now, quite a bit younger than the other living partners (except for David), who are all still performing.  God, how I wish I could attend a live show that featured Carl along with the rest of the original band.

Me too! I often wonder if Carl's voice would have held up as well as Al's has over the years.

I do as well, Doc.  And I can't help but think that it would have.  Seems to me his voice was still improving as he approached 50. Even with the terrible effects of lung cancer, Carl still sang beautifully six months before he passed away.

You're very welcome! It is a date that sticks out in my head. In 1998, I started the Beach Boys Setlist Archive out of the desire to preserve the touring history of the Beach Boys. It's been harder to get motivated to continue updating for numerous reasons, but I do intend to eventually get to it.

I think Carl's voice was holding up well and would have continued to. But it did change over the years a lot more than Al's did. Al sounded virtually identical in 2000 as he did in 1980. In the late 2000s he added a new verse to his 1989 lead vocal to "Don't Fight the Sea" and if there wasn't a slightly different timbre to how he recorded that vocal overdub, it would almost be indistinguishable.

Whereas, a 1995 Carl vocal sounded different from a 1989 Carl lead, and both different from a 1979, and different from 1979, and so on.

His voice did get a bit more raspy now and then, and he seemed to take on a slightly "congested" sound to his voice in later years. But it was always only different, not worse.

And indeed, the few extant bits we have of 1997 shows show him in great voice.

Also, Carl had a great ear not only for (obviously) singing, but music in general such that he could have continued to sing melodies and transpose keys if needed to optimize the range his voice would have had in subsequent years.

So yeah, I don't think he would have kept doing his higher register part in "Kokomo" for instance, but he and Al (and Brian) would have maintained that rock solid mid-range that makes something sound like "THE Beach Boys" instead of just some BBs singing with other guys. Those mid-range vocals are key, along with Mike's bass, such that you can *almost* hear Carl in there on something like the vocal intro on "Pacific Coast Highway." Man, if he had actually been on those vocals instead of Jeff, how cool would that have been?

I like to think Carl would have gotten past his easy listening/AC phase with stuff like the "Beckley/Lamm/Wilson" album and would have maybe done a Tom Petty/Rick Rubin sort of deal, maybe even with Rubin producing.

Which brings me back to the other point I made in another thread, which is that I sense Carl's estate is sitting on a LOT more Carl demos and songs that we might be thinking exist.