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I'm curious which sessions by The Beach Boys might've come closest to replicating all or most of the session players who played on any given song by Phil Spector? I don't just mean which songs simply made use of The Wrecking Crew, but specifically are there any particular songs where it's the exact same group of studio players from one Phil Spector song to another BBs song?

My other question, is I wonder if Brian ever instructed any of those musicians to specifically try to recreate the sound/vibe from a particular Phil Spector song. If one listens to Phil Spector backing tracks, it's amazing how close Brian came to capturing that vibe. Uncannily so.

Not unless Carl Wilson appeared on a Phil Spector session or Sonny Bono once played on a  Beach Boys date.

My favourite Spectorian passage in a BB song is the part that begins "They say I got brains" in "IJWMFTT".

I would say the Boys' version of "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" came pretty close, not only in terms of personnel, studio, engineer, but also in terms of ambience, energy, and VIBE. Bill Pitman and Tommy Tedesco on guitars, Ray Pohlman on Fender bass, Jimmy Bond on upright bass, Hal on drums, Frankie Capp on percussion, Leon Russell and Al de Lory on pianos, Steve Douglas, Jay Migliori, and Plas Johnson on saxophones. The one element present on the tracking session that Spector never had was Mike singing the bass vocal live, from the vocal booth. But otherwise, pretty close to a carbon copy of a Phil session.

There are other examples , but that particular one stands out in my opinion.

Only going by sound, I would say "He's a doll". Maybe someone else has more info about the musicians participating.

I agree with that choice, based on sound.

My contenders: Why Do Fools Fall In Love, He's A Doll, The One You Can't Have, and the backing track to the uncompleted "Go Away Boy".

I want to say all this stuff was tracked at Gold Star, but correct me if I'm wrong. 


Thanks C-Man for the info about Mike singing live from the booth... didn't know that!

That's a wonderful example. What a sound! And what a shame it come to nothing.

 If anybody has a link, or any other way of sharing the backing track for "Go Away Boy", I'd be ever so grateful to hear it.

There used to be a few seconds of it somewhere online but even that's vanished now. Fingers crossed that someone uploads it in full some time.

Well yeah, lots of Brian-produced Honeys singles have that total Spector "girl group" sound, and used Spector's musicians in the same studio...but the original poster specifically asked which "Beach Boys" session came the closest to emulating the lineup of a Spector session, so I went with "WDFFIL"...

Oh, and here's the lineup on Spector's production of "Be My Baby":

Guitars: Bill Pitman, Tommy Tedesco
Fender bass: Ray Pohlman
Upright bass: Jimmy Bond
Keyboards: Don Randi, Leon Russell, Al de Lory, Michael Spencer
Drums: Hal Blaine
Percussion: Frank Capp
Trumpet: Roy Caton
Trombone: Lou Blackborn
Tenor saxophone: Steve Douglas
Baritone saxophone: Jay Migliori

All of the players on the Boys' version of "WDFFIL" were on this session, it's just that Phil used a few extra guys, and as I said, Mike was singing live with the WC guys.
EDIT: I guess Plas Johnson was not on "Be My Baby". Oh, well - otherwise, the rest were.

You're right. I only looked on the topic title and forgot about the Beach Boys content.

In this case "booth" doesn't mean the control room . MIke was either in the vocal booth next to the control room or out in the main room with the players.most likely the former...... BTW the early run-through of the track that's on the 1964 download set released in 2014 has an even more spector-like  quality.......