The Smiley Smile Message Board

I have updated BeachBoysgigs.com to include 1967 up to but not including the May 1967 European tour-so if you want to look at the first half of 1967 (or 1961-1966) they are up on the gigs section-with photos from gigs, reviews if they exist (many newspapers by 67 did review shows but many still did not), etc. Here is a link to 1967 https://www.beachboysgigs.com/1967-2/  I have also have an additions blog-that list shows up (so far) to 1969 that were not included in my book with Jon, as I have discovered them since (the list of discoveries since that time is getting pretty lengthy-but I feel that rather than a new book-this website is enough for now)

By the way if you go to gigs home page, it looks like 1967 is not an active link but it is-I can't figure out why it doesn't look like it is but it is

Superb work Ian, it really is appreciated.
Some of the pics are awesome, love the pic from London May 4th with Carl on Bass.

Yeah it is really hard to find quality shots sometimes. As you may know, you can literally find a quality photo of every Beatles show after mid 1963 but BBs photos that can be precisely dated are pretty scarce. I guess if they were worth more people would dig them out. Often I have to get them from an old magazine or a grainy newspaper photo (originals gathering dust in the photo archives of newspapers or thrown in the trash

Thank you so much for your hard work, Ian!!

I second that, of course!


That one picture from Germany reminded me of a thread I wanted to start in the media section. Maybe I will do that today but otherwise later this week, I guess.



EDIT:

I just found this. It says there is a ten minute 'documentary' called "Die Beach Boys in Berlin" from 1967:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4213928/

I'm guessing it would be something like a report for the Beat Club TV show. Does anybody have more knowledge? The data looks too detailed to be just about a rumour imo. There definitely is well known footage from their European tour(s), but if I'm not mistaken that comes from later years.

Well if you pull out my book under May 1967 you will see that I consulted and quoted from a number of German language contemporary newspapers and they mention that the BBs were being filmed by German TV while hanging out in West Berlin

Carl definitely have an interview for the Zwischenstation show

Interesting! I only knew about the ZDF-filmed backstage material from '64-ish that has never come out. I'd need to take Lowbacca with me and search through their archives, when the Covid situation has improved  ;D

This is too good to be free! Thank you for doing this.

What was the "Then I Kissed Her" debacle you mention in the Sunday May 7 1967 entry? Not sure I've heard about that before.

Yeah, I remember reading about that in Look Listen Vibrate Smile. Apparently it was the result of Capitol stressing out about ‘Heroes and Villains’ still not ready for release (unless Priore is dead wrong or I’m remembering it wrong, it’s been a long time since I read anything from LLVS).

I don't have LLVS but that's what I remember reading on Wikipedia.  Even Mike was disappointed they didn't use one of Brian's originals if they had to release a stopgap single.

 Right-they showed up in Europe with all the Derek Taylor hype of them as the number one group and the single that EMI put out was from 1965 and therefore seemed like an anti-climax-it did not seem hip or show the progression-so seemed old fashioned after Good Vibrations.  It's hard to stress enough how important singles were in the 1960s-one bad single could really harm you.

By the way since this post I have actually had a bit of time and now have listings up to October 1967

An old Spector-lite single with a B-side from the Party! album that had nothing to do with the band's "new sound" which  made them #1 in the UK as of 1967...that sucked. And more importantly besides the sonic issues, the fans felt ripped off getting old album tracks as a new single release.

The band as far as I'm aware had no say in this before it was done, and it was strictly EMI UK making this call similar to how Capitol US handled the early Beatles albums and singles in the US without input from the band in the UK - would that be an accurate statement?

The full news interviews with Brian from Hawaii '67 show he was not a happy camper in quite a few ways.

Yeah-I was very excited when I gained access to Hawaiian newspapers and found that Brian interview!  Pretty interesting stuff.  Yeah, I think that no matter what spin people put on it-Brian recognized that the BBs had missed their chance and the Beatles had seized it.  He knew that Smile was the big chance to be the leader of the pack and that Smiley Smile was a sonic retreat.  That being said-Sunshine Tomorrow and the 1968 release prove that he was still plugging away and doing exciting stuff.  He had not given up but I think he had stepped back from competing (as Mike has often said).  As far as Then I Kissed Her-the BBs bitched about that release in almost every interview they gave in May 1967 (and I have them all!)-they were not happy about it.  And really-if they had to put out a single, why not at least God Only Knows? But it is true that the unfinished nature of Smile meant that nothing recorded since Good Vibrations was on offer to the label in April 1967....I wonder if all that work on Vegetables in April was to try and get a single out quick.....

I was actually shocked at how candid Brian was in those interviews, it sounded like he was really fed up with the notion of "The Beach Boys" but even being candid he couldn't come right out and say it. I'm paraphrasing before re-reading the article, but one line that stuck was when he said something about not wanting to be "Beach-Boying" into the future...I'll double-check that before saying more.

But whether it was jet-lag, stress from the show, lack of sleep, or just a notion of being upset on other levels, Brian didn't sound as upbeat or positive as we might expect on the eve of these big shows which were going to be recorded. Yet when you look back at more interviews from the latter half of '67, especially after the guys returned from the Europe tour that spring, quite a few interviews have them sounding pretty downbeat if not angry at various things that were going on. And indeed '67 was not a good year for the group overall, due in part to a lot of external situations which swept them up in a mess of legal and personal issues, not to mention the issues with their new music.

So I re-read the Brian interview, given Thursday Aug 24th '67 while the band was rehearsing for the shows that weekend. It's a combination of pessimism and optimism lol. Maybe not as outright negative as I may have implied. But - Brian does say things like "I'd say we have between 3 and 5 years more of Beach Boy-ing to go"; "I'm running out of ideas. In a way we've grown up musically. In some ways, we haven't developed much."; and, as Ian quoted above "...I think basically The Beach Boys are squares. We're not happening - But we've been so lucky in the past, it doesn't hurt now. We get enjoyment in our recordings."

It's pretty candid even if you just take those comments out of the larger piece, and it does come off as sounding less than enthusiastic. However, one takeaway to consider is how for Brian himself, he actually nailed the timeline looking ahead. He did have more or less between 3-5 years of "Beach Boy-ing" left in him before he truly did drop out, with his involvement in those early 70's albums lessening perhaps with Holland being one of the end points we can hear, and his withdrawing entirely becoming more obvious. His interests were elsewhere, even musically, and it did happen as he said, roughly 3-5 years after this interview.



Ian, there was also a column written by KPOI DJ Dave Donnelly where he reports on a visit to the radio station that Saturday of the concert by Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bobbie Gentry and Mark Lindsay. They were interviewed on-air at KPOI, which was the top-40 station in Honolulu, and Donnelly besides being a DJ there also wrote a regular column on the music scene there. First, how I'd love for an aircheck recording of that interview to turn up...but the question was about "Smiley Smile". Donnelly's column is cryptic on what actually happened, but he does suggest an advance copy or acetate of Smiley Smile was listened to at KPOI...and his reaction was less than positive overall, suggesting it sounded like a "rehearsal before the musicians showed up". Ouch.

Have you heard whether this advance pressing was carried in or delivered when Al and Mike went to KPOI for the interview, or were advance copies sent even prior to that? I'm thinking it was delivered with Mike and Al, either by them or by a Capitol rep who went with them for the shows, because Bobbie Gentry was on Capitol too, and her debut single (and Bobbie herself) was literally the hottest commodity in pop music at that exact time in history that summer.

Just curious if anything else about the KPOI visit that afternoon or that advance pressing of Smiley Smile had come up in other research.

Yeah I have that article-and they criticize the LP-I think you are right that they must have brought a promo copy and played it for him-as the release date was still three weeks away. But that seems to have been common. There is a May 5 1966 radio interview with Mike and Al, where the DJs had already received a promo copy of Pet Sounds before its release date.  It's clear that the DJ represented the view of the public-everyone thought Smiley Smile was a disappointment.....And it's only in recent times that some people have looked at it with fresh eyes and judged it on its own merits.  But in 1967 it just was not the right response in the face of Sgt. Pepper and they all knew it.

Great, great stuff, Ian--thanks so much...no question that the band painted itself into a corner in the first half of '67. But just how do you follow up "Good Vibrations," anyway? Coming full circle on it, I think their best bet was probably the original version of "Wind Chimes," but they'd recorded it so early on in the process...and Brian/Van Dyke had blown past it in ways that must have diminished it. The bass hook that Brian eventually pulled from the track was how they could've threaded the needle and given themselves a viable stop-gap single, but it got pushed out of view by "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables."  Of course, Brian never did really figure out how to use that bass hook to make the killer single it should've anchored--it got lost again when he couldn't find the handle on "Can't Wait Too Long." (And I really think that was a kind of Rubicon for Brian with respect to "Beach-Boying.")

They finally got a modified version of it into a track four years later, simplifying it and inverting it for the tag in "Mess of Help"--a great song that went nowhere because virtually no one could figure out it was the Beach Boys.

When I first was able to read and research those original articles from Hawaii, my jaw literally dropped with that Brian interview. I had to re-read it multiple times, and still do years later. It's brief, but I think Brian spelled out some of what was going on behind the scenes and what he was feeling, and it surrounds issues that are *still* not widely discussed, which are still shrouded in mystery, and which still generate arguments from some circles who will bend information into a pretzel braid to try changing the story. I think he had in fact reached his limit, with being a "Beach Boy" and the band overall, and something really big that no one talks about happened in between the time when the band returned from a pretty bad European tour in May '67 and by June there were mic cables running through Brian's living room and a Gates Dualux radio mixer sitting on a table, recording music that the DJ said "sounded like a rehearsal before the musicians showed up". Everything had changed, literally, in how this band went about making records. And whenever *that* book comes out, maybe we'll all know more than just the surface facts.

Brian saying "I'm running out of ideas" is, to me, a KEY factor to consider. Are there any other examples of interviews from '67 or before where he was this blunt and honest? If so, I haven't seen one. This is the same Brian Wilson who for the past year leading up to summer '67 was chock full of all kinds of ideas, brimming with ideas about Brother Records, revolutionary ideas for his and the band's music and recordings...and by August '67 he admits he's running out of ideas, and says The Beach Boys are square? Unbelievable, reading it the first or the 50th time, to hear him say that.

I'll suggest he was running out of ideas for The Beach Boys. After the Hawaii situation was done and shelved, unable to be salvaged, he went full-bore into working with Redwood. Is that any accident or pure coincidence? I don't think so.

What Don suggested as Brian's Rubicon, a fantastic description that fits many aspects of this saga, could have been the sheer notion of "Beach Boy-ing" much longer, as Brian described it. As Caesar discovered, once you cross, there is no turning back, you've made your move. And for whatever reasons Brian didn't cross it, but instead his direct involvement in making records with and for the band kept dwindling until he matched his own timeline in his interview of 3-5 years before he was pretty much out of the process.

He says he ran out of ideas...again I'll submit that adding "for the Beach Boys" would explain further...so what were the Beach Boys' next efforts? Blue-eyed R&B stylings, also with horns, for the singles on Wild Honey. What was the next big seller single they had in '68? "Do It Again". The Buckinghams were owning the charts throughout '67, and one of their calling cards was using a horn section. "Darlin" as the BB's recorded it could have been a hit Buckinghams single, with those horns. "Wild Honey" was blue-eyed soul with a crazy Carl lead vocal and a catchy octave-based two-note Theremin hook. "Do It Again" was a thematic throwback to the early 60's, with a heavier modern groove and a fuzzed out blues guitar solo. But were the ideas as "new" as anything he had done for the band in the 2 years prior? Fantastic records, great singles...but not necessarily anything built on new ideas.

If he said he was running out of ideas, and we add "for the Beach Boys", is it an accident that the most successful singles he had in the year or so after Good Vibrations were not as much taking steps forward as they were using existing hit records and previous themes and sounds as a template to make the charts? Not trying to break new ground as much as run across what already existed and had sold records. The ideas were nowhere near as innovative and progressive as they were throughout 66 and the first part of 67. The Smile material truly is and was new and innovative. No one was making music like that in the pop business. Cabinessence? Surfs Up? Totally new ideas for pop music in 1966. Debate and argue the reasons why, but I think he ran out of ideas because the ones he was recording were not sitting as well with and for the band as they did with us decades later when it was rediscovered. It's no accident he started putting his ideas outside the norm into other outlets like Redwood and his own recordings.

Just some rambling thoughts before tackling more on Hawaii.  :)

What struck me while digging through those articles from Hawaii was what I'll call the "Bobbie Gentry Element" lol, and the irony involved with that specific record "Ode To Billy Joe". For one, whoever booked her on that bill at the Beach Boys "Summer Spectacular" really did score a coup with Bobbie. It's lost to history to some degree, but reading through the articles from August '67 she was among the hottest acts in the music business by that time. She had that one single, "Billy Joe", which became a pop culture item that transcended itself as a smash hit record. People were talking about the lyrics, the story she was telling, and trying to figure out what was thrown off that bridge and what happened that fictional day on that bridge. Crazy, right? Bobbie had pretty much only recorded that song for Capitol, in a quick session, and the B-side was one of her demos that helped get her signed to Capitol if my history is correct.

Her single became a sensation, and again unless my history is off, her appearing on the bill was either her first major live show and/or the first time wider audiences could see her perform. All the TV appearances came after she appeared in Hawaii, and I think one of those articles has her manager saying this show (with the BB's) was her first appearance for an audience like that. Everyone wanted to book her, again because that record was an out-of-the-box smash hit.

How did either the Beach Boys or the promoters combined with management get her on that bill? Did Capitol add her on the same bill as her label-mates the Beach Boys?

Anyway, by all accounts, Bobbie stole the show(s) in Hawaii. Nothing but high praise and excitement for her performances, while the other acts at the Spectacular pretty much got blasted or panned outright in the reviews.

The irony comes in when we listen to "Ode To Billy Joe". This was the Summer Of Love, the Summer Of Sgt Pepper, the time when every act seemed to want to go big like the Beatles and throw everything but the kitchen sink into their record productions and arrangements. And Bobbie's song consists mostly of her singing to a guitar...no drums, no backwards tapes, no huge orchestra backing her...just a few strings adding flavor.

It's one of the most basically recorded and arranged hit records you'll hear from 1967. Simple as can be.

So there's the Beach Boys wanting to simplify and strip down for their new sound after June '67, there's the Beatles and Stones going all colorful and overloaded with their music, and here was Bobbie Gentry selling all kinds of records with her and a guitar recorded in an hour or something, with no sonic trickery or special effects.

I don't know exactly what that signifies or if it means anything, but it's ironic that the singer who scored a major hit with her "back to basics" recording was foreshadowing what was to come in the wake of Sgt Pepper and the overblown sounds of those wanting to do similar things in the pop world and was in August '67 making her first major concert appearance with The Beach Boys no less, whose sound was deliberately stripped down for these concerts and the soon-to-be-released Smiley album.

I think where Bobbie trumped them was her song was catchy and the lyrics were compelling as hell. It was a great *song* people could get involved with and tap their foot to at the same time. A devastating combination which always proves successful. All she needed was that song, her voice, and a guitar to deliver it.

Makes me think what if something like Brian doing Surf's Up solo at the piano had come out when Inside Pop first aired in April '67.


EDIT - With a big "duh!" sound added - The Hawaii show was indeed Bobbie Gentry's first live performance. She said so in the same interview/article that featured Brian, from the Thursday rehearsals before the weekend shows. Duh!

Just a little trivia: In Oct. '67 Capitol released a "DJ album" with tunes by a. o. Bobbie Gentry and one Murry Wilson.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/Capitol-DJ-Album-Oct-1967-P-Murry-Wilson-2-Bobbie-Gentry-2-Al-Martino-2/353259191144

Well, rocker, remember that many moods of Murry Wilson came out at that time. As to Bobby gentry, yeah she stole the show according to reviews. I interviewed billy Hinsche and he noted that the audience just didn’t respond that enthusiastically to the BBs at the show he attended (Dino desi and billy played the second night only). He said that they opened with that instrumental
And it was a sort of in-joke about Hawthorne that the crowd just did not get. Honestly do you open a show with an unfamiliar instrumental? Also I appreciate that it may be the only time they played it but Getting hungry is kind of a dud in the middle of a show.  Clearly that show has a lot of love from me because in retrospect Brian would hardly ever again take such an upfront vocal role in such good voice but at the time it was not enough of a factor to make up for a poorly paced show with slowed down songs like Rhonda

Also I think the sound is kind of thin. It’s clear (and they figured out by November that they needed extra musicians to beef up the sound.  The bbs were still in incredible vocal shape but the sound is a bit amateurish-whereas to me Live in London is perfection (though I miss Brian of course). I am not sure that desper was on the road yet either with his improved sound system. He was there by October 1967 for sure (a Chicago article on October 8 show notes that they were lugging 60,000 dollars of equipment with them) but when I interviewed him he was not able to pinpoint precisely when he went on the road with them for the first time (I kept trying to figure out the date) I am not hearing his system on the August dates

He was not there in Hawaii and the system they did ship to Hawaii was - ironically (again) - perhaps one of the most state-of-the-art live recording rigs available at that time in 1967. There was an article prior to the Hawaii gig about how advanced this recording rig would be. It was the best Wally Heider had to offer them or anyone - A custom built Frank DeMedio console which was finished up literally the night before they shipped it to Hawaii, closed-circuit TV monitoring of the stage, and two of the better 8-track machines available.

The engineer was Jim Lockert, assisted by Bill Halverson and Dale Manquen who were part of Heider's staff and knew the equipment. Manquen helped Frank DeMedio and his dad assemble that board and went along with them for the gig (I contacted him online years ago, some of which still exists on a site somewhere lol).

That article I mentioned has Brian saying they would have - wait for it - 35 microphones on hand to record the shows. 35 microphones!!! To record a stripped-down band.

They had what was the most current, state-of-the-art mobile/live recording setup in Hawaii, at least the best on the West Coast that Wally Heider could offer, with top engineers from both the old school and the new school, and no shortage of mics. No matter what the "house" PA setup was in Hawaii, the recording element of it would be done with the best equipment. Also consider at that time, Honolulu was drawing and booking top-notch pop and rock acts specifically at that arena, so not knowing what their sound system was there, it's not like they were inexperienced hosting major acts who were coming there to perform. But that wouldn't have affected the recording anyway if the band had their own rig to capture and mix the recordings we hear today. Although the reviews mention how The Raiders' set was also marred by technical issues, we don't hear anything unusual in terms of tech failures on either of the Beach Boys' sets.

The conundrum and the fascination for me with the Hawaii shows is how so much went into prepping for them, including one of the most high-tech boards and rigs available and *35 microphones* according to Brian, and the sound is what it is. As much as I love those recordings, they're some of my favorites of all the band has done, the sound is thin, the instrumentation is sparse to a fault for a larger venue, and the band's sets are a little disjointed and way too short (another criticism leveled at them by the reviews in Hawaii).

When Bobbie Gentry is on stage doing a song and set with basically just her guitar and she steals the show, getting rave reviews, if blame is to be placed it has to be on the performance of the Beach Boys above anything else. They had all the tech in place, but the delivery just didn't resonate with the audience, again for as much as I love those tapes the performances themselves may have been too sparse and disjointed to connect with the crowds.

 

I think they were simply out of sorts and "betwixt and between" at that moment, don't you? They'd lived with some version of the SMILE/SMILEY SMILE music for nearly a year, an interminable amount of time in the context of record production in those days, with confusion, acrimony and manic-depression swirling through the entire process. Doing a show and a live album might have seemed like a good idea, but the touring band had worked its kinks out in the past couple year with Bruce, not Brian--and the whole Baldwin organ thing (a phase Brian was going through) wasn't likely to galvanize a live audience. And it didn't.

SONG                      7/22 7/29  8/5  8/12   8/19  8/26   9/2   9/9   9/16
Heroes & Villains                       61     33      17     12       12   21   55
Ode To Billy Joe                        71      21      7        1        1     1     1     
All You Need Is Love     71   29    3      2        1        2        2     6     8

Above are the charts from Billboard during this period. As GF notes, Bobbie Gentry was a phenomenon, knocking the Beatles out of the #1 slot and holding onto it for weeks. It was a strong, strong summer with a lot of highly varied sounds in a commercial music framework that was much more wide open and highly competitive than anything we've seen in decades. "Heroes and Villains" is a great song, but it's not a great single, and you can see its weakness in the commercial marketplace as compared to a singular commercial juggernaut (the Beatles racking up another #1 with what is for them a real piece of tripe--yes, YMMV) and Gentry--who, as all of us who are incapable of leaving our sexism at the door, was beyond drop-dead gorgeous (and that cool delivery just amped up her allure at a time when she literally owned that "market")--reconquered the top of the pops for a more traditional sound that could drop right into "legit show biz"...which was where she quickly wound up, despite trying to be all things to all people over the next several years.

As Ian noted, the BBs clearly knew they'd dropped the ball, but they didn't rise to the occasion in Hawaii and it took another month of licking their wounds to cement a new direction with a rush job to bring out "Wild Honey" as a new 45 (October) and the LP just three months after SMILEY. With all of that scrambling around to avoid a crash and burn, they weren't quite ready to totally revamp their live act (mostly technical upgrades: the real changes in the live show come after the Maharishi debacle). Hell, they were having enough trouble trying to figure out an identity amidst all the music that was being made: the mysteries in choosing what wound up on FRIENDS seem unsolvable now that we have all of that SUNSHINE TOMORROW material.

But it seems as though they kind of hit their ultimate low point right as they went to Hawaii, and (to me, at least) that is reflected in those shows.

I agree in a way that it was the low point but obviously for the guys at that moment they were still sort of the kings of the scene. I mean good vibrations was still a fairly recent event and certainly they couldn’t predict at a time when Brian was even willing to get onstage with them-that he would go through such drastic changes in the next four years. From what I’ve read-friends and the lack of sales for it were the real moment when Brian kind of checked out of the BBs

I find the whole can’t wait too long thing really fascinating. I mean they all must have realized that they had another potential good vibrations here and the fact that it wasn’t finished has to come down to Brian. That had to be tense. I mean, come on, Carl must have confronted him and said let’s finish this and he must have said no. If that didn’t happen then it’s just ridiculous. How could you work on a track that great and just forget it-especially when they were desperate for Brian material for 20/20? He must have refused to let them use it

Agreed--there certainly seems to be a major stumbling block that cropped up with respect to "Can't Wait Too Long." It appears that after the July sessions for it, Brian just disappears. My guess is that this is when the real "collapse after SMiLE" occurs, and there are several reports of Brian being hospitalized late in '68 as his withdrawal/depression deepened. The session info strongly suggests that we don't see Brian regularly in the studio again until March 1969, when he works on tracks for Marilyn and Diane, with "Break Away" coming shortly thereafter. Sessions featuring tracks where Brian had major writing participation seem to be very sparse until the fall of '69. "This Whole World" shows up in November, signaling that Brian might be coming out of his long funk. Sessions for Brian-penned tracks start to pick up in December and continue into early '70, up until the aborted Fred Vail LP.

Well....I don’t think that hospital visit was a major turning point (and exact dates of that visit are not known). You are forgetting some things. In September Brian worked  on We’re Together Again and took part in meet and greets at the BBs Anaheim shows. In October he was involved in the Time To Get Alone sessions and in December 1968 he produced a Honeys single. However it is fair to say that he was becoming only a sporadic contributor to the BBs sessions instead of calling the shots.

I think it's safe to say that Brian was depressed and withdrawn during this phase, which I may have overstated a bit to show how different his involvement pre- and post-July 1968 was. "Collapse" is too strong a word, for sure--withdrawal is likely more accurate. I think he was coaxed into some of those sessions (my sense was that "Time To Get Alone" was a co-produce with Carl, and I suspect that Marilyn and Diane had their own powers of persuasion over him!). I don't see this as a major turning point--certainly not like what happened in 1974-75--but the first manifestation of a pattern of reclusiveness, reluctance and recidivism that persisted for 4-5 years before deteriorating dramatically in the "I Brake for Brian Wilson" phase.

A lot of that behavior pattern is captured in more detail in the Don Goldberg autobio, which takes us up to the Holland trip.

"Time to Get Alone" is really the only consequential piece of work Brian is involved with across the August 1968-February 1969 time frame, and that's a song he'd written the previous year. It's a fine song, but (as you note) it doesn't have the commercial potential of "Can't Wait Too Long." I'm recalling Steve Desper writing about the band giving Brian kudos and support when he brought them "Break Away" because he'd basically had a long songwriting dry spell and they saw it as a hopeful sign of him turning a corner. There's definitely something about "Can't Wait Too Long" that tossed a wrench into things (along with the catastrophic performance of the FRIENDS LP, of course).

Sorry for turning back to the Bobbie Gentry topic, but SmileySmiler jeremylr send me these and asked me to post them, because he couldn't upload them to the board. It gives a little background on Bobbie Gentry during this time frame.


It's from KenMansfield's 2009 memoir "Between Wyomings: My God and an iPod on the Open Road":


EDIT: Here you go!

(https://i.postimg.cc/3k62MW8J/1.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/3k62MW8J)

(https://i.postimg.cc/G8nY2NTW/2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/G8nY2NTW)

(https://i.postimg.cc/rzcx2BkW/3.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/rzcx2BkW)

(https://i.postimg.cc/qgLnJ1JF/4.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/qgLnJ1JF)

(https://i.postimg.cc/8f16d6Hw/5.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/8f16d6Hw)


Thanks again jeremylr!

Ken Mansfield was hired in January 1965 as Capitol Records' West Coast District Promotion Manager and eventually became US manager of the Beatles' Apple label. On page 104 (the third image) he remembers going to Hawaii with Bobbie G and the Beach Boys...photos snapped on my iPhone so hopefully Mansfield's memories are legible...thank you kindly for saving the day, Rocker!

Thanks for posting that--for a lot more about Gentry and how her phenomenon developed in 1967, you are all directed to Tara Murtha's book ODE TO BILLY JOE in the 33 1/3 series. The irony is that "Ode to Billie Joe" was about a hundred and fifty degrees from the production style and musical approach that appealed to Gentry and her initial producer, Kelly Gordon, as is clear when you hear the 45's B-side, "Mississippi Delta." (Y'all can decide in which direction you want to move from "Ode" to measure that distance.)

While the Beach Boys were struggling with the transition from SMiLE to SMILEY, Capitol got a healthy cross-section of the Wrecking Crew to flesh out "Ode to Billy Joe," with Jimmie Haskell masterminding the string arrangement, signed her in early June, and put "Ode to Billy Joe" out on July 10, 1967. According to Murtha, the singular magic of that track cast its spell without the benefit of anyone initially seeing Bobbie Gentry in the flesh. While SMILEY went through a standard pre-release pace, the ODE TO BILLY JOE LP was fast-tracked in every way, and Capitol pre-ordered half a million copies, getting it out into the stores just as Bobbie Gentry was accompanying the BB's to Hawaii.

Here's a question for the scholars: Murtha suggests that the BBs recording efforts in Hawaii also captured Gentry's performances. Is there any evidence of that anywhere? I know there was a recent career box set for Gentry, but I've not checked to see what type of live material (if any) appears on it...

Don: That's the first I've heard that someone other than the Beach Boys was recorded during that weekend of shows. I'd say it *could* have happened,  since Capitol was involved with Bobbie and the BB's, but from all that I've been able to gather and ask through the years, that high-tech recording setup was created and in place to record the Beach Boys' sets, and that was it. The other acts sharing the bill (except fellow Capitol artist Bobbie) were on other labels, and I don't recall anyone saying that any deals were struck with those other labels to record the shows. The Beach Boys' main focus was to record the material in order to create another live album for release, as articles written in the weeks leading up to the shows had noted. Since Bobbie Gentry had literally just been signed that summer and her single was new, I don't know if Capitol would have invested in recording what were literally her first live shows, but maybe they did - stranger things have happened! I hope more info can be found on that topic.

Related to that question, I've also wondered for years where the photos of the other acts on that bill may be hiding, if there are any. One of the only mentions of other acts besides the Beach Boys being photographed came from Ann Moses, who was the well-known (among readers) reporter-at-large for the teen 'zines of the day, like Tiger Beat. On her blog, she describes traveling to Hawaii as a reporter for Tiger Beat and shooting photos of Dino, Desi, and Billy, and also hanging with The Raiders. According to Ann, those acts were the ones of more interest to their readers than the Beach Boys at that time. One photo she posted shows her hanging out in a hotel with Dino Martin that week, and she posted a story about taking a motorcycle ride with him too. I have not looked into when any of those photos or Ann's reporting may have been published, but time willing I'll check into that. If anyone has a collection or archive of Tiger Beat magazines from Fall '67, please check if there are photos in one of those later '67 issues!

And I'm sure Billy Hinsche may be able to add some info to this as well, I haven't watched all of his episodes but maybe he's already mentioned the Hawaii shows, and if not perhaps he might consider doing so? That would be pretty cool.

For such a big show, with big names at the time who we know were photographed, there really is a scarcity of photos from that week, minus what we've seen of the Beach Boys. Finding more might lead to more info on the whole episode overall.

 

Ann Moses has a book out with many photos called "Meow".  https://www.amazon.com/Meow-Groovy-Tiger-Beats-Idols-ebook/dp/B071JPPS15/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=ann+moses&qid=1615292566&sr=8-1

 1967 is now completed and can be viewed at:  https://www.beachboysgigs.com/1967-2/

Ann Moses called in to one of Billy's shows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sejk3rp5q4A

Andrew Batt compiled / produced Bobbie Gentry's Live at the BBC, The Girl from Chickasaw County Capitol masters box set, and the deluxe edition of her second studio album The Delta Sweete. I asked him this morning, and here's his reply. "No, Capitol didn't tape Bobbie in Hawaii," says Batt. "I looked into this as it seemed a real possibility, but they only taped the Beach Boys."

Thanks Jeremy, that's good to get a confirmation. Everything I've heard or read previously had suggested the mobile recording setup was for and only used by The Beach Boys to record a live album.

I think one major point that hasn't been noted regarding the timeline of Brian's activity in 1968 is the success of "Do It Again". The single was worked on just over a month or so after the "Friends" single had been released, and was being readied for release as the "Friends" album was hitting the stores that summer.

That period of March to July 1968 did have a lot of activity with Brian being involved in recording and writing the music for the Beach Boys, and producing it as well. But if the lack of success for "Friends" was one of the points to consider, I'd say so is the success of "Do It Again" which sort of snuck in there in between everything else going on to give the band a charting single, depending on which chart is referenced you could say it was top-10 around the world. Not bad for a band supposed to be on their way out. And Brian did the music for it, so he was still involved.

Ultimately "Can't Wait Too Long" was one of the "old" songs being revisited, so again referring back to Brian's August '67 interview in Hawaii, his comment about running out of ideas starts to be relevant here as well if they're revisiting a piece that was left unfinished from almost a year prior, with its musical roots in the Smile era.

I would think if the band had just scored a top-10 hit single in July/August '68, and scoring another hit was a goal, they would look more toward another "Do It Again" - Or maybe they thought it was a fluke retro/nostalgia hit, even thought the nostalgia was only going back a few years at that point.

I have to think as well there may have been a feeling in Brian of "You guys didn't want this material when I originally wrote and recorded it (i.e. the Smile tracks and other ideas from that era), what is different now that you want to finish and release it?" And the answer is again a lack of songwriting effort coming from the other band members with the exception of Dennis who was still honing his skills.

I do think the success  of "Do It Again" has to be included in the discussion of this era, because as much of a failure as Friends may have been considered, hot on its heels was a very successful single.

Right but Bluebirds as a single was a major mistake -that should have been Can’t Wait Too Long.

I agree Bluebirds was a mistake, it's just not that strong of a song overall - And that's what a Beach Boys single minus Brian sounded like at that time, Bruce and Carl at the helm! lol

I'm assuming there was a notion of "nostalgia sold with Do It Again, let's do nostalgia again and it will sell" regarding covering a 50's track. Unfortunately it was not an original, it was not a catchy-as-hell groove and production, and the original song wasn't that good to begin with.

As much as I also agree on "Can't Wait Too Long", maybe they thought releasing it would go against this nostalgia vibe that got them a hit single, or that it wasn't finished and they couldn't finish it as it needed to be done to make a strong chart single.

I had no idea there were BBs meet and greets as far back as then. Was that some sort of extra bonus for VIP ticket holders or something? Was that even a thing back in the 1960s?

As I explained in the book-the melodyland theater in Anaheim was a round theater with numerous entrances and the BBs agreed to be at each entrance to greet the fans who came to the show (not sure if this was a regular thing at melodyland or just a special treat for local fans). A fan I talked to noted that Brian was at one of the entrances to greet fans. The lucky fan then took their seat and much to his surprise Brian was seated next to him for the show. This fan went to Hawthorne High and when Brian found out, he spent much of the show peppering him with questions about whether various teachers and coaches were still there. I also interviewed Alex del Zappo of the band sweetwater, who opened the shows.

Yeah I think bluebird killed the momentum after do it again. It didn’t get much airplay so the BBs were off the top 40 radio for six months-which in those days was a career stalling length of time.  The next two singles were stronger but two straight singles of covers (I can hear music was next) was also probably a mistake-suggested that they had nothing new to say.

Plus the fact that Bluebirds sounded nothing like The Beach Boys! Especially for a single, nothing in the groove, texture, or overall production of that record sounded like the band. I Can Hear Music was also a cover, but especially with Carl's sweet vocals it had that Beach Boy sound.

Thanks Ian! I do own the book, and I have read it, but it's been a while and I should go re-read it more thoroughly :)

We're Together Again, Never Learn Not to Love, Cotton Fields, and a Honeys single. Not much, but more than the one song.

"Right but Bluebirds as a single was a major mistake -that should have been Can’t Wait Too Long. "

I imagine a 45 release then of Can't Wait Too Long b/w Bluebirds Over The Mountain.  Wow, that is a fantastic concept IMHO.  I wonder what Bruce Johnston would say to that

I'd like to get back to the latter part of 1967 for a minute, and throw something on the table regarding some of the decisions made and actions taken during that time. I'm specifically thinking the timeline of May to December 1967, as we got into some topics that hit more on 1968 but had their origins in the '67 timeline, from "Can't Wait Too Long" to "Time To Get Alone" and beyond.

And these are just my opinions and observations, and have been discussed before, but some of these points do fit into the overall story line of this period.


- First, the drastic shift in the live show, recording, songwriting, basically the entire scope of the band entering Summer 1967.

The band in Spring '67 had what was a less than successful tour of Europe, where they took a beating from fans and the critics because their live show did not replicate the records and they sounded thin, plus the band tried to augment their live show with strings and other musicians which had its own problems especially in the UK. Meanwhile Brian in April and May was still recording in the LA studios he had been using, with the same session players he had been using, and basically doing his productions and recordings as he had been doing throughout 1966 into 67, planning to add what was needed when the Boys got back from their tour. Call it part of Smile, call it whatever, but Brian's *method* of recording had not changed at the point the Boys returned from that European tour.

And then something drastic happened to change the whole process.

I think the band was stung and hurt by the criticism of their live shows, and I also think they were fed up by getting bashed over how the shows sounded versus the recordings. If you read through the reports and interviews in the UK press from this Spring tour and immediately after, the band members are upset. And they were further confounded by trying to augment their shows with other musicians and being told they could not do so under union rules or whatever that kerfuffle was about.

And they come home to Brian's recording activity still on the "Smile" methodology, creating the tracks to which they'd add vocals and other parts...they were basically running separate operations as they had been since '64 or so, but maybe it was starting to wear on them, further enhanced by the negative reactions they received on the tour. Brian was having his own issues with finding studio time, reactions from the band to his recordings, all of that Smile stuff basically.

So they do the home studio ad hoc setup in Brian's house as a solution.

They can record more simplified instrumental arrangements, they can work as a band in the same room during the process, and perhaps most importantly these less complex new songs would be easier to translate to the live stage. They would strip down the studio productions to allow that music to be reproduced on stage with the same people who were on the studio recordings.

And THAT is where I think this solution came to its natural unveiling process in Hawaii.

I think the guys who were touring live and getting blasted by fans and critics for not sounding like the records saw this as a solution...Let's make our new music more homespun and simplified, and let's apply that stripped-down sound to our previous hits too, as a new identity for the group both on record and on stage. No need to hire other musicians on stage, no need to augment anything if our new sound was in essence a stripped-down sound without full studio bands doing the backgrounds. The same guys who played on the records are now playing and singing on stage. And Brian did not have to book studio time or wait for musicians to be available, and I also think it was an olive branch peace-offering to the guys as much as saying "here, you do it" to have them recording as a group rather than the separation of the past years between recording tracks and touring them live.

Keep in mind that in August '67, no one knew how much of a success or failure Smiley Smile would be. As much of a drastic change as it was, it had yet to be released in full and I don't think people within the band were sold on the idea it would flop. They were promoting it just like any other album, and this was a radical departure all around.

What better way to promote their new sound and direction than to have a live album "in the can" and ready to release? Again, no one in August '67 knew if the new sound was going to be a phenomenon or a flop, and here was a chance to get the new singles and reworkings of the old hits onto tape to follow up the studio album.

So none of it happened as planned, as we all know, but I think the Hawaii tapes and project overall can be understood by looking at what led up to their plans to record in Hawaii, and connect it directly to their radical shift that happened as of June '67.

I'll say again that a key to understanding on a deeper level would be to pinpoint what happened in that week between the Boys returning home and the radical shift actually taking shape by June '67. That shift also included suddenly pulling out of Monterey after they had been receiving top billing. Something big happened, I believe it was as much personal between band members and Brian as it was professional/business, but unfortunately until that book comes out we'll probably never know the full story. And two of the principals involved are no longer with us to add more details.


Prefacing more to come, it is also no accident that once the Hawaii tapes and the attempted LA fixing sessions didn't work out as planned, where did Brian go and what did he do musically? He returned to his Smile working methods and Smile-like composition and production methods too. "Can't Wait Too Long", "Time To Get Alone", "Cool Cool Water" and others worked on that Fall of '67, including a solo-piano revisit to "Surf's Up". Those were his ideas and he worked on them either as outside productions or on his own. For the Beach Boys, he produced the Wild Honey single, a song which the band could reproduce on stage and a nod to their newest "new sound", R&B soul mixed with the BB's harmony vocals. But they could easily play "Wild Honey" on stage without full backing bands to sound like the record.

But where did Brian put his more grandiose ideas for production and songwriting? One outlet was Danny Hutton and Redwood, if you listen to their take on "Time To Get Alone", it's the same backing track and it sounds like it could have been a Smile-era recording with all of the extra musicians and layers of sound. This was miles away from the stripped-down Beach Boys sound of Fall '67, and reproducing layers of various keyboard instruments and full string sections and other orchestral touches on stage was of little or no concern when making *that* record. I think that ties in yet again if we add to Brian's interview from Hawaii in August "I'm running out of ideas..." the tag line *for the Beach Boys*.

Those ideas for the Beach Boys included getting a more streamlined sound in the studio with less layers and outside musicians so they could reproduce it on stage, getting the recordings happening as a group effort so the band heard on the studio tracks would be the same band on stage, and also going from stripped-down chill out music on Smiley to a heavier soul/R&B sound on Wild Honey. Not bad ideas at all...but then look at where Brian's musical ideas were going that Fall separate from all of that. There were some pretty amazing ideas being recorded on tape, only it was not solely for the Beach Boys or their new directions.

Then there's that fateful day when Carl and Mike walked into the studio and put the kibosh on Brian's work with Redwood, carrying out the tapes and as Brian described it "putting the screws to me".

As odd or even crazy as some of these decisions made by the band in the latter half of '67 may be, they did not happen in a vacuum.

Well there is no doubt that there were a lot of heavy conversations at that time that changed the nature of the group. Though I also feel like in the BBs there was a lot of passive-aggression. I imagine that probably a lot of things were left unsaid and maybe that is why they survived but obviously the unsaid things rankled for years