The Smiley Smile Message Board

Ok, this is a real geek question, but does anyone have any info about how Dennis was in the studio as far as drumming is concerned. Like, how many takes did he usually have to do? What was his temperment? What songs/sessions did he especially shine on or have problems? What was his approach in general?

Any interesting stories?

His approach was to do what Brian wanted.  Obviously, I wasn't there, but one can hear plenty of session tape from sessions where Dennis was drumming.  There was nothing terribly special about any of it.  He didn't mess up any more or less than anybody else, and remember they were tracking everything live so if one person messed up they had to do another take, so it wasn't really up to Dennis how many takes he'd do.  When he did make a mistake, he'd be the first to admit it.

He was surprisingly quiet when drumming, much more so than on the vocal sessions.  Not as silent-as-the-grave as Al, but he knew he was there because of Brian's grace.  There were a few songs where he kind of struggled to get it.  When I Grow Up springs to mind as a song he took awhile to fall into a groove.

But he was great on so many songs, adding that perfect exuberant drive of his.

Did Dennis play a lot of drums in the studio during the post-SMiLE era, (20/20, Sunflower, Surf's Up (I'm assuming Ricky did most of the drum work on CATP and Holland), 15 Big Ones, Love You, MIU, LA, KTSA, POB, Bambu) or did the Boys prefer studio drummers for those records, too?

I'd say generally Dennis played on a few tracks on each of 20/20(Cottonfields, I Can Hear Music are two), Sunflower and Surf's Up(injured his had mid-sessions after playing on Student Demon. Time)...and then on 15BO he's on most of it, Love You a few including Honkin', not much on the rest other than POB...which he plays on maybe four or five, and Bambu which he plays on about half. A good place to read blow by blow of some earlier DW session work is on Craig's site www.beachboysarchives.com

Yes, Craig's site has some great blow by blow accounts of Dennis drumming in the studio.

BTW, it's quite likely Dennis only played drums on Add Some Music (if even that) on Sunflower.  The rest was Dennis Dragon, Hal, Earl Palmer, and a few others.

Thanks for the Sunflower info...I remember Desper saying Dennis played guitar on Slip On Through...what'ya think Aeijtzsche, any possibility that is true? I do know he played a little, very little, guitar...i think on Lady and somewhere on POB according to Karen. Both Gregg J. and Ed Roach have confirmed that Dennis played some "rudimentary" guitar. There was a very primitive guitar part on one of the Bambu tracks, wish i could remember which one but I'm drawing a blank... anyway, Hanlon isolated the track one day when i was in the studio with him during the latest sessions, and we were pretty sure it seemed like Dennis himself banging out some chords on acoustic or it might have been a dobro, but it was chords not slide.

Desper seems to remember Dennis playing more than a tiny bit of guitar.  I doubt he played on Slip On Through, but it's hard to be a touring musician for 20 years of your life and not pick up a little guitar.  Since Desper remembers Dennis playing guitar (and Brian playing Hal Blainesque drums, too!) he must have fooled around on it for some sessions, Lady would make sense.

Ah, to hear isolated tracks.  What I live for...and I've only heard like...one isolated beach boys track from a multi!


Since we're talking about Dennis as a drummer, it still knocks me out the way he taught himself to play drums.  I wonder how he figured it out.  He gravitated towards this open-handed style, meaning he kept the pulse on the hats with his left hand and hit the snare with his right (for the most part).  Jon, I think you said something about how he must have just felt good smacking the snare with his dominant hand.  But today, open hand drumming is considered sort of progressive, since most people still are crossing over to hit the hats with the right.  Of course that all stems out of the traditional military snare grip.

Anyway, Dennis made it work.

I thought of a couple good examples of Dennis' spirited drumming where he "shone", the released Dance, Dance, Dance and also All Dressed Up for School.

Obviously nothing spectacular, but he just locks it in in his unique loose way on those.

Agreed, when he had the right vibe it really worked. I like his playing on I'm So Young and on Girl Don't Tell Me.

Always thought Brian was playing drums On Honkin', can't remember where I read that though.

Naw, it was Dennis.  On the bootlegged version you can hear him doing the count-in. 
Someone somewhere (liner notes, book or fanzine artlice) assumed it was Brian, 'cause he does
play drums on a lot of "Love You", but Mona, Honkin', Pick You Up, and maybe a couple others are Denny.

I think Dennis really had a lot of physical power and energy and that innate quality is what made him the type of drummer he was. His sound is quite dynamic, like anything he did it came from the heart.

From the heart? I'd say maybe from somewhere a foot and a half south of there.

His appendix?

Man, I'm loving all this info!

Being a drummer myself, it's incredible to watch Dennis in the early days. It's simply amazing to know that he went from being handed the drums out of not knowing how to play anything and having to make himself useful, to watching him bash away with such authority in all the footage everyone knows I'm talking about.

It's long been my opinion that Dennis along with Ringo invented rock drumming as we know it. Before those guys, rock drummers were mostly jazz and big band guys who were "slumming it"  in rock and played traditional grip with the emphasis on the ride and kick (upbeat with the hi-hat via pedal) and with a good deal of swing. Dennis and Ringo came along and really pounded out a clobbering beat with cracking snare on the upbeat. They really just laid down that 4/4 rock beat that feels so good. Just think about how many great drummers were mezmerized by Dennis and Ringo on TV and decided to pursue drumming. Their impact is staggering when you think about it.

I can't agree with you more. He doesn't get alot of credit for his work as a drummer, but as far as live drummers go there's no one I've seen or heard that's ever topped him because no one put more of their heart and soul into it than he did.

I've wondered if Hal Blaine didn't teach Dennis some licks over the years.  I've read they were personal friends and spent some leisure time together.  "Hey Hal,can you show me that thing you did on the record so I can do it on stage?"

I love the drumming Dennis did on the California Girls intro. He's hitting the drums at the same time Hal or whoever did in the studio recording, but whereas Blaine just did tiny little taps, Dennis pounded the hell out of the drums. Knebworth is a good example of this.

Dennis ruled

I always felt, seeing him play,  that he was actually left handed - and that this was the self- taught way he ended up doing it,  after initially copying R. hand techniques.  Jon do you have any idea if Dennis did other things left handed.   (Ahh I mean like  throw, catch, write, eat, shoot pool, etc.)

Who is the drummer on 'Breakaway'? - And who is guy who grunts at the start of the track, if not Dennis? It would be cool if it was Murry.

I believe the drummer on Breakaway was Jim Gordon, I THINK, not sure.

The "grunt" at the beginning of the track is the tail-end of the count-in. On the Friends/20/20 reissue bonus track, this is left in, but on the Good Vibrations box set and some other issues with the track, the "grunt" is chopped off perfectly.

The grunt always sounded like Carl to me.

To me, it's always sounded like Brian.
The drummer on "Breakaway" is Allen Breneman, who also played on some Gene Vincent sessions.

Dennis wrote, threw and batted right handed. He surfed left left foot forward, right foot back.

Is it true that Dennis added a few drum licks to "Breakaway"?

And who played the drums to "Be With Me," was that Dennis?

I thought it would be interesting to compile a list of all the songs that Dennis played drums on. Of course this is going to be incomplete and in some cases I'm sure there will be errors. I'm probably wrong, but I'm assuming Dennis played drums on all of the songs on the first two albums besides a couple like "Surfin'", "Surfin' USA" etc...? And wasn't it Carl on "Moon Dawg"? Anyway after those two albums here's what I have written down as Dennis drums:

A Casual Look
All Dressed Up For School
Back Home
Beach Boy Stomp
Chapel Of Love
Child Of Winter
Cotton Fields
Dance, Dance, Dance (both versions)
Do It Again
Endless Harmony
Everyone's In Love With You
Girl Don't Tell Me
Had To Phone Ya
Honkin' Down The Highway
I Can Hear Music
I Wanna Pick You Up
I'm So Young
In The Still Of The Night
It's OK
Just Once In My Life
Mona
Rock And Roll Music
Sail Plane Song
She Knows Me Too Well
Student Demonstration Time
Talk To Me
That Same Song
That's Not Me
Then I Kissed Her
TM Song
When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)
Wild Honey
You're So Good To Me

Anyone have any corrections/additions?

Too late to get real into this, but "That's Not Me" is another one.

That's IT?

Was Dennis on "Good Timin'"?

Of course!! Thanks aeijtzsche, totally forgot about that one!! Will add it to the list

"Be With Me" was... (drumroll, please)....Mike Kowalski!

That's what Desper alluded to, but Allen Breneman is the drummer listed on both the basic track contract, and the one for a later overdub session, so it appears Mr. Breneman did the extra licks.

My understanding is the original 1974 track is Brian, Dennis, Carl, and Jimmy G.  There's no question that Dennis was definitely there, so I would say yes, he's playing drums on that.

There's all the Christmas stuff from '64, and most of Surfer Girl, LDC, and probably Shut Down Vol. 2 and ASL too, surely.

It might be worth pointing out that Dennis is drumming on the single version of "Cotton Fields", but the LP version is...(another drumroll, please)...Hal Blaine.

As for Denny, I believe he's playing drums on most, if not all, of the "Wild Honey" LP.  Exceptions are "How She Boogalooed It", which is apparently either Carl or Brian (since Dennis is absent from the contract), and the outtake "With A Little Help From My Friends" (Bruce has said that was Carl, playing drums while sitting atop a bar stool).  Speaking of Carl playing drums, as has long been rumoured, the AFM contract indicates Carl plays EVERY instrument on "Long Promised Road", including the drums.

Getting back to Dennis for a moment...he plays a PERCUSSION overdub (from listening, my guess would be vibes or something similar) on "Endless Harmony", but the drums appear to be a combination of Ricky Fataar and Scott Matthews (one probably played the basic track and the other added the fill toward the end, I would imagine).

Yep...Denny's on "Fun Fun Fun" and "I Get Around" for sure, plus probably all the others on those albums except "Drive In" (the track for which is apparently the Wrecking Crew), "Our Car Club" (Hal), and of course the Dick Reynolds orchestral Christmas stuff.  Hal often played in conjunction with Denny on those albums (either double drums or timbales).  On "The Rocking Surfer" and "Boogie Woodie" it sounds as if Dennis was playing on the basic track, then Brian had the drums replaced by someone else (Hal or whomever), but you can still hear Dennis' original drum performance bleeding through the mics on the other tracks. 

A couple of other tracks on that list (like "Do It Again" and "It's OK") include the drumming of both Dennis and someone else (John Guerin and Ricky Fataar, respectively, on those two songs).

Oh, here's some more:

Shortenin' Bread
Stevie (unreleased but great)
Hey Little Tomboy
Peggy Sue
My Diane
Come Go With Me (probably)
Sea Cruise
Love Surrounds Me

Plus all of the first two albums except "Surfin'" and at least part of "Surfin' U.S.A.".

Also...

Pipeline
Fourth of July (probably)
Mony Mony (unreleased but commonly booted)
Ruby Baby ('76 version) (ditto)
and probably:
Night Blooming Jasmine (bonus track on Rhino's BW '88 reissue)

Let's emphasize that it's not just the first two LP's that he's on most of...but also Surfer Girl, LDC, Shut Down vol. 2, and All Summer Long as well...plus the live LP, plus nearly half of Today! and four tracks on Summer Days...really Pet Sounds is the only LP from the beginning until Friends where he's not drumming much(unless you count Party). Smile...hmmm...I think he's on Holidays, i don't know what else...but there's probably more. I'm sure if you listed every track every drummer has played on BB's sessions up to 1979...including Blaine and Fataar and Dragon etc... that Dennis will have played on far, far more than anybody else...and probably nearly as many as all the others combined. That's why the, "he didn't play drums on many BB's songs...but hey he's a great songwriter" thing really is BS and shows how lazy so many BB's journalists were, and still are, in their research. Yeah he was a great songwriter...but he also played drums on a majority of BB's recordings...including a bunch of the hits. And don't get me started on the Dave Marks was a "temporary fill-in" for Al Jardine...man...that was the biggest BB's lie of all...and it still permeates their history practically everywhere you can find a dumb journalist writing about it. Okay...back to my meditation.

Very true, Jon.

It's funny, because a lot of the blame rests with the living members of the wrecking crew who are overzealous in correcting the (very real with some people) perception that some groups played all their own stuff.  But since people like Carol have been so outspoken in saying they did "ALL" the Beach Boys things...and she's interviewed a heck of a lot...well, it's distorted the picture.

And, I think, a big part of the distortion started with David Leaf writing, in his 1978 book, that "from 1963 through 1966, Brian used studio musicians on the instrumental tracks".  This resulted in, to borrow a phrase from Domenic Priore, "people becoming married to certain ideas" that they refuse to let go of, even in the face of concrete evidence!

Yeah, Leaf's liner notes made things confusing as well.  And let's not forget poor Carl whose name gets left off many songs that he was on because he wasn't on the contract.  Because of that his considerable abilities get forgotten.  Some people think he couldn't have handled the Fun Fun Fun intro and Campbell had to be brought in as an under-the-table ringer.

But Carl played on more Pet Sounds tracks than Brian, you know.

We need the Definitive Instrumental Credits Thread...

That will be much harder. If one tries hard enough, voices can be distinguished, but can anyone seriously listen to a track and say, "Oh, that's definitely [insert name here] on sax," just from sound alone?

Well, to some extent, it's easier because there are contracts for instrumental sessions.

But it's true that in the absence of contracts, it's hard but not impossible to pick things out.  With session tape, voices of instrumentalists can be recognized.  If I hear some noodling on guitar, I can tell if it's Glen Campbell, usually, because he tends to play real fast country runs.  Barney Kessel can be picked out too sometimes.  And Carl's Rickenbacker, for instance, tends to stick out among the Fender XIIs and stuff.



A thread is much too constraining for a definitive credits list.  That's why there are other avenues for that kind of thing.  At the moment, C-man's website, for instance.

I think having a handy reference a la the vocal thread would at least, if incomplete, would help counter the "Dennis / Carl / whoever never played on anything" canard, and in one handy place too.

At times its easier to distinguish musicians, as opposed to vocalists, when say Murry, Chuck Britz or Brian are commenting to the musicians from the control room. You can hear Chuck talking to Dennis or Hal during the Today sessions on the Sea of Tunes discs making it fairly easy to tell which guy is on a given track. Some of the sessions we don't have that luxury, but in general SOT's have proven that Carl, Dennis and Al were around and playing on the recordings quite a bit more than we had been told for all those years.

I just wish Al wasn't so quiet out on the studio floor.  There are times he's so quiet you wonder if he's playing from the booth...but usually the bass sound doesn't sound very direct-y.  Like the whole long When I Grow Up session...does Al say a word?  At least on stuff like California Girls, Brian will hit the talkback and you can hear Carl apologizing to him for messing up.

I agree. I mean alls we can do is list who we know or atleast assume as highly probable who is playing what on each track. And I think if a person is unsure, then that can be noted with a question mark (similar to what c-man does). It would take a lot of work, but thanks to c-man, we have the "Today!" album, "Summer Days...", plus the outtakes from the Today! album and then we also of course have Pet Sounds and 15 Big Ones, most of The BB '85, Stars & Stripes and Brian's Imagination (I don't know if anyone cares to do all the solo albums, but we have all of the credits for that one anyway) and obviously other tracks here and there. So that aint all that bad. Obviously c-man is THE man when it comes to this, but I'm sure other people can chip in here and there. And I'm sure c-man will let us use his work he did for the Today & Summer Days albums (with credit and a link to his site of course ;)).

Also for example if there is some debate we can always just list it as:

drums: Dennis or Brian?

I think Dennis also played drums on "Holidays" from SMiLE.

Yes, it's Dennis drumming on "Holidays". 

Just goes to prove that is really does take what amounts to investigative journalism just to get a handle on the Beach Boys story

c-man, do you mean "Punchline"? Unless you're talking about the Bruce Johnston song? ::)

c-man, I always thought that it was Hal on FFF? Well wasn't he atleast at that session (January 1, '64?) So do you mean that it's Dennis on drums or percussion or what? Or is Hal on percussion (which was rare but I know that still happened on occassion - Dance Dance Dance perhaps?)

Wow, just looking back at this now I just thought, it's always made out that Dennis had nothing to do with M.I.U. (besides singing lead on My Diane).. well this sort of disproves that myth. Granted it's still not a whole load of drumming credits but still it's more than I always thought.

I have a suspicion it's Dennis on Peggy Sue too. I think I have a way to somes tell his drumming. He always comes back real hard on the high hat on the upbeat after a fill. Might just be my imagination, but it's one of his little trademark things. I think it's from playinmg match-grip and hitting so hard.

He's also playing the congas on It's About Time. I have a boot of just the drum/conga track. It rocks!!

No, "Punchline" IS what I meant.
Thanks.

They're both playing drums on there. 

Oh okay thanks c-man :) Had a feeling that might've been a possibility

Well...that's A Dennis playing congas on "It's About Time" alright, however it's Dennis Dragon.
As for the MIU tracks that Dennis Wilson plays drums on...they were all recorded in 1976, at Brother Studio.  Those tracks are outtakes from the 15 Big Ones and "New Album" sessions.  

It's Dennis Dragon on drums on It's About Time and Dennis on congas? Right?
And do you mean it's Dennis Dragon on Peggy Sue?

Earl Palmer is drums on "It's About Time", right?

It's funny, not only does dennis get slammed by the "Hal Blain played on everything" myth, but all these other guys get shortchanged too. no disrespecty to Hal, of course.

Actually, I prefer the way Dennis played Sloop John B, Good Vibrations, Wouldn't It Be Nice over how they are on the records. "Sloop" rocked a lot harder, especially. Dennis just had great feel and had no drummer-ego. It was all heart & soul.

No...It's About Time has Earl Palmer on drums & Dennis Dragon on congas.
Peggy Sue has Dennis Wilson on drums.

Interesting about Carl and Brian on drums...we have evidence that they both could play a bit but I didn't realize they did it in the studio (although "Long Promised Road" does not surprise me).

How about a thread about the BBs on instruments they didn't usually play, e.g.:
Dennis on guitar
Carl or Brian on drums (or Brian on bass after 1965)
Al on piano
Mike on any instrument (e.g. could it be him playing piano on "Big Sur?"  I doubt it, but you see what I mean.  It's possible.  The piano part is about a first grade level and it's his song)
Bruce on guitar (did he play at all?  I've heard yes and no)

Desper said Brian played guitar on Breakaway.

Bruce played the mandolin on "Disney Girls".
He also sometimes played one of Carl's guitars onstage (late 1978-early 1979). 
He probably just played the bass strings.

I'd find it hard to believe that someone as immersed in music who could play bass and piano (and apparently mandolin) couldn't play guitar, at least at a rudimentary level--open position chords, for example. It seems like it would take willfully defiant ignorance to keep from learning the basics. (Ditto with Mike when he's plunking around on a keyboard on some late 70s video that's on youtube. How could you avoid becoming at least proficient at a beginner's level?)

I agree with Luther.  Being around instruments every day of your life lends itself to helping you learn basics.

Don't forget the Party! promo shot where Bruce is rather convincingly holding a guitar.

Besides, it not like guitar is rocket science to begin with.  At least an e minor chord.

Didn't Bruce use to accompany Denny on You re So Beautiful on guitar at  times? I'm sure there was a concert review which said so, possibly in one of Kingsley Abbott's scrapbooks.

Yes, a review somewhere said that.   A smiliar review that I read shortly after Dennis died said Bruce was playing bass on that song, while Billy was playing piano.

Dennis played guitar in Barbara, from Endless Harmony.
Brian played drums: The Wanderer, majority of Love You album...

Brian played bass in Susie Cincinatti, recorded in 69, but released in 76. 

This actually appears to not be true.  The 69 basic track was cut seemingly in Brian's absence.  Carl's too for that matter.  It sounds like Al on guitar, Bruce on Piano, Dennis Dragon on Drums, and somebody who's not Brian on Bass.  The bass style is way out of Brian's vocabulary, for one, and two it's not like Brian to not say a word on a session.

I would guess it could be Daryl.  It doesn't really sound like Ray Pohlman's bag either.  They were hiring all kinds of session bassists at that time, but this seems self-contained.

I really don't know how good of a Fender Bass player Daryl is, but the line has a casual funky ease to it.

That's not to say Brian didn't O.D. some bass on it, but the original bassline survives to the final master.

One fun post '65 Brian bass moment is Smiley Vegetables.

I always thought Brian played harmonica on Susie.

It was actually released in 1970 as the B-side of Add Some Music to Your Day

No...It's About Time has Earl Palmer on drums & Dennis Dragon on congas.
Peggy Sue has Dennis Wilson on drums.
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wow. the reason I assumed it was Dennis on congas is because of a quote who I can't remember from. whoever it was said that Dennis really worked up a swet playing the congas on that track.... I'll try and figure out who that was who said that.

wow. the reason I assumed it was Dennis on congas is because of a quote who I can't remember from. whoever it was said that Dennis really worked up a swet playing the congas on that track.... I'll try and figure out who that was who said that.
[/quote]
Dennis did work up a sweat, it just wasn't Dennis Wilson.

ah, well..... I'm sure Dennis was working up a sweat elsewhere while Dragon was laying down them congas

Yeah, probably right across the room.

There's a video on youtube from the mid-70s where Brian is playing bass for Back Home then he gives it to Mike to give to Ed Carter. Before handing it to him, Mike plays a few notes on it.

I think in one of Bruce's many surf projects before he joined the Beach Boys he played guitar. Can't remember which one it was though.

Wait... Mike played a few notes? Then he deserves a co-writing credit and money. I smell a lawsuit. Musical inspiration if ever i heard it.

You know, you just jogged my memory about something, Aegis.

Before we did the MAKAHA session, me and Shawn Bryant sat down with Don Randi and Jerry Cole and went over the old tracks for the songs we were going to do.  While we were doing that, Don and Jerry would try and figure out who was playing on the songs based on their experience (e.g. "Remember Carol had that shitty red bass?" that kind of thing).  We got to one of the Jan & Dean tracks...it was either Sidewalk Surfin' or (more likely) Surf City and Jerry said something like, "that wasn't us...that guitarist is that guy...what's his name...the guy that played in the Beach Boys...Bruce Johnston."

I semi-protested that I hadn't heard of Bruce Johnston ever doing guitar on any surf session, and Jerry gave me an I-was-there-and-you-weren't look and said that in the early days, Bruce and Terry didn't have much of a budget, and that Bruce played a lot of guitar on those sessions, and that there was no great skill involved.  I was dubious because I thought it wasn't likely that Bruce was on Surf City as a guitarist, but Jerry's memory of the general circumstances may well have been correct.  In which case Bruce may well have played some guitar.  He's repeatedly said he'd never played bass before '65, but even though it's a similar skill set (the strings are tuned the same, so any guitar player can usually play rudimentary bass), that doesn't mean he never played guitar before '65.  

If he could play the mandolin, he'd have enough dexterity that it seems likely he could do some basic chords on guitar.  To do the surf stuff, you'd generally just need to know your majors and minors, and you can cover that with a few bar chords.  The trick would be in the picking hand.  Looking at video of Bruce, I was always impressed at how solid his bass playing was...even when he was just syncing something as late as the '80s, he would generally play the right part.  Based on the evidence of Tony Rivers' jam session with Bruce in '66, it seems likely Bruce didn't have much innate ability on the bass (e.g. he probably couldn't improvise or walk or anything like that) but could execute a part just fine.  It's just interesting that you never see these guys playing guitar.

What's more interesting to me is it's very unclear whether Brian had any ability on guitar.  I know only of two verified instances of Brian playing on a track (both '69..."Breakaway" and "Where Is She") and the only picture I've ever seen of him with a guitar is the one with Van Dyke holding down the chords.  We have a lot more evidence that Brian could play drums than guitar, and yet you'd think there'd be more cases of him throwing down a part, given that it's a rhythm instrument.

Al is shown playing the piano in the SURF'S UP interior photos...do we know of any confirmed tracks that he played on?  "Don't Go Near The Water" would be the most likely, but that's actually kind of an intricate little part.

It's very funny to watch, too.  He basically plays it the way any bored non-musician pulling down an axe while waiting for their buddy to get done making his purchases at Guitar Center would.

Have you got over the surreality of being able to write that sentence yet?

That is very interesting, that they both remember Bruce playing.  I'll see if we can get Mark Moore to confirm if he was on the contract.

Well, look at the 15 Big Ones credits. Brian played bass in Susie. Check this!

I'll take my ears over hastily drawn up credits any day, thanks.

Get over yourself, please.

Credits can be wrong.

My two cents:

Read somewhere (sorry, can't remember where. Might have been here, actually, if someone wants to run a sarch.!) that Brian's credit for "Susie" is either bass pedals on an organ or a keyboard bassline a la the Doors, rather than a bass guitar, which was someone else. Anyone?

From memory, isn't Al pictured playing organ rather than piano, and doesn't he play the organ on Lookin' At Tomorrow?

For Susie, the 15 Big Ones' credits were very probably written down 6 or 7 years after the session. In this case, they may be inaccurate.

Al is seen playing piano and singing Sloop John B in the Endless Harmony docu. I think.

I always assumed that Bruce had some basic notions of guitar before picking up the bass, because he started playing it so quickly on stage with the band, after a few gigs playing keyboards only. Even if he was a shitty guitar player, it sure helped.

Did Desper say Brian actually playedguitar on Breakaway? I thought he refered to Brian's guitar part somewhere and meant the guitar part that Brian had arranged. This is what I had thought.

I know Brian owns a guitar. I saw a picture of him with it once.

Desper did say he played guitar on that session. He said he played a lot of instruments. "He's all over those records." He said that Brian wasn't fussy about what kind of guitar; he would pick up whatever was lying about and record a part in a flash of inspiration. As to his guitar playing/instrumental abilities, Desper said he was "a natural."

That sounds interesting. The only footage I have seen of Brian playing guitar was that home movie clip shown in the A&E Biography. I think it was in an edition of Mojo a few years ago where they showed Brian on the cover holding the same guitar that was pictured in his music room.

Not that it means anything, but if memory serves me right, in the WIBN book in one part Brian says he can play guitar and in another he tells Landy he can't play the guitar.

By all accounts I've seen, Brian provided the guitar on the early Survivor's cut "After the Game".  Among other instrumentation.

Some people are just natural musicians.  If you have a good ear, it's not too hard to be passable on almost anything, particularly if you spend a lot of time around instruments.  I have no doubt Brian could play an oboe or a serpent or a viola d'amour given a few minutes to figure it out.

This is very true. The basics of music cross instruments, and because so many instruments fall within so few families of instruments, it gets even easier. Brian Wilson is--obviously--a brilliant musician in terms of his writing, producing and arranging skills. I'd argue that as a player, he's inferior (as compared to the aforementioned), but certainly competent. Remember, to get a degree in music education--in other words, to become a high school band director, for example--you need to pass competency tests in all the basic instruments. This means you can pick up and play at a basic level a trumpet, a clarinet, a trombone, a snare drum, and so on. It's not rocket science. Music is music, and if you can do certain physical things (playing a reed, playing brass, pressing the strings) and understand which keys, strings or holes do what, you're going to be able to figure it out on some level. A lot of Brian's playing is, in my opinion, just that: figuring it out on some level. He's no virtuoso on anything (except in the 60s with his voice, maybe), but he could probably work out whatever he had to do on anything.

Luther, I wasn't gonna say it, but it's a salient point: people who are multi-instrumentalists tend be be jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none.  Take, um, myself.  I can play any instrument on a basic level, but I still kind of stink at instruments I've been playing for 25 years.

And I think Brian's the same.  He understands music and harmony so well, there's no way he's not going to be able to figure out how to play an instrument, at least enough to contribute to his vision.  And he understands harmony on the piano in a way that made him a great songwriter.  But he's no virtuoso.  Well, a virtuoso songwriter.

I'm very much in the same box you are Josh.  I can play a bunch of instruments halfway decently, but I'll never be anything near a virtuoso on any of them.  And thats okay by me...you don't need to be a brilliant musician to create music.  A good understanding of chords and harmony goes a long way.

Like you said, Brian has such an innate musical mind that he can pick an instrument up and play at a competent level within a short time.  He'll never be a concert pianist, but he knows enough to be able to communicate his musical vision, which has always been his main focus anyways.

To refer to the original topic, I think Dennis was much this way as well.

I think that what we're talking about now is why Brian and the Studio Musicians had such a mutual fondness.  Brian was able to transcend his own abilities instrumentally by giving his ideas to these pros, who were even able to expand on them because of their ability to play anything.  And they liked Brian because he brought in these ideas that were good, and he let them be themselves and feel creative, and also he really wanted to learn from them, too.

I'd say the Beach Boys are all underrated musicians. All of them (other than Mike) were/are multi-insturmentalists and could sing spot on (most of the time) and pull off very difficult harmonies while playing, which can be very difficult. It's no insult to say that their amazing vocals have overshadowed their musical abilities, but it is true. Also..... well..... ugh, I really don't wanna have to go into the whole "wrecking crew" BS once again.

As for 20/20.... I remember talking to Rodney Bingenheimer about 12 years ago and we were talking about 20/20, and he told me he was around the studio quite a bit and that Dennis played on about half the album. I know he's on at least the basic track of Do It Again, also Time To Get Alone.... Does anyone know what other songs he's on on that album?

I think he's drumming on the basic track of "I Can Hear Music", with another drummer overdubbed while Dennis played acoustic piano & Bruce played electric piano.  He might also be drumming on "All I Want To Do" and "Never Learn Not To Love". 

Speaking of "Time To Get Alone", did anyone ever verify Desper's claim that the Boys took the '67 Redwood track and replaced all the parts by duplicating them exactly?

Coming from Desper, I'd doubt it needs any verification. He says that they recorded the backing tracks from scratch and that on "Time To Get Alone" Dennis played drums and had a bit of sandpaper on his snare that he dragged his stick across at certain points, or something, for effect..... Consult "Desperpedia" to see what I'm talking about.

First of all, I'm the greatest champion of the Beach Boys as musicians.  I've been banned from Carol Kaye's board no less than 5 times for daring to suggest a Beach Boy actually played an instrument...

But:  They couldn't play anything Brian wanted, and they didn't really contribute or enhance his ideas, as evidenced by session tape.  Now, they might have grown into that after the "leaked session tape" era and we just haven't heard it.

As for Redwood, Desper is incorrect.  If you take the redwood version, and the Beach Boys version, and do some waveform inversion/combination, the track cancels out.  Meaning: the track is sonically identical.

However, Carl did do that weird alternate TTGA track that Alan Boyd thinks was simply to generate paperwork.

I love this thread.  OK, a couple of other thoughts.

As to what Jerry Cole said, on further reflection I think the track had to have been "Sidewalk Surfin'".  They were right in the sense that whatever track it was clearly wasn't the studio band, and I can attest (since I had to learn the guitar parts for the session myself), "Surfin'" was by far the most rudimentary J & D track of the ones we did.  I don't think that Don confirmed Jerry's impression, but I don't remember.  I don't 100% trust Jerry's recollection about that particular song.  But I think it's likely he saw Bruce in the studio playing guitar at some point.

As to the BBs as natural musicians, in a conversation Stan Shapiro once said of Dennis: "he was a natural musician.  He could pick up anything and play it.  Not to the extent that Brian and Carl could, but they all were like that."  Which I think sums it up pretty well.

I guess I'm trying to relate Brian's deal to my own experience, and now that I think about it, even though I can play bass or drums, I rarely do, because there are other people in the room who do it better.  When I do play instruments I don't usually play, it's because no one else is around and I want to do a track, and in that case it's a useful skill to have.  There's also a political thing.  There are times when we're working out a song that I ask our drummer if I can play it for him.  Our drummer is a cool guy so he doesn't get annoyed, but it's a pretty obnoxious thing to do, and so politically it may have been the stringed instruments were Carl's domain and Brian didn't want or need to go there.  Keyboard and percussion instruments seem to be his comfort zone, and it's probably just easier for him to get it done that way.  It does sort of explain why the moog bass was used so prominently in the '70s, when Carl or Brian for that matter could have just strapped it on and played the part.  Brian probably just didn't want to bother transposing the bass line to the bass and plugging it in.

With the Wilson brothers its no mystery that they were not virtuoso instrumentalists. Carl was the best...that's  because he worked hard on developing his guitar playing until about 1964 or 65, and that was about it...his ability stayed at that level, which was really good. But if you think about it, the Wilson's primary instrument were their ears...they were virtuoso at knowing what sounded right. And to take that further perhaps it was the connection between those ears and their hearts that really made it beyond virtuoso. I read through this thread and it made me think of Dennis, laboring on so many of those POB tracks by himself. he didn't really play any instrument at a high level, but he crafted those tracks painstakingly, on many of them he plays all, or nearly all of the instruments himself...they sound beautiful...he wasn't a great musician...but his ears were great, and he found a way to get to a great level with the tracks. Like Brian, he knew what sounded right...and more importantly what FELT right. Because Dennis was comparatively a novice at the playing part of it, or at least primitive compared to a trained player...things are put together in a very organic or non-traditional, non trained way. rules didn't matter...and the same held true for Brian, even when he was using the best musicians in the business... he was using them in a completely untrained way...he was incredibly inventive because the usual barriers were not there for him...he was just finding his vision by following his ears and his heart. That's why it sounds like nothing else. To me this very point proves that those guys were geniuses, or maybe a better way to say it is they were spiritual carpenters...they built from the soul...not from the head.

Well said, Jon.  Right on.

"Spiritual Carpenters", I like that.  Mind if I use it for the title of a book?  I think that raises my "book idea" count to 2314.  I respect you Jon, for taking it from idea to finished product.

I wish that Dennis had filmed himself putting together a POB track mostly by himself.  That would have been fun to see his process, as a fellow do it mostly myselfer.  It would be inspiring when I get tired of doing it all.

One of your best posts.

well, that's the great thing about "Rock n Roll"... It's all about what you DO, not what you CAN do.