And, I conjecture, he simply had to be self-conscious to create. To say to himself continuously: 'now I'm gonna do this or that, I must call him or her, will they like what I am planning?' and so on and so forth.

This also explains the comment made during the recording of BWPS that Brian gave Darian permission to kick his butt to record the best vocals possible. Brian realized that he needed someone on his case to live up to his potential. And he got it. Sad? In some ways yes. But also self-aware.

Here's a thread about the subject from a couple of years back.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,853.0.html

I heard that it had something to do with Andy being gay.

That's not often discussed, and I've never heard it confirmed one way or the other. The only mention I've ever seen of it is in on the website of an engineer who worked on the BW88 album. He has since removed it.

Given Brian's enthusiasm for Elton John and excitement of meeting him and his partner, David Furnish, it seems unlikely there's any bigotry on BW's part. It's also hard to imagine that Andy and Brian collaborated for nine years and that Brian didn't know.

If the band gave Andy trouble about it -- well, I would have a lot less respect for them.

Re: SMITC

Are you sure about that?

Yes. There may be a few percussion overdubs and a different mix, but the track is the same.

Why did he and Paley separate eventually? I was at the London RFH 'Pet Sounds' live show in 2002, was Paley present there in his touring ensemble?

Paley was at some shows in 01 and 02, filling in for an absent Mickey D'Amico. He also recorded with Brian during that time (he's on the re-done version of Desert Drive, for example).

He and Brian have not exactly had a falling out since -- Brian has appeared with Andy on a couple of recordings ("Doin' the Krabby Patty" -- from a SpongeBob Squarepants concept album, of all things -- came out in '06). But they haven't been full-on collaborators either, and word on the street is that Paley was peeved at his treatment by the BW camp. I don't recall hearing anything more definite than that.

Well, I seem to recall that Christopher Cross was considered for the Jeff Foskett role (he did it at the Imagination promo concerts in St. Charles), but he ended up devoting more time to his solo career.

And certainly there have been fill-ins who have come and gone. Gary Griffin has subbed for Darian fairly regularly the last couple of years, and Billy Hinsche has filled in as well.

But it seems like it was a pretty ad hoc group of people who were thrown together for a few shows in 1999. What's shocking is that the core of Foskett, Darian, Nicky, Probyn, Scott, Taylor and Paul (and until this year, Lizik and Hines) have stuck together for so long!

From her official site:

Raised in Des Moines, the daughter of loving but strict Baptist parents, Taylor developed her taste for melody as a child. Her listening leaned toward pop and R&B, from the Carpenters to Roberta Flack – singers who tempered technique with personal shades of soul.
 
Taylor knew from the start that she wanted to pursue just one goal: to bring her talent for singing to its fullest possible flower. And so, as quickly as possible after high school, she packed up and headed to the nearest big city that seemed to offer a way to chase that dream.
 
She arrived in Chicago, knowing no one but made connections quickly.  Fresh from Iowa, she took her place in a 17 piece band among four more experienced backup singers, all of them grounded in black gospel and R&B.  "I listened like crazy and stole everything I heard from them," Taylor remembers, laughing.  This lead to gigs around the city with other bands including the award-winning jazz saxophonist, Steve Cole, whose Atlantic Records debut was number one on the jazz charts.
 
What Taylor learned set her up for the biggest break of her career. When Cole’s drummer, Todd Sucherman, heard that Brian Wilson was looking to hire a female singer for his touring band – specifically, Sucherman remembers, “someone who was pretty and could sing her butt off” – he knew that Taylor was the perfect fit.
 
That’s all it took to bring her to Wilson’s home outside of Chicago for an audition. “I didn’t know what to expect,” she says. “Even though I knew the ‘beachier’ stuff he’d done with the Beach Boys, I wasn’t at all aware of Pet Sounds, SMiLE, or any of the really great stuff that he’d created over the years.”
 
And so, while she might have expected to hear “Surfer Girl” coming over her headphones, she was asked instead to sing along to “Surf’s Up,” one of the most enigmatic, difficult, and gorgeous works in Wilson’s repertoire. “I’d never heard the song in my life,” she says, “but they let me take a few minutes to listen to it. I memorized what I heard and sang my part, and the music director was like, ‘Yeah, I think we want you.’”

This is how I hear it:

So sweet... now there's all kinds of music
So sweet... and don't you know the truth is
So sweet... you were my special lover

So sweet... you were my baby grand
So sweet... such a sweet ballad and
So sweet... sweet voices right from Heaven
Radio Seven

Also, the band was joined by various local orchestral groups on the 2000 Pet Sounds tour. The Stockholm Strings n Horns joined up for the debut of Smile live in London and traveled on the subsequent tour and appeared at the TLOS premiere shows.

Well, the GIOMH version is the Paley version, you know. The credits don't state it, but it's the same backing track and backing vocals.

It just has a newly recorded lead.

Ditto for Soul Searchin, except that Brian recorded new backing vocals and Mertens played a sax solo -- god knows why.

The band partially came about from Chicago-area folks who Joe Thomas knew and who played on the "Imagination" album sessions. The rest were folks the BW camp knew from the LA area.

Scott Bennett, Bob Lizik, Todd Sucherman and Paul Mertens all played on "Imagination," and all were invited to join the band. Jeff Foskett was the falsetto ringer, and was a former Beach Boys guy and Carl confidant. Brian requested the Wondermints, who brought along Probyn Gregory (who's never been an official member of the group).

Joe was the musical director, and he added DJ friend Steve Dahl to mime theremin and strum acoustic guitar. (Joe's actual musical contributions were short-circuited by some Wonderminty-goodness. Darian basically threatened to quit during the initial rehearsals if Joe tried to make the BW songs sound any more adult contemporary)

After the first few dates, Dahl went back to the radio. After a few more, Joe was dumped from the band. Also within the first year or so, Todd left to play with Styx (and after marrying Taylor). Jim Hines was in place by the Roxy shows of 2000 (he and Lizik had apparently played together).

A year or so after that, Wondermint Mikey D'Amico left. Andy Paley (the Andy Paley) came in for percussion duty. Mikey returned for a bit but eventually truly left and was replaced by Nelson Bragg (who knew the LA-Wonder folks).

Most recently, Lizik and Hines have departed/been forced out and replaced by a returning Mikey and new guy Brett Simons, a mostly jazz bassist who played on a Scott Bennett solo album of a few years back.

Actually, all of lyrics for SMITC are not there on the 88 version, nor is the lengthy middle section (boys and girls are out and about / listen to them run and shout, etc.).

SMITC perhaps has the longest gestation of any single BW song I know in terms of bits being added --

Melodic riff in the 60s
First draft of lyrics in the 80s
Final structured song, with bridge, in the 90s.

That would have never EVER been released by the Brian Wilson handlers of the last thirty years.  Not ever.  You know it, I know it.

Yet we have "Male Ego." We have "Saturday Morning in the City." We have "Happy Days." We have "Rio Grande." We have "Fantasy is Reality / Bells of Madness." Hell, we even have "Smile."

I don't think anyone is preventing Brian from releasing crazy music if he wants to create it. Yes, they might look askance at him recording it while high and playing only acoustic guitar, bongos and organ. But I don't think anyone, not Brian, not the BBs -- ever though the circumstances behind the creation of Smiley Smile were ideal.

Todd was apparently back for the TLOS sessions and Capitol shows -- Mikey came on shortly afterward as the touring drummer.

jeffcdo -- Very good. The earlier release of the Paley tracks (the one with extra hiss but at the right speed) had SAM at 3:36. Yours was at 3:38, so it's a hair slow, but generally right.

Yep, he has official MySpace and Facebook pages now. Those savvy Capitol marketing people no doubt.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=72502321

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Brian-Wilson/34250497240?ref=mf

the facebook page has more pics from the session:

Luther: Touche. But when you look at something like GIOMH and see it released on Rhino -- that's because Brian and his people made a two-record deal with Warner's (Smile being the other one, and which came out on Nonesuch). So the contract was with one company, but the albums were split between labels. It's just not true to imply that because they're on two labels that he signed with one, then was dropped, then signed with the other -- which is what a statement like Andrew's can imply.

It's the same deal with Elvis Costello and the bizarre recent contracts he's signed in which whatever he records can come out on whatever Universal label is appropriate. Lost Highway, Deutsche Grammophon, etc.

Roger, that's almost the last word on the subject, it seems to me.

People get so caught up in saying "Imagination" -- "Smile" -- "GIOMH -- TLOS -- which is the real Brian? Well, they're all the real Brian, more or less. They just show off different aspects of his character -- some pleasing, some not-so.

I have been bickering about this for a while.

Brian's albums have not all been on different labels.

BW 88 (Reprise)
OCA (Warner Bros.)
Imagination (Giant)
Live at the Roxy DVD-A (Rhino)
GIOMH (Rhino)
Smile (Nonesuch)

were all released by Warner Bros. records companies. The label on the CD doesn't mean too much -- it's all under the same corporate umbrella.

IJWMFTT was on MCA because Don Was had a deal there.
What I Really Want for Christmas was on Arista (a Sony company)

News from the bloo -- apparently the DVD on the CD/DVD combo is less than a half-hour long. So no complete live performance -- and from the looks of this video, possibly no live performance at all.

I didn't have a chance to actually listen until now. I would be very surprised if the audio is actually a live performance. Brian sounds double-tracked at points. I suspect this is the album track, with the live performance synced up.

Or it's a combination of different shots / vocal takes -- the method used on the BWPS DVD.

Edit:

See my follow-up post below.

Watch, enjoy, analyze.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BN732I/002-9225065-8452048?pf_rd_p=424837701&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=5174&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1SHCC0R54D16WBQVQFKH

C-Man: For what it's worth, Brian is credited in the tour booklet as contributing some lyrics to the piece. My guess is "Oxygen to the Brain."

For what it's worth, Brian has been quite clear -- in interviews and the essay in the tour booklet -- that the songs for TLOS were taken from the Wilson-Bennett sessions.

There may have been the desire early on to claim that TLOS was conceived and created as an organic whole -- that it sprung fully formed from B-Dub's brain -- but that's thankfully been abandoned. The piece as it stands is strong enough to handle its diverse parentage.

AGD: Interesting news that "Southern California" is a Brian comp. It makes sense, though, in that the song is another "Love and Mercy" rewrite. Brian has done that before with "Your Imagination" -- he obviously likes that verse feel.

Re: Walkin' vs. Morning Beat

They're really not that similar at all. Different lyrics, rhythm, bridge, vocal melody ... That counts as a different song in my book.

Yes, there is a certain riff similarity -- but after a back-to-back comparison, the riff is also somewhat different. There's now a bit of Shortnin' Bread in it. My suspicion is that Brian remembered that basic piano riff and that he and Scott wrote a new song around it.