The original product of Brian and David Foster's collaboration was Is There a Chance, the version that Foster recorded, and his lasting contribution was a musical one. Save the Day was a Morgan/Landy rewrite, and Fairy Tale was a second Morgan/Landy rewrite (and it was actually recorded with those lyrics during the SI sessions, after Save the Day).

It's the three Rovell sisters with Brian and was recorded during the Pet Sounds sessions.

The basic narrative that Brian was cajoled into returning to a modular composing format, and collaborated in many different details with Andy Paley, acceding to many of his ideas and creations, does suggest that the reinforcing presence of a creative partner in the studio (in this case, two of them) is one of the reasons why "Rio Grande" made it onto BW '88 while "Can't Wait Too Long" is still...waiting.

I wouldn't say Can't Wait Too Long is comparable to Rio Grande. That was a simple, commercial song that Brian continually restructured as he worked on it (just presented very confusingly on official releases), while Rio Grande is a conscious attempt to create a suite of unrelated miniature song fragments, something Brian had never really done before. It's more akin to the montage nature of the way 1970 Cool Cool Water was put together, which was Waronker's main point of reference.

And many thanks for the tremendous breakdown of the consituent parts in "Rio Grande," Will. Do we have a session chronology for BW '88--which songs were done when and where?

The broad strokes, few specifics. The AFM contracts only cover select sessions (see AGD's site) and the rest of the current timeline is pulled from rough mixes or anecdotes.

From the spring to early June '87, Brian and Andy worked on There's So Many, Doin' Time on Planet Earth, Night Time, Love and Mercy, another version of The Spirit of Rock and Roll, Saturday Morning in the City, Saturday Evening in the City, I Feel This Love, and early versions of Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long and Let's Do It Again. That was nearing a complete album - and at that point, at Landy's insistence, there were female backing vocalists on every song. It was... odd.

Russ Titelman entered the project when the sessions moved to New York in June, which is also when the Stack-O-Brian approach to backing vocals started... weirdly late into all of his solo career launch attempts. Those sessions introduced One for the Boys, Terri She Needs Me, Walkin' the Line, Little Children, new versions of Let's Do It Again and Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long, and an early version of Melt Away.

Post-New York is when Goodnight Irene, Rio Grande, Heavenly Lover, Carl and Gina, final Melt Away, and Let It Shine were done. The final song selection was whittled down from there and Hotter was a late addition in '88, followed by Meet Me in My Dreams Tonight, which usurped Let's Do It Again on the album assembly at the last minute.

Somewhere in all of that there were versions of Water Builds Up, Christmas Time, a Shortenin' Bread track, apparently Must Be a Miracle, Christine/Living Doll, and of course He Couldn't Get His Poor Old Body to Move. Probably more! A lot of music was amassed over the course of that project.

Are your castanets machine castanets or hand-held-on-a-stick??  There's these:

My belief is that, for stuff like "Then I kissed her" or "san miguel," the percussionist in question would use the machine castanets to tick out the same rhythm with both hands, so it almost sounds double tracked.  They probably got a little bit closer miking, as well.  The castanets on Sloop John could have been either type of the above, and are just tapped as single strokes, a little more distantly miked.  I'm 99% they are castanets -- it actually does sound like it, if you don't believe me wait till I do my Sloop John B video, and Brian had a little bit of an unconventional use of castanets thing going Sloop and That's Not Me.  Definitely not a temple block in any state.  Even muted, they still have a more defined pitch and fuller body than the Sloop sound.

Joshilyn, thank you for the great reply. I love your videos and I devour each one numerous times. You are a real treasure to this community. As a musician myself, I especially appreciate your videos and feedback. Are you saying that the 'clip-clop' sound in 'That's Not Me' is indeed a type of castanet? I am not denying this claim, but I am certainly intrigued. It sounds unlike any type of castanet. You do know Brian Wilson was asked this question directly, right? I would imagine Brian is well aware of castanets, but he did not say it was castanets. Something I think he would be familiar with - and something I think he would remember if Hal was playing something as simple and identifiable as castanets. But it's also Brian, so...

What do you think in regards to the castanets being over dubbed? For something like San Miguel - do you think it's simply one take of Hal and then effects are applied? Or do you think it's multiple takes and him playing it slightly off to give it a fuller sound?

Another reason I doubted Sloop was castanets is because of the Fendertones version on Youtube. A dude uses a single temple block held and that sounds much closer to the intro than castanets would. mic-ing them at different spots may yield different frequencies and tonality peaks that I admittedly have not explored in my own recordings as I typically close-mic castanets and woodblocks. Check out the Fendertones version if you haven't.

Also, this is slightly off-topic Joshilyn, but have you heard the fantastic 1964 album 'The Marketts - Out of Limits'? Great drumming by Hal. (and of course numerous fellow Wrecking Crew stalwarts). Some songs feature some castanets mixed way up in some songs, like 'Hyper-Space'. This is what brought me down the rabbit hole of: 'is it just Hal doing one take with some effects applied, is it multi over-dubs played slightly off, or is it multi takes and some effects applied'?

To answer your question: The castanets I have are the 'LP castanet machine' mounted to my drums. They can be played with a stick or with your hands. Both are the exact same note/frequency.

We're pretty sure the clackedy percussion on That's Not Me is castanets through a Leslie speaker, sort of taking a note from the Pet Sounds bongos. It's evident from some talking on the track that it's Brian and one other Beach Boy (probably Carl or Dennis), despite Brian saying it was Hal one time.

Personally, that Fendertones cover got me behind the case that it isn't a wood/temple block - that's a much more resonant sound than what's on Sloop. It's not identical, more snappy, but there's a similarly thin sounding castanet on The Surfer Moon.

The San Miguel sound basically owes to lots and lots of castanets. Hal played them on two overdub tracks, and then to thicken the sound even more (and add the intro) both Dennis and Hal stood there playing some while the song was mixed to stereo.

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