Was Van Dyke Parks interviewed for the set? A while ago, he indicated on Twitter that no interview took place. Maybe one took place since?

Not sure Van Dyke's input to the 1970-71 works was particularly massive - I dare say he was trying to avoid the Beach Boys scene at that time - but it's entirely possible that I should go back and have a read of the relevant literature on that.

[I know that a couple of SMiLE remnants surfaced on Sunflower & Surf's Up, but I doubt Van Dyke was consulted or had any involvement].

As far as I know, he helped convince Warner/Reprise to sign the band, IIRC.  That could be fairly important, and he could also have stories regarding "A Day in the Life of a Tree" (or "Sail On, Sailor" if a 1971 version has been located in the vaults).

Sorry to double-post, but we have an update now on some of the performers:

1. Add Some Music To Your Day - Mike, Al, Bruce, David Marks, Carnie and Wendy Wilson, Matt Jardine, etc.
2. Ram Raj - Mike (from UTL; maybe if we’re lucky, it will be without AutoTune?)
3. Jenny Clover - Al (is it the same mix as the single?)
4. She Believes In Love Again - Bruce
5. Long Promised Road - David Marks
6. Friends - "by the band member's kids," according to the Rolling Stone article.  Maybe a 2012 live version from California Saga?  It's probably recently recorded, though.
7. Get Together - Jeff Foskett
8. Golden State - Rob Bonfiglio?
9. Add Some Music To Your Day - vocals only?
10. Add Some Music To Your Day - original version? or backing track only?

They get him and Marks as the neighbor guys. This time when Audrey forces Dennis in, it would be as a singer. He would be freed up from drumming and could sing lead and harmony as he had done since the first album (in the studio.) The live harmony would be huge with an extra voice on each song. Sorta on a different note, isn't it strange that on most of The Beach Boys albums, Dennis doesn't drum a whole lot, but he sings lead and harmony on every album. Then on stage, he mostly drummed and didn't sing a whole lot. How I miss Dennis Wilson!!!!!

Oh, come now. “Dennis didn’t drum a lot”. He drummed more than most realize. Especially in the early days. Then after the band become more of a self contained unit.

We need a list of every confirmed song Dennis plays drums on. I think it would shock a lot of people.

According to AGD’s site, Dennis drummed on:

- Every track on Surfin’ Safari (except ‘Surfin’’)
- Every track on Surfin’ USA (except the title track)
- Every track on Surfer Girl (though I thought Hal Blaine played on ‘Our Car Club’) - CORRECTION: most
- Every track on Little Deuce Coupe - CORRECTION: except Our Car Club
- Every track on Shut Down Vol. 2 - CORRECTION: not on Why Do Fools Fall in Love
- Every track on All Summer Long
- Every track on the Christmas Album (except the Dick Reynolds-arranged tracks I believe)
- Every track on Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), apparently
- At least one track (‘That’s Not Me’) on Pet Sounds

I’m not sure if he played at all on Today.

So yeah.

- On The Beach Boys Today, Dennis played on When I Grow Up To Be A Man, Dance Dance Dance, I’m So Young, and She Knows Me Too Well
- On SDSN, Then I Kissed Her, Girl Don’t Tell Me, and You’re So Good To Me
- Almost all of Wild Honey
- Do It Again and I Can Hear Music from 20/20
- Add Some Music To Your Day from Sunflower
- Student Demonstration Time from Surf’s Up
- almost all of 15 Big Ones
- a little bit of Love You and MIU
- Good Timin, Shortenin’ Bread, and an overdub on Love Surrounds Me from LA

I’m also going to be negative here, sorry everyone. I don’t know as much as a lot of members here do, but what I do know is that Irving Azoff has too many artists already that are well-loved and he doesn’t do enough with them as it is. The only news about Journey recently is the band splitting in two - sound familiar? Don Henley and Irving Azoff refuse to put out any archival Eagles material, which would be a huge chunk of money for them. Bon Jovi hasn’t done anything of note after 2015/6 other than the reunion with Sambora at the R&RHOF. I had no problem with Mike selling some of his publishing to them, but the entire brand? That’s too risky in my opinion. Sure, the band mismanages everything as it is, so maybe a minority partner could have helped, but this is just too far in my opinion. I can’t read the RS article because of their new paywall, so does it break down the percentages of BRI now? I’m not surprised that Mike did this for the money, but I really am about Brian and Al (and a little about Justyn and Jonah).

The two positive things I will say is it would be nice to have some more merchandise and to bring back the SiriusXM channel. I appreciate some of these ideas, but I’m still very skeptical. Maybe when the guys pass away (which I don’t want to happen for a while), their children could have sold a bigger stake, but not yet IMO.

4. She Believes In Love Again - Bruce (wasn’t there a rumor he re-recorded this for Songs from Here & Back or for a 2007 EP?)

It's on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlSxbOAwWqQ

It was released on a sampler in 2007: Friday Music 2007 Sampler

I doubt it's a 2007 recording. Personally I'd say it's definitely pre-BB85, maybe late 70s.

I've pre-ordered -- wonder if this will come out before Feel Flows.

7. Get Together
8. Golden State - David Marks or Jeff Foskett?

"Get Together" is most likely Foskett, as he has recorded a version of this song. I think "Golden State" may be a Rob Bonfiglio track.

I knew I shouldn’t have guessed. Thanks BeachBoysCovers and Emdeeh for the info/corrections. I didn’t think that it would be the famous “Get Together,” more likely an original with the same title, but I am happy to be proven wrong.

Apologies if this was already known to folks; this release was certainly news to me, nor have I seen discussion of it here or around the internets. I neglected to copy/paste a tracklist included with the proper music link (I did not see one on the amazon page as of today but I only glanced). I'm not sure what to make of three different versions of the title cut. Looks to be remakes a-plenty, though. I'm still interested, regardless.

We knew about the title track (or one of them at least  ), but I believe the rest is new.

My best guesses, plus some process of elimination.

1. Add Some Music To Your Day - Mike, Al, Bruce, David Marks, Carnie and Wendy Wilson
2. Ram Raj - Mike (from UTL; maybe if we’re lucky it will be without AutoTune?)
3. Jenny Clover - Al (is it the same mix as the single, or has Al’s indecisiveness* graced us once again?)
4. She Believes In Love Again - Bruce (wasn’t there a rumor he re-recorded this for Songs from Here & Back or for a 2007 EP?)
5. Long Promised Road - David Marks?
6. Friends - Matt Jardine or Jeff Foskett?
7. Get Together
8. Golden State - David Marks or Jeff Foskett?
9. Add Some Music To Your Day - vocals only?
10. Add Some Music To Your Day - original version? or backing track only?

*I’m just as bad, though, so I shouldn’t be talking - or typing.

Really looking forward to this AND Bruce resurrects an old band name (How original  )

Agreed. Couldn’t they have just called it Add Some Music?

"Surfer Girl" has two distinctions, no, three.

....but now he also hired the Wrecking Crew to play the instruments. The result was a fuller sound, which compares favorably to Phil Spector's studio productions.

As far as I know, which isn't much  , there is very little of the Wrecking Crew on this album: Steve Douglas in place of Mike on saxophone (not a shocker,  ) and Hal Blaine on a little bit, and maybe Ray Pohlman (and I think Jan Berry) on one song.  I'd love for c-man, JH, or SaltyMarshmallow to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

I'd love to know more if anyone finds anything. Ron's an interesting anomaly for the frequent studio work he did over about a month followed by... nothing at all. It feels noteworthy that he was playing on records at that early stage while Daryl Dragon seemingly wasn't for another year.

What do we know for sure about his involvement, session-wise? Darlin' and Time to Get Alone (via AFM), I Was Made to Love Her (via Bruce), probably Here Comes the Night going only by the sound of it, and I would assume Lonely Days for that reason too. Carl's bass playing on the basic track clearly isn't what survived to the master. Likewise Honey Get Home for the tone, and possibly that Been Way Too Long organ tag. Cool Water shares a date with HCTN but could just as easily be Carl.

Have Bruce or any of the others spoken about how/why he came to play on those tracks?

In his 2017 WH sessionography (from the ESQ that I’ve misplaced), c-man credited HCTN to Ron Brown. The others I don’t know obviously, other than c-man credits CCW to Carl. I’ve always had a hard time hearing a bass (that wasn’t a Moog) on CCW.

I believe the way I worded the HCTN credits was: Basic track was piano (Brian), probably with overdubs of bass (Ron Brown), guitar (Carl), and drums (Dennis)
The "probably" is there because we can't be certain, but that's what it sounds like.

Sorry to put words in your mouth, or post, c-man. I’m just too eager to spread your work around!! And I also couldn’t entirely remember because like I said, I misplaced that issue and can’t figure out where I put it.

I'd love to know more if anyone finds anything. Ron's an interesting anomaly for the frequent studio work he did over about a month followed by... nothing at all. It feels noteworthy that he was playing on records at that early stage while Daryl Dragon seemingly wasn't for another year.

What do we know for sure about his involvement, session-wise? Darlin' and Time to Get Alone (via AFM), I Was Made to Love Her (via Bruce), probably Here Comes the Night going only by the sound of it, and I would assume Lonely Days for that reason too. Carl's bass playing on the basic track clearly isn't what survived to the master. Likewise Honey Get Home for the tone, and possibly that Been Way Too Long organ tag. Cool Water shares a date with HCTN but could just as easily be Carl.

Have Bruce or any of the others spoken about how/why he came to play on those tracks?

In his 2017 WH sessionography (from the ESQ that I’ve misplaced), c-man credited HCTN to Ron Brown. The others I don’t know obviously, other than c-man credits CCW to Carl. I’ve always had a hard time hearing a bass (that wasn’t a Moog) on CCW.

Yeah if you read Peter guralnick’s definitive two volume Elvis biography you might recall that he discusses that when Elvis played in Houston in early 1970 he was baffled when he came to rehearsal and saw monitors onstage. The young promoters were astounded that he had never used them-meaning these 1970 shows were apparently the first time Elvis and his band could ever hear themselves onstage while they were playing. Elvis was quite excited that day by this.

Yeah if you read Peter guralnick’s definitive two volume Elvis biography you might recall that he discusses that when Elvis played in Houston in early 1970 he was baffled when he came to rehearsal and saw monitors onstage. The young promoters were astounded that he had never used them-meaning these 1970 shows were apparently the first time Elvis and his band could ever hear themselves onstage while they were playing. Elvis was quite excited that day by this.

Which leads to Scotty Moore's famous line, that they where the only band that was literally directed by an ass 

Regarding the Beach Boys' early live recordings, I'm a big fan of those. The Brian-years are rocking and quite impressive if you listen to the Sacramento and Chicago recordings and imo those could've been released without a lot of after work. 

As a massive fan of both Elvis Presley (love that quote from Scotty) and The Beach Boys, it makes me wonder when The Beach Boys first had monitors? Or if guitarfool and Ian know when monitors became common, to judge how strong the young promoters’ reaction to Elvis’ comment in Houston in 1970 was?

I hate to possibly derail what was such a good thread with a possibly stupid question, JH, but I’m curious.

I don’t have Becoming The Beach Boys yet and so this might be answered there, but I remember reading here on the board that Brian switched to bass on December 29th or 30th of 1961. That would leave Al without an instrument, unless the band used a dual-bass system like in Nashville or in Brian’s later productions or Al played rhythm guitar. Could he have played acoustic or would he have used an electric from late December 1961 until February 1962?

Only 36 hours to go, Mike is surely prepping his phone call to the manager about what may soon be a grave injustice

The real question is which was the bigger injustice...not having credits on a bunch of songs until the ‘90’s, or not getting the award?

Toby Keith is terrible so who cares but disappointed to see Ricky Skaggs there too.

Toby Keith to me is the definition of what is wrong with Country Music and has been for decades. Obviously he is not to blame for being part of the industry and he possibly is a nice person. But I can't stand people f*cking with Country Music. Probably one of the greatest music styles ever. And Toby Keith is a wannabe Waylon Jennings - and very bad at that.

I will agree that there has been a lot wrong with country in the last couple decades and hate seeing people mess with it, but Toby Keith is not too bad in my opinion. There are plenty of artists cranking out worse music than him that they claim to be “country”, especially but not limited to Luke Bryan, Dan and Shay, etc.

In my car is an absolute tune as well. Would have liked to have that available

Agreed...I have a serious obsession with In My Car.

And how did the FF snippets end up on Allmusic???

That was the way to keep everything from losing copyright in 2020 so they didn’t have to spoil the box by doing massive digital dumps.

I wanted to remember to post about this before the end of the year, but I’m a little late now. About a week ago, I saw Bruce make a (random in my opinion) remote appearance in the syndicated Christmas special by Mark Milovats, who I did not know about until I was channel-surfing. By the way, Milovats is the worst lounge singer impressionist I have ever heard. Bruce introduced Milovats and sang at least a couple lines of Jingle Bells as an introduction to Milovats’ own performance, but I sadly don’t have any audio to donate to the thread.

EDIT: Fixed typo. And yeah I thought this could give us a “re-recording” if anyone found a copy. 

Obviously Feel Flows likely coming out in some capacity is great news. I do worry that this bodes poorly for future Copyright Extension releases.

The Sunflower and Surf's Up period has some degree of commercial and critical appeal. But what about things like Holland, Beach Boys In Concert, and Brian's Back? And what about things like So Tough, the Caribou recordings, and things after Love You? Will there be less of an incentive to release further sets that are less viable knowing what qualifies under the copyright law?

I could be wrong, but I don’t think we have to worry about that. Mark Linett and Alan Boyd have talked about wanting to do a Brian Is Back box. I thought the idea of an In Concert box was discussed too, and every other era would probably be done just though CE drops because of the limited demand outside us hardcore fans.

Edited to fix a typo.

I’m fashionably late but Merry Christmas!!

... what if this "samples" release *is* the copyright dump release? i.e., only the samples ... which if I understand correctly, would protect the copyrights.

^ I'm starting to think this is in fact, what happened here.

Agreed.

I wonder what Al thinks (or thought at the time) about this time period. I think I remember reading here on the board that Al didn’t know about or wasn’t invited to some of the sessions, and I think that is extremely interesting.

The whole thing was recorded December 20, 2007. It was available for download the next day for Carl's birthday.

That explains why he sounds great on this!! It’s unfortunate that his voice has gone down over the past few years.

Happy Birthday Carl!!

I’m going to respond really late and thank everyone for this info. I also like the disco HCTN, though I definitely think the single and album versions (not the 12” single) should have been no longer than 5 minutes at the most.

Shane, I’ll have to listen to that SB soon.

thr33, I think there’s a handful on YouTube. I may be wrong though, some might be ARs, but I just can’t remember.

adamghost, agreed fully. Couldn’t they have tried to negotiate where the two labels could have split profits for the single, and each company could have had it on an album (MIU and the soundtrack)? Also, I think I’ve seen your “was here” stickers around, if there are not two Adam Marslands. 

Thanks for the update, Howie!! Can’t wait!!

Goin' On is probably the best Brian and Mike commercial collaboration during this time period. I don't think it's production is as outdated as some of the song on KTSA. It sounds like commercial Beach Boys.

As the guy who asked the question about the vocal (EDIT because I supposedly can’t type) stuff, I’m going to agree that it is definitely an awesome BB song and should have done much better.