I am not that impressed by the song…..it’s only ok John…clearly unfinished…and while it brings a smile it doesn’t add to the legacy (but is certainly inoffensive)

Try this version: It's an interpretation by a musician named David Rodriguez under the name DreamerJazz, imagining the song as if the Beatles played it on Ed Sullivan in '64.

David's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dreamerjazz352/

And here's the track, skip to 1:08 for the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tSefoJDKsU

It works in this context, sounds a lot like Lennon's 1963 era songwriting, more than the new version.

So here's a comparison between an original video of My Sweet Lord shot by a fan at George Fest and the newly released "official" version, for those interested in those things. They did a nice mixing job on the new release! I only wish they had Bobby Whitlock on stage to replicate the original vocals he did with George in the studio on the "Hare Krishna" vocal responses.

Original fan video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evVTvTrcXCo

Something interesting they had to cut out, from a post of mine back in 2014 about the concert:

Something humorous to add about that clip of My Sweet Lord: Listen for someone accidentally kicking or bumping either a guitar amp or even an old Fender spring reverb tank several times during the performance, and creating that thunder-crash sound effect that only kicking or bumping a spring reverb tank can create. Shades of "Diamond Head"! Definitely not a planned part of that performance, but it would have been perfect if they had decided to play Diamond Head. 

That was a great performance indeed, hard to believe it was 9 years ago...doesn't seem that long, does it?

Re: the CSNY tour-Neil finished that tour -having sort of high jacked it to his own ends (he got CSNY to mostly perform new tunes that he had written including Revolution Blues, which Crosby objected to). The tour you are thinking of is the 1976 Stills-Young tour -Neil and Stills had a dispute and Neil split in the middle of it. 

Yes, I got the two confused! I did get out Neil's book after writing that just to get some more info. That '74 tour which the BB's were on for some stops was both the largest tour of its kind at the time and a disaster in many ways, which is why it got the nickname "The Doom Tour". I believe it was the highest grossing tour in rock up to that point.

From that book, I did want to offer one nuance on what you said: Neil didn't necessarily hijack the tour, but he was the only one who had new material to bring to the table and actually play for crowds. CSN was only doing their old stuff, like a hits package, because they had no workable new material, whereas Neil had a backlog that was ready to go. That sounds like a familiar story, right? Again according to the book, they did a lot to keep Neil around on that tour (and around CSN in general) but Neil pretty much kept to himself and even traveled on his own motorhome, not with the other guys. But they seemed to need him more than he needed CSN.

Revolution Blues was Neil taking on a Manson inspired narrator character, talking about killing rock stars, and Crosby played guitar on a studio track but didn't want that kind of vibe to go out to the fans, which was his objection. This is the same Crosby whose paranoia (amplified to the Nth degree after the Manson family murders) led him to rarely go anywhere without packing a loaded pistol despite his hippie persona.

It's worth noting that The Beach Boys on that Doom Tour were part of a rotating cast of other major acts playing with CSNY, like The Band, Joni, and Santana, so it was a pretty high profile gig despite the issues with the actual shows. I'll have to check reports on some of the other shows with those other support acts to see if they too stole the show from CSNY...because CSNY was not in good form on those tour dates. 

It still intrigues me why they balked at having the Beach Boys on the same bill, again as I already said because Young, Crosby, and Nash were pretty vocal fans and supporters of the Boys and their music, and both Crosby and Young had quite a few prominent friends in their inner circles who were also in Brian's inner circle, as well as at least knowing and socializing with other band members. There has to be a more simple reason why they initially objected to bringing along the Beach Boys for the handful of shows they played.

Side note: Tapes and video of this '74 Doom Tour do exist, including the July 9 Seattle opener which exists in full...3 and a half hours worth, and that's just the CSNY set. So while it's not all bad, better if you're a CSNY or Neil fan, imagine sitting through 3 and a half hours of CSNY after the Beach Boys. Crazy to have sets last that long.

It struck me how many great artists of the late 60's and 70's the band was opening for in '74. Steely Dan really stood out: As something of a collector of Steely Dan soundboard recordings from '74 (which is the only year they toured until the 90's), The Dan was simply amazing on this tour, as on fire as a live band could be. I've never heard a bad tape of a '74 Dan live show. The musicianship was off the charts, and you get to hear Jeff Porcaro and Jim Hodder on dual drum kits, Skunk Baxter and Denny Dias just tearing it up on guitar, and the whole band as a live band was pretty much one of the best touring bands of that era. Plus, the live sound was terrific according to the tapes and people involved, where they had Dinky Dawson running the mix (and Dawson's tapes from the board are what has leaked out.)  I would love to hear about any interactions they had because unless I'm just not remembering, I never heard Becker and Fagen talk about playing bills with the Boys, and vice versa the Boys talking about playing with the Dan.

Any doubts, just listen to a live tape of Bodhisattva, including the one officially released on the old Steely Dan box set. It's face melting good.

As far as CSNY...from the shows I've heard and from Neil's book, that specific '74 CSNY tour was something of a mess, or an outright clusterf*ck if it could be called that. And yes, the egos were pretty out of control at that point, and unless I'm mistaking the years, Neil eventually left the tour with no notice after getting fed up with it. Again for more info check Neil's book. But if the Boys as a pretty finely tuned road machine at that point may have stolen the show, it's no surprise. And as Crosby, Nash, and Young were admitted and pretty vocal fans of the band and the Boys' music, I'm actually surprised to hear they didn't want the Boys on the bill.

I would love to know what CSNY's reaction was. First your promoter has to convince you to let a band you don't want to be part of the program open for you and then during that one hour you let them have you get regularly (according to the reviews) put in your place...
Did they even share the stage for a couple of numbers near the end of the day? And whose guitar is Al playing on the picture from July 31st? Haven't seen him or Carl with that one before.

That looks like one of Carl's usual Epiphone 12-string electrics, the Casino/335 style body with who knows what neck at that point since they tended to break and be replaced. It looks like the photo colors got washed out a bit, so the upper horn near the neck shows that it's a sunburst finish and the lower body appears to be in black and white due to the film. Maybe Ed Roach can shed some light on why the colors got washed out like that?

It looks like the standard Epiphone 12-string (or Gibson, whatever year and incarnation it was/is) that the band had in its guitar arsenal for years. especially looking at the trapeze tailpiece. But Carl's 12-strings would go through neck changes so it's hard to tell from that shot. I could be wrong.

Does anyone happen to recall the name of the person who burst onto this board (prior to it moving servers) the evening of the 20th with the first report of the concert?

Matt Bielewicz. His reports were the next best thing to being there in person. We'll always be thankful to Matt for sending those reports from the premiere.

It also shows the kind of scene Laurel Canyon was in 66-67, "hey let's hang out and ride motorcycles" then go for a smoke session. Worth noting that the smoke out was hosted at Carl's house, so Carl wasn't an unwilling participant either. What's fascinating is also the small vignette of what hanging out at Brian's house was like in 66-67 before he moved, where Harpo mentioned Brian asking about spirituality and religion then holding court at the piano while 6 or 7 people were standing there listening to him play. It would be interesting but perhaps not difficult to piece together who at least some of those people at the house were.

It's interesting for me because you take that one vignette, shrink it down to the Smile era, then expand it again to Laurel Canyon in general and there was a lot more cross-pollination of musicians and ideas than I think a lot of people may realize even after multiple documentaries and histories about that time. I don't think many doors were locked until the Manson stuff literally imploded that whole scene. But just to think of how randomly some of these musicians could have come together to hang out and trade ideas (and a few J's too) is pretty amazing considering who was involved and how much great music they ended up creating.

I just saw this video on YouTube and thought it was very interesting. Jim "Harpo" Valley of The Raiders attended a Beach Boys concert at the Seattle Coliseum, December 27 1966, and on the recommendation of Terry Melcher had a "gift" to deliver to Dennis Wilson. But Harpo unfortunately ran into some cops in the process...Then Harpo gets invited to hang out with Dennis, Carl, and Brian right in the middle of the Smile era, and got to experience Brian's tent and the sandbox at Brian's house.

Very interesting story, maybe Harpo can be persuaded to give some more info about these adventures?

For Ian Rusten: Perhaps consider adding some of this detail to your gigs website for the entry on this 12/27/66 Seattle show? Pat O'Day, who is listed on the poster you've reprinted on your site for the show, was one who had to save Harpo from the cops that day.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERtQ3crnSig

Rocker, I haven't read the book yet and could probably search for the answers, but I wanted to ask you since you've read the book. The last time I did any serious study of Johnson was in the 90's and actually wrote a paper about him, and at that time there were only that small handful of photos of the man himself. Have there been any new discoveries of him that are reprinted or mentioned in this new book? I always found it odd that for an artist who was pretty well known in his genre and in his regional areas where he traveled that there were not more photos of him.

Well, currently there are three known photos of him. The most recently released one is on/in the book of his step sister. "Biography of a phantom" doesn't feature any picture at all of him as it was written in the late 60s/early 70s and the first picture got released in the 80s. McCormick probably got his hands on one or two during the mid-70s. In fact one still unpublished one was found in his archive after his death. He got it from Johnson's family but refused to return it, even claiming he lost it - as the epilogue makes clear it was found in a folder with "Robert Johnson picture" on it, so go figure...

I would argue though that having three - maybe four - photos is more than we could ask for. During his lifetime he certainly wasn't a star. He had a record out that sold relatively nicely ("Terraplane Bllues") but the following records sold less. I also don't think that cameras were as common and affordable as today. Charley Patton was a much bigger star and had a longer life and we only got one confirmed picture of him. Johnson' star only began to shine after the 1961 release of "King of the Delta Blues".



Speaking of the recordings, take a listen to this:


Robert Johnson Mint Test Pressings - XR Remastered For Outstanding Sound Quality

https://www.pristineclassical.com/products/pabl010

Thank you for clearing that up, yes the last I had looked into it there were 3 photos, the two that everyone pretty much had seen and another which if I remember some were still debating if it was Johnson or not. I didn't know about the 4th photo, hopefully that will be made public too.

That audio is stunning. The clarity and definition on Johnson's guitar is amazing, and you can actually hear the inflections in his voice too. The EQ is damn near perfect, whoever did it or however it was done, or even more amazing if it were a flat transfer with no EQ. That's probably one of the clearest examples of Johnson recording in the corner of a hotel room with one microphone and a portable disc cutter. Taking that into consideration, it makes the quality of the recording even more amazing.

https://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200/

And now I want to pose a question about the validity of the current chart system and get opinions to hopefully talk me down, as I'm a bit baffled by this. The link above is the current week's Billboard top albums chart. I'm looking mostly at the top 20 entries, but if you widen it out to include the top 100, it gets even more interesting.

So my question is this: Taylor Swift has 6 albums in the top 20. Some of those albums are from the previous decade, some are several years old. I understand the popularity and huge fan base, but my question is are there truly that many "new" Taylor fans buying an album from 5 or even 7 years ago for the first time in enough numbers to place that album on the top-20 chart? And not just one, but multiple older Taylor albums are currently charting. And ironically, one of them is set to be released in a new "Taylor's Version" remix in October, which will probably debut at #1. For those that don't know, the "Taylor's Version" series is a response to Scooter Braun buying her catalog and Taylor getting control of the music again by doing her own versions of the albums so Braun doesn't make money off her songs...supported 1000% by her fan base who immediately turned on Braun after the deal many thought was a rip-off.

So I'm asking is it realistic for that many back-catalog albums to be in the top 20? Of all the Taylor Swift fans out there, most would already have these albums I'd think...or maybe that many "new" fans are getting these titles, but seriously in these numbers enough to warrant constant top-20 placement on the charts?

I need help understanding how that can be, considering most people only buy an album once (minus deluxe editions, remixes, etc). Or are there really that many new Taylor Swift fans driving up the sales numbers on a weekly basis?

I'm also a skeptic, full disclosure, based on info about algorithm manipulation and artificial followers and subscription numbers being used to boost online stats and increase "value" of certain individuals, groups, artists, etc from even more proof that this was done on very popular platforms like Twitter/X, YouTube, and others. A lot of the follower-subscriber-engagement numbers were artificially boosted and driven by manipulating the algorithm to place content or bury it, and artificially create tens of thousands of "followers" that didn't exist as actual humans. Could this be the case with music as well? I wouldn't be surprised.

And it goes back to the issue of alternative rock bands placing albums on these charts...looking at this one, do you think they stand a chance as of this week based on that chart above?

It's certainly a crazy scene to navigate, especially for kids under 16 these days! I think the music finds the right people at the right time, or I hope that's the case. I took some heat from my peers in middle school when I was a Beatles and Monkees fanatic who also loved the Beach Boys, 50's Sun Records rockabilly, big band jazz like Glenn Miller, etc. And everyone else was listening to whatever was on the charts. But so was I, I loved top-40 of the day when top-40 radio had probably it's last gasp of breath as the way it was in the 60's. It was a good time to grow up and experience music, and eventually I just didn't give a damn what people around me thought, and the music I needed to hear found me as much as the vice versa was true.

Only problem was it wasn't as easy to find the music in terms of albums and 45's, and I think that's where part of my love for scouring yard sales and flea markets to find "classic" albums and 45's was born. I still get a charge out of seeing a Capitol "swirl" label or a red and white Colgems label hiding in a stack of 45's, even though I really don't need any more. And I remember the letdown of seeing a swirl label and finding that it's an Al Martino record and not a Beatles or BB's.

I think the fans today are spoiled by almost instant access to finding a song, but that's not a bad thing either. The fun of the search and the knowledge isn't the same, but if someone is looking for a song, they can immediately do a search online and find a wealth of information about both the song and the artist and do so while listening to the song stream. That's pretty cool.

I remember one specific time I was looking for a Beatles song I had heard somewhere and loved instantly. I didn't know what it was, only that it sounded like an older Beatles tune. The record stores didn't help, so I started to spend my hard-earned paltry savings on buying up Beatles 45's on trips to a local flea market every few weeks. I didn't have the reference books, there was no internet obviously, the record stores had vinyl and cassettes before the Beatles CD reissues around '87, so I'd buy up at least one 45 on those trips when I found one with a song I didn't know and hoped it was my mystery tune. Beatles albums even back then were a little too expensive unless you got really lucky. Then I finally found it: "I Should Have Known Better"...the B-side to "A Hard Days Night". I was young and didn't have access to all the reference books or anything else, but when I found that 45 I was ecstatic, as scratchy as that 45 was it was the song I was looking for.

That's how silly it was! But I got to discover some great tunes I didn't know before, got some neat 45's to put in my rack and play on the parents' console stereo, and that was very early on in my Beatles obsession. Now all of that info that took me so long to find a 45 of a mystery B-side is literally seconds away online.

I think a lot of younger fans today go on searches after hearing a song on a soundtrack or a video game, and it's still the same process. I work with younger musicians and from what I've seen their musical tastes embrace a lot of eras and genres, which is good. Maybe the musically-minded kids are the exception to the rule and don't really care about peer opinions on something as personal as music tastes, I really don't know.

But what blows my mind, to this very second, is to realize that when I was searching for those Beatles/Monkees/Beach Boys records, they were roughly 20 years old at the time, give or take. Music that is 20 years old now is from the early 2000's...I seriously cannot think of an artist, or an album, from that 2000's era that generates the same kind of emotions among kids today as all those classic 60's records did for me and others when they were 20 year old releases.

Maybe it did all change after 9/11/2001

It's the advance in the technology that is pretty stunning, in that none of this was available nor was it happening even a short few years ago. What did exist was pretty bad, and now at least the median standard is that it could be called "convincing" in the average AI modeling products. I compare it to the various technologies that were used back when they cleaned up the Beatles BBC tapes and released them: At the time, it was new and exciting, however now it can sound kind of wonky and primitive. And look where the extraction and cleaning technology has progressed solely in the Beatles' universe, where Jackson's Get Back and the newest remixes used that same extraction software to basically reinvent the original mixes.

So that's 30 years difference, from BBC and Anthology to Get Back and Revolver. Compare that to where AI was in 2021 to where it is now, and it's staggering in how fast the tech progressed. I predict within a year, there will be AI that will allow fans to create full videos for a random song, using AI technology to create the imagery of the artist, the music, and whatever visual cues the maker wants to feed into the AI generator to create the video. And then consider what that will mean for film and the whole process of making a movie from writing the script to shooting the scenes to editing it all together. That's the area which I think many have issues with. It's already affecting the world of academia where ostensibly a student could write and hand in a paper generated with AI and the teachers/professors would have no way to know if it were the student or the AI creating it.

In the past 5 years or so, the entire notion of music charts and the model itself has been completely demolished. There are so many moving parts working behind the scenes to where the process of "charting" a song or album is a joke. Songs which hit top 5 in the download and stream numbers don't even appear on the so-called "charts", whereas decades ago in the old model if a record sold over 100,000 copies and got x-amount of plays on radio, it would chart. Now the charts seem to ignore certain artists while promoting others, even though they're selling in similar numbers by the week or month. It makes no sense, other than some entities have a finger on the scale.

Is selling CD's or selling vinyl copies of an album still a valid measure of success? And is streaming seriously being tallied in such a way that it means something overall? When an album "charts" because it sells 4,000 or whatever vinyl copies, is that seriously a factor in commercial success?

Weezer has a strong fan base, and a lot of it is younger listeners. Look at how that Toto "Africa" cover came to be, it was sparked by a girl in her teens posting on their social media and it became a success. I think the mainstream pretty much decided that guitar-based alternative bands are out, and look at what the charts are featuring. I think a lot of the bands don't care, and many have cultivated a loyal fan base that pays the bills without being on the radar of the corporations and interests who feature the artists and genres they want to promote. Taylor Swift has 6 albums in the top 20 this week, the rest of that top 20 albums are mostly country and hip-hop. If a legit alternative rock band is doing their own thing, releasing songs and selling merch that the fans buy, and playing shows that make money, I think as of 2023 they don't care nor do they need to follow the chart models from 40 years ago in order to run a successful business as a band.

Weezer does perfectly fine doing what they're doing and have been doing, as the organic nature of that Africa single demonstrated. They have a solid base online that follows them and buys their products, and they're still playing shows. I think like Ian said, the notion of an alternative guitar-based rock band cracking these old chart models isn't a reality under the current system because the easy money isn't in cultivating and promoting those kinds of artists anymore.

Rocker, I haven't read the book yet and could probably search for the answers, but I wanted to ask you since you've read the book. The last time I did any serious study of Johnson was in the 90's and actually wrote a paper about him, and at that time there were only that small handful of photos of the man himself. Have there been any new discoveries of him that are reprinted or mentioned in this new book? I always found it odd that for an artist who was pretty well known in his genre and in his regional areas where he traveled that there were not more photos of him.

I find the whole thing comical but won't go into the reasons why. I also think uncovering and reposting a letter written in 1970 in order to further pile on Wenner is ridiculous, but that's the culture today I suppose. Find any grenades to lob at a target is the order of the day, even ones three generations removed from the actual issue at hand.

I like the idea of having a Hall Of Fame as a museum where fans can view artifacts and learn about the history behind the music and the musicians is and always was a good thing. The flaw in the operation is the voting and enshrining musicians into such a hall, following the example of the baseball, football, etc sports halls of fame. When obvious biases entered into the process of "voting", it exposed the flaw. As did the natural progression of the music media trying to categorize everything into a genre or sub-genre which eventually made even the term rock and roll antiquated.

I’m sure this has been asked before: but what if Pet Sounds was a massive success? Topping the charts and the unequivocal best selling Beach Boys album at the time. Would Mike change tune? Would the rest of the band welcomed and accepted more change? Would Capitol be more willing to Brian following avenues he wanted to musically?

I'd suggest Brian accomplished that a few months later with Good Vibrations. Totally new sound, innovative, psychedelic, ahead of it's time, universal appeal to both the kids and the "heads", a massive #1 single that hit worldwide. Critically and commercially successful. Capitol was 100% behind it with their promotions, and also gave Brian the green light for the album he had in the works, agreeing even to have a more lavish album package including a full-color booklet, which for a pop band in 1966 was pretty much unheard of. This was before Sgt. Pepper, which gets credit for presenting a pop album in a more lavish, sophisticated cover design and packaging including cut-outs, a gatefold, etc.

So yes I'd say Brian had that clout on the back of Good Vibrations, it was a massive success and the label loved that it sold millions worldwide and hit #1. Various family members and maybe even band members, however, perhaps didn't like this "new direction" as it played out even though it was a proven success at the end of '66 going into '67. See the Vosse "Fusion" article for more on that.

I think there is more than one conundrum in all of this with Redwood, consider the "what if" around the change in the band's sound being something which was agreed upon in the group. That leaves Brian as the producer and main writer now having to focus his writing in that direction, which was not where he was at while making Smile. We have reports of Carl, for one, loving the R&B sound and you can hear it in his vocals on Wild Honey. Again, they had a new single ready to release when Brian was recording with Redwood with this new sound that was nothing like the Smile material in sound or construction. All of their new efforts including the "live" Hawaii tapes which were still I believe set to be a part of the Wild Honey album in the Fall up to a certain point had that more stripped down, group-band kind of vibe. Not a lot of strings, less thick backgrounds, not as many experimental transitions and sections after the Smiley album, etc.

So Brian takes that production style and mindset, which he obviously still wanted to pursue in Fall 67, to his work with Redwood. You can hear it in the tracks. Darlin was an old rewrite from 4 years ago or whatever that had sat on the shelf until Brian got inspired by Danny Hutton's regular use of the word "darlin" in conversations, and dusted off an old BB's reject (ironically from another side project) to rewrite for Danny and Redwood to sing. And his other song was in the style the band, perhaps, agreed not to use anymore in favor of the leaner R&B sounds and style, hoping to get a hit with a new sound after they felt Heroes and Smiley under-performed on the charts.

Taken in that way, it's hard to rectify why the band would be jealous of the music Brian was making with Redwood when they already had a new single to herald their new sound, they were probably already in talks to plan out everything else needed to fill in the album around the single, and the sounds Brian was doing with Redwood including a rewrite of a thrown out song from years prior which they didn't record originally and a song which had the more overblown production style Brian was using on Smile and which they perhaps said they didn't want to do, or agreed with Brian in the change in direction, or however else that point can be spun.

If they already had their gameplan in place with the new R&B direction having already recorded a new single and more work on an album to follow, and Brian was doing what Brother was set up to do and which he had been doing for 5 years in producing and writing for other artists, it's tough to justify what went down unless it also included a heap of personal issues that had more to do with personalities than the business of the band. What exactly was the tipping point to lead the band members to halt Brian's work with Redwood as swiftly as they did? Were the songs that good? Maybe in the case of Darlin, yes, but Time To Get Alone wasn't anything close to the sound they would be changing to that Fall, and its production was closer to the larger-scale Smile productions which Brian must have felt the band wasn't as receptive to earlier that year, and which it seems they were trying to get away from if their official releases in the latter half of 67 are any indication.

Just adding one minor nit-pick: The only part of the track that didn't fit the Sinatra sound was the ad-libbing at the end. Sinatra most likely would not have sung "yeah yeah yeah" and the other syllables, instead he would more likely have hummed a part of the melody in the outro or something similar, especially at this point in his career and based on hearing a ton of Frank's work from the 70's and 80's both live and studio. Again that's just pointing out the one element that stood out as something not characteristic of Frank's vocal style. Other than that, stunning work.

As a Sinatra fan, I have to say hearing that is stunning, uplifting, and sad at the same time. Stunning because I had always wanted to hear Sinatra's voice on that track, and short of hiring a Sinatra impersonator to cut a lead vocal over the backing track, AI has made that hypothetical session possible. This track sounds like Sinatra's output in the 70's, it would have fit on any of that era's releases. The backing arrangement combined with Sinatra's vocal timbre (or the approximation of it) fits so well. Uplifting for the same reasons, just being able to hear an approximate version of what never happened but was imagined for a long time. Sad because the original pairing never happened, even though according to a Brian interview there was a meeting with Sinatra scheduled to discuss him recording this song and potentially others too. I think if that happened it would have been a terrific fit and the song could have gone into Sinatra's songbook and live shows. That will always be the sadness of the whole thing.

If Sid Mark were still alive, and you could have sent it to him, I'm sure he would have loved this track and perhaps even played it on his show. There's a difference between the hack AI that has Frank singing Nirvana, and AI Frank actually singing a song that was written and arranged with his voice in mind but sadly never got recorded.

Great work.

Yeah…obviously Brian was the man in 1967 that they were depending on-hence their anxiety when he began to retreat a bit from the band in the autumn. Obviously a big point of contention is the three dog night episode-if it did happen the way it was alleged-it’s understandable that the band would react that way-as they we’re still really dependent on Brian. 1968 was really the year when they began to take greater interest in songwriting and production but in 67 it was totally understandable if they were very jealous of his relationship with Danny Hutton and his group

I don't know how understandable it was - according to the version of events that happened at Heider's - for a few Beach Boys to break up a session at an outside studio because they were jealous or were demanding Brian produce them. At the least, it was unprofessional. But that's a separate point, the underlying notion is that Brian had been working with outside artists since 1963 or even '62 if we consider the Bob Norberg/Bob & Sheri tracks (and other related). Whether any of them were chart hits is beside the point, but consider Brian had been doing this fairly regularly even during the peak of the Beach Boys' success, and he wanted to emulate Spector by writing and producing other artists. The most prominent criticism or pushback I can think of came from Murry, especially after Brian "gave away" Surf City to Jan & Dean instead of keeping it for the "family".

But was there this jealousy among the band members over things like writing and producing "Guess I'm Dumb" for Glen, or any of the Honeys records, or Sharon Marie, or fill-in-the-blank-artist leading up to 1967? They seemed pretty happy as long as the money was rolling in, except Murry who seemed to be the voice of discontent trying to pull Brian back into the family and family only after Surf City became a hit.

And I know I've harped on this point before, but Brother was set up to allow Brian and the band members to bring in and work with outside artists, yet when he did just that in Fall '67 and had a group with some potential to make money for the new business venture, they shut him down, literally during a recording session. And the irony there is Brian had already cut a new single, Wild Honey, with the band's "new sound", and it was set for release in October '67.

So yes perhaps the band members were jealous of Redwood, but Brian had been doing this same kind of work for the previous 5 years with artists other than the Beach Boys, and they had a new single in the pipeline ready for release when Brian was cutting with Redwood...so I don't see the justification for breaking up a session in front of other musicians and putting the kibosh on what was happening. And to bring up the earlier point, Brian was essentially handing them the opportunity to do the same things and start writing and producing whatever they wanted through Brother either for the band or with a proposed stable of Brother label artists, and none of them stepped up and did it. Criticizing and browbeating someone for not doing something while not doing something in return smacks of hypocrisy, or on a lesser scale a contradiction. And who's to say Brian's plan all along was to make records with Redwood and also produce the Beach Boys' forthcoming album to follow the Wild Honey single which was already set for release? He'd been juggling the two interests for the past 5 years and still making a lot of money for the Boys.

But…if you are going to attack the BBs for their behavior…they have said (and it is unarguable) that whatever their personal feelings about Smile and what was going on…they were good soldiers and participated in all the sessions they were asked to by Brian. Now maybe they made it clear they didn’t like that material (a very very contentious discussion) or maybe they didn’t.

I have a few angles to consider on that train of thought. First, Vosse says he would start seeing two "camps" within the band go into separate corners which he saw as a sign that things were fractured inside the core band. I always assumed who those "camps" were based on subsequent comments and observations, but Vosse unfortunately didn't name names. He did specifically call out Murry as someone trying to sow seeds of discontent within those around Brian regarding Good Vibrations, and how Brian's experimenting with the music would lose their fans. That clearly was not the case, as it became a worldwide #1 smash single, but again it suggests there were factions actively working against the new sounds Brian was recording.

As far as them recording the vocals they possibly didn't like, my offer there is what choice did they have? No one else was writing music for the band at that time which would have been usable for an album. I can see Mike being upset again that he wasn't chosen as the lyricist except on the single Good Vibrations, we have Al on the record saying he objected to things like doing the animal sounds in the studio (yet he actively participated in Brian's BWPS tour years later doing the same thing, and his own "Take A Load Off.." track had quite a few obvious nods to Smile's experimentation, not to mention the band went on David Frost's show handing out vegetables to the studio audience and having them wave veggies around during their performance of the song...so how bizarre was all of this if they later participated in the same things?). Carl and Dennis were being mentored by Brian in the studio to take up more of the production duties and ended up recording practice runs that sounded...like Smile! So I don't think the Wilson brothers objected to the music as much, unless or until it started possibly affecting their ability to play it live. I think Carl and Dennis always loved the music, at least based on their comments through the years. I think the "Love And Mercy" movie shows where the rest of the band was at with Smile in the well-crafted swimming pool scene. You can see each member in a little more shallow part of the pool with Brian, in the water up to his neck, and Van Dyke outside the pool watching from the edge. It's a pretty good allegory of where the band members were at, and who was in deeper with Brian and Smile than the others.

We know they sang the lyrics and cut the tracks with Brian when asked, but what does that mean other than they were following the same pattern they had followed for the past 2 years after Brian quit the road? And my thought is, they really didn't have a choice as no one else was writing material suitable for the band except Brian at that time. The only non-Brian composition the band offered throughout 1967 was "How She Boogalooed It", which to some is a good rocker and to others is painfully weak as a song and an album cut. 

Clearly they are big fans....and are familiar with the 1965 Murry tapes....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsG37JcEQNw

No doubt! They've worn it on their sleeves, specifically Rivers Cuomo, since their first success "Blue Album" where I heard the BW influences immediately when it was released (especially the single Buddy Holly of all things, it's full of BW-isms if you listen for them) and I became a fan with that debut album's release. That specific track "Beach Boys" was written to be the opposite musically of what a Beach Boys track would sound like, from the melody to the arrangement and groove. In that way it's pretty clever and avoided the obvious nods to the group except in the lyrical content and Murry references. If you want to hear the influences really come blasting out of the speakers, check out various tracks from their so-called "beach album", 2015's "White Album". They really wore it on their sleeves on that one. Of course there are quite a few Rivers tracks to hear this too. I met Rivers at a party at an apartment in Cambridge Mass in late 1997 when he was studying at Harvard, and the Pet Sounds Sessions had just come out. Yes he's definitely a big fan. Good times. 

Thanks for sharing - I wonder what The Beach Boys trick he figured out was….

Let's not forget that Jimmy Buffet also co-wrote and sang backing vocals on Brian's "South American". Here's video of the two of them recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxQjphssSYI

R. I. P.

I'm glad someone else caught this too! I've been wondering what Jimmy was referring to since I first saw that video over 20 years ago after Imagination came out. I always guessed it was manually doubletracking or even triple-tracking harmony vocals to create that natural chorusing effect and make the harmonies sound huge on those records, compared to only laying down one track. Then I thought well, no, it's been pretty standard practice when doing harmony vocals since the 1960's to fatten them up by manually doubletracking, and the chorusing-fattening effect was only enhanced when you folded all those voices down to mono back in the day. Then I thought did he mean slowing the tape down to cut vocals lower then speeding them back up to create a different sheen or hit notes out of the singer's range, but that too has been done since the 60's and by the late 90's digital recording and DAW's had pretty much taken over the studios anyway so slowing tape was antiquated except for analog devotees who still cut to tape machines. And surely Jimmy in all the albums he recorded would have come across those same "old school" recording tricks before working on that track with Brian. Or maybe he didn't and the way he cut his own records wasn't in the same direction as Brian was producing and cutting with the BB's.

I always leaned toward the manual doubletracking of the harmony vocals - simple as it may seem - but it's definitely a mystery I've been thinking about since I first saw that broadcast. Only Jimmy and Brian (and the people in the studio) knew what he meant I guess.

[those guys, mostly, painted a picture of a genius artist slowly becoming disheartened because of the lack of support of his band mates but in recent years the narrative has become one where Brian was becoming lost amidst a bunch of users and hangers on, who gave him drugs and isolated him from the band. So then the issue becomes who to believe? Is the truth somewhere in the middle or are their real Heroes and villains.]

Well you know the answer….it’s gotten wrapped up in the band issue…those guys, mostly, painted a picture of a genius artist slowly becoming disheartened because of the lack of support of his band mates but in recent years the narrative has become one where Brian was becoming lost amidst a bunch of users and hangers on, who gave him drugs and isolated him from the band. So then the issue becomes who to believe? Is the truth somewhere in the middle or are their real Heroes and villains. The BBs have noted that they were good soldiers and did everything Brian asked…even lying on the floor of an empty pool to sing. There is of course the issue of the Siegel article alleging that there was a big fight during the Inside Pop filming but the footage is gone and the filming notes that were found don’t mention a fight …so some people say it never happened. In the absence of further evidence, I don’t see how this is ever definitively settled. And many would say let sleeping dogs lie….there is enough division in the BBs world.

The comments in bold are exactly why I have an issue with the way the history may be told or recorded as fact in the future. One statement is patently false, the other is opinion and statements based on firsthand observations of those who were there to witness this activity. Unless there is proof that Van Dyke Parks, David Anderle, and Michael Vosse were users and hangers-on who were giving Brian drugs, that's simply a false statement about them. And it's the same narrative shown in that ABC "official" bio-pic "An American Family" to where Van Dyke took legal action based on that false portrayal of his "character" in the film. In this case, it's almost a no-brainer to believe the truth, again unless the charge is valid that Vosse, Anderle, and Parks were Brian's drug suppliers and hangers-on. We all know the history there: Anderle was the manager of Brother Records until Nick Grillo, who Anderle brought in, took over that role. Parks was Brian's songwriting collaborator. Vosse was originally hired to head up the film branch of Brother but eventually took a role more like Mal Evans had with the Beatles, as Brian's assistant and traveling companion. So however things played out, they actually had official roles within the Brother organization, they weren't hanging on to anyone and surely not just drugged up suppliers for Brian.

That's where I suggest yes, there is a separation between the truth and fiction (or negative opinion), and people should not be dragged through the mud that way especially the two out of the three who are not able to defend themselves against those accusations.

And if the goal is to tell an accurate, all-encompassing history of Smile or just the band in general, I know some things would be better swept under the carpet according to some factions and narratives, but it doesn't serve the goal of telling an accurate history if outright falsehoods are weighed as equally as facts.