Looks like the same guys to me. Al would be so proud...

 

[Sunflower]

On "S&B", there a date on a photo - 3/26/70 - which cannot be accurate as regards the vocal by Mike (and I'm 99% sure it is Mike), as he was hospitalized at the time after his ill-advised fast, or at best had been very recently discharged. Also, assuming they all signed at the same time... why three different ink colors ? Further, the date on the photo conflicts with the "recorded shortly after Sunflower was released" claim by some six months. Small stuff, but I'm assuming this was the biggest thing that ever happened to Don in his musical career, so I'd expect better, more accurate recall and documentation.

One quick observation: If you look at the autographs and the 3/26/70 date (0:43 seconds into the video), it looks like the full note says "Don Goldberg, good luck with your songs! The Beach Boys 3/26/70". So perhaps he was not involved with them at this point, later developed a relationship with Brian and got him/the band to help cut a few of his songs. Just a guess.

However, the timeline seems shaky...was this guy a "prodigy" in 1970-73? That picture of what purports to be a "young Don Goldberg" looks like someone who was maybe 17-21 years old. If it's actually from that time, that would make him close to sixty now. The dad in the videos doesn't look sixty, so those have to be old--maybe about ten years or so.

The copyright office lists his birth year as 1950, which would make him 21-23 for sessions held between '71 and '73. Totally plausible for an "up and coming songwriter".

The U.S. copyright office has registrations for both songs. The entry for "Out In The Country" lists Brian as a co-writer and says the song was written in 1972 (though it appears it wasn't registered until 2004). The registration for 'Sweet And Bitter' claims it was created in '71 and also mentions 'Fading Love Song' and 'Sweet Rhythm'. The site is not letting me post direct links to the entries, but if you go to http://cocatalog.loc.gov and do a name search for 'Goldberg Don', it will bring up both songs as well as a few others he's copyrighted.

Heh. I've been wondering about the merchandise? Anything? Dodgers are really dropping the ball on this one.

I went to a Dodgers game in late April and did not see anything Beach Boys related at the team store. Perhaps I missed it somehow or was looking in the wrong part of the stadium, but there certainly weren't any posters or large display pieces to be found.

Brian's song of the same name which was ultimately never released as a record officially (though of course he re-recorded it years later for some charity album)

Songs From Here & Back wasn't a charity album.... was it?

No, it was a regular ol' commercial release, but was only available in Hallmark stores around Father's Day 2006.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY_-PXpoi4U

I would love to get Mr. Desper in here to comment on recording this song, specifically the end!

Your wish is granted. Stephen shared his recollections a while back in The Stephen Desper Thread. Here's the link (reply 282, about halfway down the page):

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?PHPSESSID=419fa4777e12aaa26162690135b9f4e8&topic=1203.275

Fantastic, thanks for clearing that up. I'll sleep a little better tonight!

Hmm... not sure I follow. Are you suggesting the track from the 45 is NOT Jerry Berryhill, but the "Love On The Run" from The Honeys Collection IS Jerry Berryhill? If so, I would almost buy that theory except that multiple people have uploaded the same song to YouTube and all attribute it to Jerry Berryhill, which would lead me to believe that THAT is indeed "Love On The Run" and the song on which The Honeys sang (which runs 1:53 on the cd) is something else altogether. Any other guesses?

So what do we know about this track? The liner notes for The Honeys Collection say it was a recording released by Jerry Berryhill (psuedonym of Jerry Capehart, co-writer on many a Eddie Cochrane tune). I believe the booklet also says it was released on Liberty, though I can’t confirm that at the moment since my cd is 2000 miles from here.

Now, in looking for more information about the recording I found a completely different song (all instrumental, no backing vocals/no Honeys) called Love On The Run, released under the Jerry Berryhill name. It’s been uploaded a couple times to youtube and one of the videos features a picture of the actual 45, which shows the song was not only released on Liberty, but also written by Jerry Capehart. So… am I to believe there were two different songs recorded with the same title and composer and which were both released as singles on Liberty (doubtful)? Or was the track on The Honeys Collection by someone else altogether and mislabeled (more probable)? Or is there some other blindingly obvious explanation that I've somehow missed (quite possible)? Any help in sorting this out would be appreciated.


P.S. Here are the youtube links for the curious:

The track as found on The Honeys Collection (you can hear The Honeys come in around 1:01):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90qM_-fwudE

The Liberty single released by Jerry Berryhill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7itnNJO4mU

I believe it's been established that "Please Let Me Wonder" was played (and recorded) at the '65 Chicago shows. Would love to hear that one someday...

Was there a mono version of Summer in Paradise?

We can dream, can't we?

Hey, thanks for the link. Great to see Dave playing with the guys (and looking like he's having a great time, to boot). Let's this hope this is a sign of things to come for the 50th!

And what exactly does "Gonna Hustle You" mean?

That's actually something I've wondered for a while. Not sure what "hustle you" meant in the context of '62, but none of the meanings I'm familiar with make much sense (pretty sure Brian wasn't planning to take all her money in a game of eight-ball). I guess the rest of the lyrics make it clear that he was planning to get into her life, but I still wonder if this was a real phrase or just something Brian (or Jan, not sure who wrote the lyric) thought sounded good at the time. Also, I believe I've read that the song was rejected for being too suggestive... was it in any way actually suggestive or did the title merely sound suggestive?

Mark, thanks for sharing... Definitely some interesting items in that collection. The alternate titles on the Drag City lyric sheet caught my eye and I was hoping you could shed a little light on this:

• Was this just a proposed line-up for the LP or were all of these titles actually recorded?
  
• If, in fact, they were recorded, is Cherry Chevy Coupe a re-worded version of the Beach Boys' Cherry Cherry Coupe?
  

Thanks for the input and hard work, I'm looking forward to sessionography.

I can't say definitively (since I haven't heard it), but I was told it was a very narrow stereo mix. Perhaps someone with more insight can chime in...

P.S. Here's the link for episode 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChTMiAyTAvQ&feature=channel_video_title

One question that bugs the hell out of me, and which may or may not shed more light on the bigger picture, is that of the Wrecking Crew in effect being shunned. Why did Brian suddenly, almost stop-on-a-dime sudden, decide to radically change everything about the way he was making records and recording his music? Why would he decide to no longer use the Wrecking Crew as abruptly and as definitely as he did? There is no precedent for this. It wasn't even a case of calling some of the guys but not others, it was one day he was Brian in the studio and the next time he recorded everything had changed.

I always thought that this had more to do with the installation of Brian's home studio.  I imagine he got used to more of a laid back, family & friends type of scene at that point, after the more labor intensive Smile sessions with the Wrecking Crew, but I could be totally wrong about that.

Well, it is quite a sudden drop off, and I don't think you can entirely chalk it up to moving to the house.  But, it is important to note that, if you graphed it, it would be this bottom falling out thing, and then a gradual line back up to substantial Wrecking Crew involvement again.  I think maybe Brian just looked at what he'd got himself into--He had spent hours and hours on GV, hours and hours on H&V, was dangerously close to going down that road with Vegetables, and you can even see touches of that for Dada--recording that twice and then all the "all day" variations and such--and appreciated that he could spend the rest of his life on this stuff.  With the Crew he had all the power to create whatever sound he wanted, too much power.

And so that had to go away for awhile, and be brought back in slowly, which it was.  He had a few guys come out to his house, then for WH brought a few more, then Friends, we get full Wrecking Crew lineups again.

It's likely Brian felt quite a bit of embarrassment after the whole SMiLE fiasco. I don't see that aspect discussed much, but here's a man who's been talking about using revolutionary recording techniques and making music that people would pray to (some pretty bold claims, if you ask me). Not to mention he's spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars on this project that appeared to come to nothing. Zilch. And whatever doubters and detractors he may have had, whether perceived or real, well it looked like they had been right all along. I can't see him NOT feeling tremendously embarrassed by the whole thing.

Now I can't speak for Brian, but as a person who's experienced his share of embarrassments, I can say that my initial reaction has always been to stick my head in the sand and hide from everyone... friends, family and everything else. Which is pretty much what Brian did. The Vosse Posse, the big-time studios, the wrecking crew, the interviewers to whom he had made all these claims... he just kind of shuts them all out for a while. And as time and distance from the project grew, he was able to build some confidence back, which led to him bringing the crew back in little by little.

Ok, so that's a bit of an oversimplification, as I'm sure there were a multitude of contributing factors, but I still think shear embarrassment had to have played SOME role, even if a minor one, in Brian's behavior after SMiLE collapsed.

Bellagio 10452 confirms the boys played Marysville on Nov 22, 1963 and also adds this footnote:

It was after this show that Fred Vail, who was promoting, recalls Brian & Mike sat in a corner of the hotel room writing "The Warmth of The Sun". it was finished by 2am.

Here's the link: http://www.esquarterly.com/bellagio/gigs63.html

Here's how the melody played out in my head when I first heard it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RpdU8Bep28

Like Josh, this isn't meant to say that's how it would've went, it's just to show there are plenty of ways the melody could've gone that would've worked over the music.

I got a laugh out of the Dean Torrence piece... mostly because he's given space in the definitive book about the most famous unreleased album of all-time, and he manages to say nothing about the album, the music or anything remotely relevant. I'm not even positive the anecdote took place during the Smile timeframe (though one would assume so)! Somehow that just seemed very... Dean-ish!

Is anyone now thinking about archiving some of the unique information on here, just in case next time it doesn't come back?

(And the priority should be all of my posts!)

Actually I was just thinking everything should be backed up EXCEPT your posts, all of which should, of course, be wiped by a moderator. Read the rules. (just a joke, don't hit me!)

This place would run amuck on fiction were it not for Andrew, Jon, Peter and Ed. All these guys help keep the facts straight.

Agreed. And this probably isn't said enough, but much thanks to all of them, as well as Ian and the many others who've spent so much time digging for the real stories behind the band. This is why I come here. Without these guys we'd still be looking for copies of Remember the Zoo and discussing that fabulous mid-west tour in '62!*

* Both of which do not exist, of course.

Also: I stand corrected - the two 3M C-401 8-track recorders that Western had installed in May 1967 were the same as the 3M 4-channel Dynatrack rig.

United Affiliates newsletter April 1967

Now while this simplifies one aspect, it makes another more problematic, as the date for the faux "Fire" footage now has to date from May 1967 at the earliest. Unless, as seems entirely likely, what's in the footage isn't an 8-track. Here's my notion, feel free to shoot it down: during the recording of "GV", it's documented that Brian used a pair of unsynched 4-tracks to tape some sections, thus eliminating the need to either do it twice or copy the master take. So... is it possible that the footage shows him doing this ? My reason for thinking so is that the exact same firehats are worn in the GV promo film (shot 10/23/66). If this is the case, the session could be any of these:

May
27 - single session: Good Vibrations

June     
2 - single session: Inspiration (= Good Vibrations) [2 sessions]
12 - single session: Inspiration (= Good Vibrations) (possibly not - band played in New Haven CT previous night)
16 - single session: Good Vibrations [2 sessions]
18 - single session: Good Vibrations

September
1 - single session: Good Vibrations/'He Gives Speeches' ?

Or... it's footage of another session where he used twin 4-tracks, some time post 10/23/66. If so (#2), the earliest date would be December 19.

The two 4-track unit theory seems plausible to me... Though, the Bravo magazine Carl holds was dated to September 24, 1966 by Dancing Bear, so IF this footage was all shot at one session, that would certainly rule out the May and June Good Vibes dates, right?

Also let me throw this out there (just in case the water wasn't murky enough): Though it wasn't directly stated, I took Guitarfool's post to mean Heider rented his 8-track TO Western (please correct me if I'm wrong). So, wouldn't it be possible that the unit filmed was the rented machine? That would allow the session to have taken place before May when Western purchased two 8-track machines of their own.