Recordings Of The Beach Boys W/ Glen Campbell

[Jon Stebbins]

All right I just checked it out just to make sure i remembered what I remember...so to speak. I agree the sax is better than anything else on tape by Mike...there's a chance it could be a guest saxist or second saxist on the song. But something about it says Mike playing his most practiced song to me. The drums are undoubtedly Dennis. The extended fill, or solo sounds just the same as what he does on Shut Down or Papa Ooo Mow Mow in the Lost Concert film...just longer. The fills are his signature wrist roll. The lead vocal is Carl...dude could sing even back then. Here's the deal sealer for me. Back in about 2005 when i was staying with Dave Marks in NY working on his book, we'd sit around playing guitars a bit, and one time I mentioned something about Ray Charles...and boom Dave immediately started playing that two-string riff, EXACTLY like on the BB's What'd I Say from '64 in Australia. I said to him, wow that's just like Carl plays it on that bootleg, and Dave said to me...that's how John Maus played it...he showed it to me and Carl. Its a little two string hammer, but really unique, so early '60's Beach Boys, as are so many little riffs John Maus taught them. Then Dave told me about how they'd close the set with What'd I Say so much of the time...and that he or Carl would get to sing it, and that Brian would go wild with the response vocals etc... Check it out...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuqhvy_VcH4

[acedecade75]

What song or songs would David have done lead on?

[runnersdialzero]

Sometimes I listen to "Guess I'm Dumb" and want to dig into my arm with a screwdriver over how good it is and how it should have been on a Beach Boys album.

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

Sometimes I listen to "Guess I'm Dumb" and want to dig into my arm with a screwdriver over how good it is and how it should have been on a Beach Boys album.

It's incredible, that Brian was writing so many good songs he GAVE SOME AWAY.

[runnersdialzero]

"Sandy/Sherry/Jesus She Needs Me" is more criminal considering nothing was ever done with it until 76, and even then, nothing was *really* ever done with it until the late 90s. Ugh.

[Jon Stebbins]

What song or songs would David have done lead on?

Well...as I said occasionally What'd I Say...and Louie Louie, and Summertime Blues with Carl. I think that's about it. Dennis sang a few things that were never recorded like Silly Girl and Runaround Sue. They also did a cover of Sherry with Brian on lead.

[Ebb and Flow]

"Sandy/Sherry/Jesus She Needs Me" is more criminal considering nothing was ever done with it until 76, and even then, nothing was *really* ever done with it until the late 90s. Ugh.

Completely agreed.  It boggles my mind that he cut the track for "Sherry, She Needs Me" with a full-on wrecking crew arrangement and didn't do a thing with it until a decade later.  The fact that this more elaborate WC version never had vocals tracked for it is completely mystifying to me.  During this period, even songs where Brian had second thoughts about the backing tracks or arrangement (such as "I'm So Young", which had a pretty similar recording history) had vocals recorded.  It makes me wonder if vocals were recorded but were wiped or lost.

"Sandy" is nice but has sloppy, out-of-time drums...the backing vocals are beautiful though.  Meanwhile Summer Days gets released with indisputable filler material like "I'm Bugged At My Old Man".   Why abandon such a good song when you're hard up for material?

Bottom line, the backing track for Sherry needs to be officially released, and any highlights from the tracking session would be appreciated as well.  I wish they had included it on Hawthorne or even the PS Sessions box or DVD-A when they had the chance.

[Christian]

I'm listening to "What'd I Say" now and something doesn't quite fit here.

First of all, the sax part is well beyond anything I've ever heard Mike Love technically pull off. Not to say it's incredibly hard, but it's a real part.

I think the (second) sax was played by The Surfaris´Jim Pash who joined the BB for the final encore. The Surfaris were part of the Surfside ´64 tour of Australia and New Zealand.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Found this on the 'net:

"... my mind drifted back some 38 years to the last time I saw Brian and the Beach Boys in Melbourne. My memory has given up on me in some aspects of this, (nothing to do with Alzheimer’s, just the passage of time), yet there are some visions of the event, which remain lucid. The look, sound and smell of Festival Hall for starters! I became an avid live performance fan quite early and I think I attended most touring shows at the old West Melbourne Stadium as it was originally known, throughout the ‘60s.

In ’63 and ’64, surfing, the Stomp, bleached hair, board shorts, the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean were very IN. So it was obvious that when the Harry M. Miller, “Surfside ‘64” show rolled into town for two nights in mid-summer of that year, I was going to be there. Package deals were the way to go in those days – you often got three or four stars on the one big show; the minimum criteria apparently being that they needed to have at least a solitary number one hit and that they were, “all the rage” at that time. (How many people remember Crash Craddock?).

This particular show starred Roy Orbison, Paul and Paula, The Surfaris, the token Aussie act – The Joy Boys - and of course the Beach Boys on the last leg of their Japan/Australia tour. As a pimply 16 year old, I sat with my mates in the second row to the far right of the Festival Hall stage – as close as we could possibly get to the front. I can’t nominate with any certainty whether I attended on 21 or 22 January, but I clearly remember the power of Orbison’s voice and his vocal range – I expected the roof to begin vibrating when he hit the big notes on “Crying”. But most of all, I remember being there for the Beach Boys. I had my copy of Surfin’ USA with the boys names written in pen on the back cover of the album so that I could tell who each one was. (A bit of confusion though, because Al Jardine had joined the band in place of David Marks).

I have some recollection of the stage being covered in sand and the Beach Boys playing barefooted, but this is probably my mind playing tricks, so forget that I even mentioned this. I am certain however that they must have called into Geelong Football Club and borrowed some blue/white-hooped guernseys. When they hit the stage, we had a REAL LIVE BEACH BOY standing only metres, (or feet then!) in front of us. Playing bass, this was Brian although at the time, we were a little unsure which BB it was. But the greatest surprise was yet to come.

To my disappointment, they were ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE, God-AWFUL in fact! Their backing was thin, timing was out, they looked uncomfortable and they sounded nothing like their records. I became an instant non-Beach Boys fan. "

[Jay]

I just listened to that "What'd I Say?" recording closely, and I think it might be Al singing. Unless Al and Carl could sound a lot alike then too, just like Al and Brian.

[Jon Stebbins]

Found this on the 'net:

"... my mind drifted back some 38 years to the last time I saw Brian and the Beach Boys in Melbourne. My memory has given up on me in some aspects of this, (nothing to do with Alzheimer’s, just the passage of time), yet there are some visions of the event, which remain lucid. The look, sound and smell of Festival Hall for starters! I became an avid live performance fan quite early and I think I attended most touring shows at the old West Melbourne Stadium as it was originally known, throughout the ‘60s.

In ’63 and ’64, surfing, the Stomp, bleached hair, board shorts, the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean were very IN. So it was obvious that when the Harry M. Miller, “Surfside ‘64” show rolled into town for two nights in mid-summer of that year, I was going to be there. Package deals were the way to go in those days – you often got three or four stars on the one big show; the minimum criteria apparently being that they needed to have at least a solitary number one hit and that they were, “all the rage” at that time. (How many people remember Crash Craddock?).

This particular show starred Roy Orbison, Paul and Paula, The Surfaris, the token Aussie act – The Joy Boys - and of course the Beach Boys on the last leg of their Japan/Australia tour. As a pimply 16 year old, I sat with my mates in the second row to the far right of the Festival Hall stage – as close as we could possibly get to the front. I can’t nominate with any certainty whether I attended on 21 or 22 January, but I clearly remember the power of Orbison’s voice and his vocal range – I expected the roof to begin vibrating when he hit the big notes on “Crying”. But most of all, I remember being there for the Beach Boys. I had my copy of Surfin’ USA with the boys names written in pen on the back cover of the album so that I could tell who each one was. (A bit of confusion though, because Al Jardine had joined the band in place of David Marks).

I have some recollection of the stage being covered in sand and the Beach Boys playing barefooted, but this is probably my mind playing tricks, so forget that I even mentioned this. I am certain however that they must have called into Geelong Football Club and borrowed some blue/white-hooped guernseys. When they hit the stage, we had a REAL LIVE BEACH BOY standing only metres, (or feet then!) in front of us. Playing bass, this was Brian although at the time, we were a little unsure which BB it was. But the greatest surprise was yet to come.

To my disappointment, they were ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE, God-AWFUL in fact! Their backing was thin, timing was out, they looked uncomfortable and they sounded nothing like their records. I became an instant non-Beach Boys fan. "

He lost his credibility right about here..."the Beach Boys on the last leg of their Japan/Australia tour"...Beach Boys didn't tour Japan until '66.

[Jon Stebbins]

I'm listening to "What'd I Say" now and something doesn't quite fit here.

First of all, the sax part is well beyond anything I've ever heard Mike Love technically pull off. Not to say it's incredibly hard, but it's a real part.

I think the (second) sax was played by The Surfaris´Jim Pash who joined the BB for the final encore. The Surfaris were part of the Surfside ´64 tour of Australia and New Zealand.

That's a reasonable possibility.

[Jon Stebbins]

I just listened to that "What'd I Say?" recording closely, and I think it might be Al singing. Unless Al and Carl could sound a lot alike then too, just like Al and Brian.

No way its Al. Definitely Carl.

[adamghost]

Thanks Jon...If they'd been doing this song onstage for a year or two already, that makes a lot more sense to me, particularly Carl's lead vocal.  The performance just sounds very lived-in.  You make a great point, too, that we have nothing to compare it to vis a vis Carl's vocals.

The sax though, hmm...anyway, great track.

And yeah, given that it's a Beach Boy singing, it's Carl for sure.

[acedecade75]

What song or songs would David have done lead on?

Well...as I said occasionally What'd I Say...and Louie Louie, and Summertime Blues with Carl. I think that's about it. Dennis sang a few things that were never recorded like Silly Girl and Runaround Sue. They also did a cover of Sherry with Brian on lead.

 That's really interesting.  It's too bad some type of recording doesn't exist of this.

[Jay]

I just listened to that "What'd I Say?" recording closely, and I think it might be Al singing. Unless Al and Carl could sound a lot alike then too, just like Al and Brian.

No way its Al. Definitely Carl.

I was just going by the "yeeeeeah yeah" parts. I thought I detected some of the slight raspy tone that Al had in the early days. Help Me Rhonda is a good example of what I mean. But now that I listen to the verses, it sounds like Carl.