The Complete Q&A: Charles Lloyd speaks, dreams

[metal flake paint]

http://www.mercurynews.com/music/ci_26562217/complete-q-charles-lloyd-speaks-dreams


Q Tell me more about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

A They took me on the road with them. They underwrote me for several years, because it was during the time when I wasn't traveling. But I would go out on the road with them -- and Brian, who's deaf in one ear, but has a quasi- Beethoven thing going on where he can hear around a corner. And he can write some beautiful songs. I was shocked that they had some changes in them and beautiful harmonies. I had to take them to the woodshed.

Q You're still playing them: "Caroline, No," "God Only Knows."

A There are others, too.

Q Let's go back to the chronology.

A Well, the plantation system just didn't work for me any more. Atlantic Records had blackballed me. They weren't willing to deal with me on the level. So Mike Love came around and said, "What do you need?" The Beach Boys had this big estate in Bel Air, where -- what was that guy's name? The racist guy who wrote the Tarzan books? Edgar Rice Burroughs! He had lived there at one time. There's a huge studio downstairs, and Mike Love said, "Well, fine, you can use the studio any time you want." So I'd be down there in the studio. And they'd invite me to play on some of their songs. I played on "Surf's Up" and some of the other tunes. And sometimes Brian would come down and sing harmony.

Brian Wilson is a very special guy. That guy's a visionary. And in the studio, he's amazing.

So another door opened for me. I was blackballed, but I was free. And then Roger McGuinn was another neighbor in Malibu. So I played on some of his songs, and it just happened organically, I guess.

I just kept learning from all this stuff. I remember the Beach Boys would have these rehearsals and -- it sounds terrible! And then they'd get up on stage, and it'd be angelic. So I said to my roadie one day, "Man, how does this work?" He said, "Charles, this thing is a force of nature."

Q They were into the fourth dimension, maybe.

A Once you hear music, you're never the same. We go out there exploring, and we don't come back the same.

[Andrew G. Doe]

A Force of Nature - gotta be the title of the next compilation.