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Author Topic: Mike's Hand in Vocal Arrangements  (Read 26188 times)
c-man
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« Reply #125 on: February 27, 2017, 06:59:21 PM »

I wonder, did Mike come up with the brief vocalization part right before the whistle tag in "From There To Back Again"?

I would tend to think that was Brian's creation.
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c-man
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« Reply #126 on: February 27, 2017, 07:10:04 PM »

I wonder how many of Mike's vocal parts (and the other Boys' vocal parts) were largely invented by the specific Boy singing those parts for material written when Brian was out of the band?

Is it safe to say that most of the vocal parts Mike sings on Summer in Paradise were his invention (sans input from Terry)? And the same question for higher quality material that the band released without Brian's input, of which there is a good amount of.

Separate question - what does everyone think are the most adventurous and complex vocal tracks on BB tunes without Brian's involvement? I think the earliest example of a pretty complex Brian-free vocal arrangement might be I Can Hear Music, which is why I suggested Mike's parts in the breakdown bridge part might perhaps have been Mike's own invention. That is unless Carl arranged parts for Mike to sing.

I believe Bruce did a lot of the vocal arrangements on their late '60s and early '70s records...just as he would later do on L.A. (Light Album). I'll hasten to add, as Bruce himself might, that this was out of necessity...since Brian wasn't heavily involved at those particular points, the job kind of defaulted to Bruce.

On a somewhat related note - has anyone else noticed that the innver sleeve of M.I.U. Album bears the credit "Vocals arranged & produced by Brian Wilson & Alan Jardine"? And that the "Brian" songs on the Steve Levine-produced '85 album all have a credit reading "Vocals arranged by Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys", but none of the other songs on that album bear a vocal arranger credit? I always thought that was odd...I have a hard time believing that Julian Lindsay, credited as "musical arranger" on that album, arranged the vocals on songs like "Where I Belong"...
Bruce actually did the vocal arrangement for "I Can Hear Music", but Mike indeed came up with the idea to sing the "Do-rae-mi" part in the breakdown.

Awesome, thanks for that bit of trivia, c-man! Sort of what I figured about Mike's part, and very interesting to hear about Bruce doing that arranging.  Bruce was obviously no slouch, having cowritten the brilliantly underrated Don't Run Away a couple of years earlier.  I'm guessing that Bruce would be the vocal arranger on that song as well?  And side question, I wonder what Terry Melcher contributed to songs like that to give him a cowriting credit. Lyrics, melody, arrangement? Or all of the above?

I think it is strange that these contributions - such as I Can Hear Music - have never been noted in any type of official capacity in actual liner notes.   Especially if it's for somebody's vocal arrangement of nearly the entire song.  Carl always gets the lions share of credit for that song, but obviously this proves there was more group input.  And I can't blame band members for being resentful for the misconception of being thought of as people who hardly contributed much of anything. I certainly don't think it's any type of concerted effort to undercredit people, but just the way that crediting tends to work in general I suppose.  

Again, as guitarfool has pointed out, it's a slippery slope with credits and obviously lots of people never really get much recognition for contributing cool things here and there. With this band, considering that vocals and vocal arrangements are such an important part of the songs, I would be extremely interested to hear more bits of information like this about other songs.

Edited to put my new comment below, instead of above, buried in the quotes where it's less likely to be seen, as I accidentally did...

On a somewhat related note - has anyone else noticed that the innver sleeve of M.I.U. Album bears the credit "Vocals arranged & produced by Brian Wilson & Alan Jardine"? And that the "Brian" songs on the Steve Levine-produced '85 album all have a credit reading "Vocals arranged by Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys", but none of the other songs on that album bear a vocal arranger credit? I always thought that was odd...I have a hard time believing that Julian Lindsay, credited as "musical arranger" on that album, arranged the vocals on songs like "Where I Belong"...
Bruce actually did the vocal arrangement for "I Can Hear Music", but Mike indeed came up with the idea to sing the "Do-rae-mi" part in the breakdown.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2017, 07:51:56 PM by c-man » Logged
HeyJude
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« Reply #127 on: February 28, 2017, 06:18:20 AM »

I wonder, did Mike come up with the brief vocalization part right before the whistle tag in "From There To Back Again"?

I would tend to think that was Brian's creation.

I would also say, and I'm not trying to "C50-politicize" this, that Rolling Stone's description of Mike's reaction to a playback of the album's ending suite, including "From There to Back Again", would indicate Mike felt rather detached from that part of the album. So that would also lead me to believe it's less likely Mike had much of a  hand in that part of the album in particular outside of deploying some backing vocals as directed.

I remember the first time I heard the track and Mike's part before the whistling, and it very much sounded like Mike singing something that sounded very "Brian solo album-ish", something done in the mode of how Brian has arranged stuff on his recent solo albums.

It's interesting that the TWGMTR album (and to some degree NPP as well) has a lot of those wordless monosyllabic background bits. Lots of "da-do-do-do" sort of stuff, often with Al most prominent. Obviously, as opposed to the early stuff, a lot of those sort of background parts on TWGMTR are done more in the mid-range. It's a very tiny nitpick, but I think that style of background is overdone just a bit on the albums. I think it's cool Al can be heard so prominently on, say, "Think About the Days", but I think a few of the "do-do" bits could have been softened to "oo-ooo." But I dunno, maybe that would sound weird.
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Rick5150
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« Reply #128 on: March 24, 2017, 06:06:19 AM »

I think some of Mike's solo songs sound pretty Beach Boys-esque. Surely he must have had a hand in the vocal arrangements?
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Amy B.
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« Reply #129 on: March 25, 2017, 06:41:19 PM »

Completely off-topic, but I was interested in this quote from that Carl interview:
And yet, I don't mind if [Brian] doesn't make any more music. That's fine with me. I don't care if he makes hits or not. My interest in Brian is that I love him as a human being and as a brother, as I love all my family. I want him to have some joy and satisfaction in life, and he's not getting that. I'm not discouraging him by any means, but the main thing is that he have a nurturing, loving life. That's all that matters anyway.<<<

It pleased me to read that, that's all.
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Lonely Summer
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« Reply #130 on: March 28, 2017, 11:23:15 PM »

Completely off-topic, but I was interested in this quote from that Carl interview:
And yet, I don't mind if [Brian] doesn't make any more music. That's fine with me. I don't care if he makes hits or not. My interest in Brian is that I love him as a human being and as a brother, as I love all my family. I want him to have some joy and satisfaction in life, and he's not getting that. I'm not discouraging him by any means, but the main thing is that he have a nurturing, loving life. That's all that matters anyway.<<<

It pleased me to read that, that's all.
There's another quote in there that's quite prophetic: "We could make a good commercial album with an outside producer, but if you're talking Good Vibrations quality, you're talking us with Brian." Of course they did make a good commercial album in 1985 with Steve Levine.
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