Instruments on "Wild Honey"-album

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Well, I did some digging through my resources and found that all the Wild Honey 8-tracks seem to have been tracked giving the bass it's own track, so it would be entirely possible for Ray or Ron to redo parts without worrying about losing other parts, unlike earlier times where bass would have been locked in mono with all sorts of other instruments on a 4-track tape.

I wonder if we listened carefully enough if we could hear remnants of old bass parts that leaked into other mics...

I still say Ron Brown would be an important interview...not just about this but about the Beach Boys in general during an enigmatic time.

[John]

Consider this possibility:  some years ago, Nik Venet told Adam Marsland that the original bass parts on the "WH" album had to be re-tracked due to some problem with the way they were recorded.  He was thinking it was Ray Pohlman who redid the bass, but it could just as easily have been Ron Brown.  And perhaps the AFM sheet from that overdub session just hasn't materialized (not all the sheets from the "WH" sessions have turned up).  NOW, we all know Nik Venet was (a) full of the stinky stuff, and (b) not intimately involved with the Boys by this time.  However, I believe he was still an A&R guy at Capitol at the time, and therefore could have been at least peripherally involved (or at least aware) of some administration-type aspects of their recording career.  It's worth pondering.  And it would explain Ron Brown playing bass on the album without being on the sheets.

Ah, I see.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Um, Nik left Capitol in 1963, I believe. Of course it's not impossible he kept contact with the band and/or the company, but...

[adamghost]

This is fascinating for me, because who played bass on WILD HONEY has been one of my burning questions -- the bass lines on that album are fantastic -- hence my question to Nik Venet.  And for reasons Andrew already stated, I've always been a bit skeptical about his answer.  OTOH, he was right on about Earl Palmer playing on the early sessions, which at that time (1996 IIRC) was not widely known but later was proved right.  So who knows...keep it comin'!  I'm loving this discussion.

[John]

Yeah, I love this stuff too. I'm always happy to hear a Beach Boy rather than a session man played on something. 

So is there bass on the Wild Honey Unsurpassed Master? I don't own that one. 

[c-man]

Yeah, I love this stuff too. I'm always happy to hear a Beach Boy rather than a session man played on something. 

So is there bass on the Wild Honey Unsurpassed Master? I don't own that one. 

Yeah, which was probably dubbed from the 8-tracks.  Been awhile since I listened to that one though.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Does anybody know Ron Brown's whereabouts?

[Rocker]

I wonder if it's the same Ron Brown as the one from Motown ("Funk brothers", including other wrecking crew guys) mentioned in this article

[John]

Yeah, I love this stuff too. I'm always happy to hear a Beach Boy rather than a session man played on something. 

So is there bass on the Wild Honey Unsurpassed Master? I don't own that one. 

Yeah, which was probably dubbed from the 8-tracks.  Been awhile since I listened to that one though.

Right, so not live with the instruments on the rhythm track...

[Andrew G. Doe]

SOT 19, disc 2, track 21 is the sole "Wild Honey" track session... no bass.

drums
piano
organ
bongos
tambourine

Track 23 is an acoustic guitar ovedub (guitar sounds like it's strung with rubber bands !)

Track 25 is the electro-theremin overdub (Paul Tanner)

[John]

drums - Dennis
piano - Brian
organ Bruce
bongos Carl?
tambourine Mike?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

SOT 19, disc 2, track 21 is the sole "Wild Honey" track session... no bass.

drums
piano
organ
bongos
tambourine

Track 23 is an acoustic guitar ovedub (guitar sounds like it's strung with rubber bands !)

Track 25 is the electro-theremin overdub (Paul Tanner)

There is bass on the Wild Honey track.  It's low in the mix but clearly audible, especially before the piano starts doubling it.

[John]

Ah - so maybe THAT'S Bruce - come to think of it, didn't he say he played the organ solo[i/]? So who's organ then? Or did Bruce misremember, and Alan is bass?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Ah - so maybe THAT'S Bruce - come to think of it, didn't he say he played the organ solo[i/]? So who's organ then? Or did Bruce misremember, and Alan is bass?

With overdubs, no reason Bruce couldn't have played all kinds of instruments on the track.

Here's the tracklist:

1 - rhy
2 - piano
3 - BG voices
4 - guitar
5 - theremin
6 - Carl
7 - organ
8 - bass

[John]

Ah. I thought this was all happening live, and that Bruce O.D.'d the organ solo.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Ah. I thought this was all happening live, and that Bruce O.D.'d the organ solo.

Without hearing the entire session, there's really no way to know how much was tracked live.  There's not a whole lot of leakage clues either, so yeah, no way to know.

[Jonas]

I still find it hard to believe that you can hear any leakage on any single track when there are multiple tracks playing.

If you solo one track, then perhaps its possible,...even then its still a bit impossible. This is just my experience with working on tape.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

The instrumentation is so sparse that using panning and OOP you pretty much can hear single tracks.

[adamghost]

OK, now that I think of it, given the way the tracks seem to have been cut, the bass having its own track is a little weird to me.  If you have multiple instruments on a rhythm track, then generally you would have drums-bass, or drums-rhythm instrument-bass.  If you're specifically leaving the bass off and then overdubbing it clear on the other side of the reel, it seems to me there has to be a reason.  C-Man, IIRC, there were a few times this was done back in the day so that Brian could go back and overdub the bass after doing the piano ("Don't Worry Baby", perhaps?  Although now that I think about it Brian's bass credit on that has been disputed).  How often was this standard procedure?  On the PET SOUNDS sessions, prior to mono dubdown, how often (if ever) did the bass get its own track?  If they were just used to doing it that way for the 8-track instrumental tracks on PET SOUNDS and SMILE and then didn't need to do the mono dubdown because of the limited number of vocals on WILD HONEY, then I could see it.  (I don't own any of the Unsurpassed Master bootlegs so my knowledge might be behind the curve here)

Now, with the limited number of tracks available, I can think of a few reasons to leave the bass off the basic.  The most obvious is so that some other band member can overdub it later...and if that is the case, the most logical person would be Brian, because IIRC those amazing bass lines are copied directly off Brian's left hand.  If the bass was going to do a note-for-note copy of the piano bass, then it would make sense for the other guys not to bother to learn it, and just have Brian overdub it later.

Another possibility would be that (and this would dovetail with what Nik Venet says he had heard) the bass WAS in the original rhythm track, but was too low in the mix, and so had to be re-dubbed so that it could cut through the mix.  If that's the case, then we should be able to hear two different though nearly identical bass tracks on careful listening, but if the tracks were cut sequentially it would explain why the bass is on track 8 (although it could be over there just to avoid leakage).  It would be odd for this problem to carry over every track, however.  Still, Dennis Wilson's bass drum is almost nowhere to be heard on the non-"Darlin'" tracks, correct?  What the heck is up with that?

A third more technical reason for having the bass on its own track might be the nature of the album itself...if the band was trying to cut a soul record, they might have been concerned with having enough bottom end on the record -- not too long before this The Beatles were harassing George Martin about why their records never had as much low end as the American soul records did.  Isolating the bass on its own track would enable them more control over the low end.

My own opinion is that the most likely explanation is that the bass was left off the rhythm tracks because it had to closely double Brian's piano hand, and it either was left for Brian to overdub himself or for someone else to take the time to learn it (and do multiple punch-ins, if necessary) to get it right.

Thoughts?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

IIRC, there were a few times this was done back in the day so that Brian could go back and overdub the bass after doing the piano ("Don't Worry Baby", perhaps?  Although now that I think about it Brian's bass credit on that has been disputed).

Al played bass on Don't Worry Baby.  Straight from his mouth.

On the PET SOUNDS sessions, prior to mono dubdown, how often (if ever) did the bass get its own track?

Never, really.  It was always combined with something, although there might be a few tracks where it was by itself on a second generation 3-track or something.

If the bass was going to do a note-for-note copy of the piano bass, then it would make sense for the other guys not to bother to learn it, and just have Brian overdub it later.

Makes sense to me, but most of the WH bass doesn't really sound like Brian's bass playing or bass tone.

Another possibility would be that (and this would dovetail with what Nik Venet says he had heard) the bass WAS in the original rhythm track, but was too low in the mix, and so had to be re-dubbed so that it could cut through the mix.  If that's the case, then we should be able to hear two different though nearly identical bass tracks on careful listening, but if the tracks were cut sequentially it would explain why the bass is on track 8 (although it could be over there just to avoid leakage).  It would be odd for this problem to carry over every track, however.

Not all the bass tracks on on track 8.  They're all over the board, so I kind of doubt they were that concerned about track placement, though that could point to sequential tracking.

Still, Dennis Wilson's bass drum is almost nowhere to be heard on the non-"Darlin'" tracks, correct?  What the heck is up with that?

I don't even think there was much bass drum to be in the mix.  It's all snare and tamborine.

A third more technical reason for having the bass on its own track might be the nature of the album itself...if the band was trying to cut a soul record, they might have been concerned with having enough bottom end on the record -- not too long before this The Beatles were harassing George Martin about why their records never had as much low end as the American soul records did.  Isolating the bass on its own track would enable them more control over the low end.

That's a good point.  I'd add that they probably gave the bass it's own track simply because they could.

My own opinion is that the most likely explanation is that the bass was left off the rhythm tracks because it had to closely double Brian's piano hand, and it either was left for Brian to overdub himself or for someone else to take the time to learn it (and do multiple punch-ins, if necessary) to get it right.

Very possible.  Interestingly, apparently many of the Wild Honey tracks are not through-recorded, that is they only cut one verse, one chorus, and then copied and spliced the form of the song together.  So whoever had to learn the bass parts only had to get it right once.

[HighOnLife]

The last album I could really hear Brian's bass playing was on Today! in certain songs, but he really let Al do alot (50%?) of the tracking after Surfer Girl. But, he probably played more than some people think, probably doing overdubs on top of Al's work.

Who knows for sure.

Speaking of Brian's bass playing, there's a picture in the 30th box set of him sitting there holding his Fender, must be during a break. He has white pants and a hat on. Anyone know what session that was? I've been curious about that for years.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Speaking of Brian's bass playing, there's a picture in the 30th box set of him sitting there holding his Fender, must be during a break. He has white pants and a hat on. Anyone know what session that was? I've been curious about that for years.

Party! Sessions.

[HighOnLife]

Ah! 1965, that's what I figured, by the look of his hair.

Did he play bass on most of that album?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

From what I can tell, Bruce played much of the bass on Party!

[adamghost]

I think you're probably right that the bass playing on WILD HONEY wasn't Brian's style...which sort of puts us back where we started?

What are the confirmed or likely bass appearances of Brian's from TODAY onward?  (That includes educated guesses based on careful listening)  I was surprised to read that he played on PET SOUNDS...is that true?  The bass credit on "Susie Cincinnati" is apparently for the bass pedals on an organ, and Earle Mankey has told me that the only time he ever saw Brian play a bass was when he played along with the Ronettes album to rehearse for tour, so I'm not aware of any late period in-studio bass playing (probably since it was a lot easier and simpler to use the moog).  Alan Boyd has indicated to me that there was a lot of one-man band recording in the SUNFLOWER era, and even indicated that a particularly cool guitar line on an unreleased track was also Brian's.  But aside from that, what do we know about Brian's bass playing (or Alan's or Bruce's or Carl's, for that matter), post-1964?