The Definitive Vocal Credits Thread...

[adamghost]

Hold up...relating to the above post, am I listening to the wrong version of "Old Man River"?  My copy of 20/20 (the 1990 twofer with FRIENDS) only has #16, below.  The bonus tracks I have are Break Away / Celebrate The News / We're Together Again /Walk On By / Old Folks At Home-Old Man River. If that's the case, and there's a second version of "Old Man River" that I don't have on my older copy, apply the comments I just posted to #16.

20/20:


1.  Do It Again                            - Mike, Carl on the bridge 1
2.  I Can Hear Music                    - Carl 2
3.  Bluebirds Over The Mountain    - Mike (verses), Carl and Bruce (choruses)
4.  Be With Me                           - Dennis
5.  All I Want To Do                     - Mike 3
6.  The Nearest Faraway Place      - Instrumental
7.  Cotton Fields                          - Alan
8.  I Went To Sleep                      - Brian and Carl most prominent
9.  Time To Get Alone                    - Carl (verses, middle-eight), Brian and Alan 4
10. Never Learn Not To Love          - Dennis
11. Our Prayer                              - Group
12. Cabinessence                         - Carl, with Mike on the tag 5

Bonus Tracks:

13. Walk On By (Fragment)        - Brian, with Dennis
14. We're Together Again          - Dennis and Brian
15. Ol' Man River                        - Brian, Mike, Carl, Alan and Bruce in harmony
16. Old Folks At Home / Ol' Man River    - Brian, Alan and Mike (bass vocal) 
17. A Time To Live In Dreams      - Dennis

1 Prominent back-up: Brian on the "Hey now" section.
2 Prominent back-up: Mike on the bass vocal on the middle-eight.
3 Prominent something:  Dennis and a girl gittin' it ohnnnnn during the fade.
4 An officially released mix features an earlier version with Carl singing the verses and Brian sinigng the choruses and middle-eight.
5 Features Dennis singing another, totally different melodic section mixed back under the second chorus.

[Andrew G. Doe]

The track listings here include other archive material of the relevant period from other releases (in this case, Hawthorne CA).

[matt-zeus]

I've got the original F/2020 twofer from 1990, what is the difference of Old Man river on this and the new one as I haven't heard the new one? Is it the same one off Hawthorne?

[John]

The Ol' Man River in contention, so to speak, is the Hawthorne, CA version:

The slow, more-or-less accapella version...

[adamghost]

The Ol' Man River in contention, so to speak, is the Hawthorne, CA version:

The slow, more-or-less accapella version...

Got it.  OK, so I vote Alan, Brian, Mike and Carl on the 20/20 version, and I have no idea on the Hawthorne version. 

[John]

Gotcha. I'll add Carl.

Who do you think that is on the lower part of the chorus of Wake The World? Mike or Al?

[adamghost]

Gotcha. I'll add Carl.

Who do you think that is on the lower part of the chorus of Wake The World? Mike or Al?

Alright, I-Pod out, listening...

OK, to my ears, that's pretty clearly Mike.  Listen to "bran' new mawrnin'" -- timbre aside, the twang and the n's at the end of the words.  Very Mike, very un-Al.  To me, no contest, Mike.  Al's pretty prominent on the "so much brighter now" part that follows immediately after, however.

[Black Tiger]

who played the harmonica on Ol man River? Tommy morgan? Brian?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Audree.

[John]

Alright, I-Pod out, listening...

OK, to my ears, that's pretty clearly Mike.  Listen to "bran' new mawrnin'" -- timbre aside, the twang and the n's at the end of the words.  Very Mike, very un-Al.  To me, no contest, Mike.  Al's pretty prominent on the "so much brighter now" part that follows immediately after, however.

Right.

I heard it as a Mike sounding Al, at first. But I may have been influenced by the writing credits, and thinking that I read somewhere that Mike wasn't there. 

[cerro azul]

Audree -- harmonica on "Old Man River" -- for real? (It is difficult sometimes to discern intended humor on the internet.)

With apologies for backtracking here:  Jon, the (background) voice on "No Go Showboat" does not sound to my ears like a female one -- is that Marilyn doing an imitation of Brian? (although it seems more like a "Dennis" imitation -- assuming, of course, that he had that high a range in his falsetto -- which he did not.)

Do session sheets establish that Marilyn was present for NGS? (i.e., is that the sole basis for "inferring" that she indeed is singing on NGS?  Or, is it obvious (to your ears and others) that it is in fact Marilyn?

In any event, ever since I first heard this tune back in circa 1965 (on a tinny "portable" LP player) -- I knew that there was a "different' voice present on NGS-- for awhile I assumed that it had to be David Marks (not knowing at the time that he did not sing much).

[John]

It sounds to me that Marilyn is varying from the melody literally right at the end of the song, "No-go-sho-ow-boat"...

[Andrew G. Doe]

Audree -- harmonica on "Old Man River" -- for real? (It is difficult sometimes to discern intended humor on the internet.)

Nah, 'course not.    I have no idea - Brian ? Tommy Morgan ?

[adamghost]

See, I totally bought it!

Dennis also was known to play bass harmonica in the '70s...just to confuse the issue some more. 

[Ebb and Flow]

With apologies for backtracking here:  Jon, the (background) voice on "No Go Showboat" does not sound to my ears like a female one -- is that Marilyn doing an imitation of Brian? (although it seems more like a "Dennis" imitation -- assuming, of course, that he had that high a range in his falsetto -- which he did not.)

I'll probably get raked over the coals for this, but to me, that voice sounds like Mike doing the same joke falsetto he did on "Cassius Love" a few months later.  It definitely sounds male.

[cerro azul]

It sounds to me that Marilyn is varying from the melody literally right at the end of the song, "No-go-sho-ow-boat"...

Right -- that's the giveaway passage that confirms this is not a "normal" Beach Boy voice -- but it does not sound to me like Marilyn (or any female singer).

[Guy]

Now that we're talking about  Marilyn: according to beachboysarchives.com it's Carl, Dennis and Marliyn singing the back-ups to "I'm bugged at my old man"

[John]

It sounds to me that Marilyn is varying from the melody literally right at the end of the song, "No-go-sho-ow-boat"...

Right -- that's the giveaway passage that confirms this is not a "normal" Beach Boy voice -- but it does not sound to me like Marilyn (or any female singer).

Right. I wonder if it's an attempt at another ending - like the unused tag of Kiss Me, Baby ["Please, let's not fi-iight!"] that didn't get totally cut out. I'll just delete the reference to Marilyn since it's not that important anyway. I need to buy some damn headphones.

[MBE]

According to Brad Elliot's book Barbara Ann is Bruce.

[tpesky]

Well I don't know, to my ears, it's Al. Bruce's falsetto was just not that strong.

[John]

It's definitely Al to my ears.

[Guy]

Shall we move on to Sunflower?   

There are quite a lot of vocals on this record that I can't identify (parts of All I wanna do for example).

[John 2]

Soon - sorry about this; bit busy and as you can tell, having computer / log-in problems - hopefully should be back to normal after the weekend, we'll do it then...

[Amy B.]

Forgive me if I'm way off base here, but going back to No-Go Showboat, could that mystery vocalist be David Marks? I have no idea what he sounded like back then or if he was even in the band at that point, but he was pretty young, and it sounds like a young male voice.

[adamghost]

Good.  That'll give me a chance to find SUNFLOWER and put it on my IPod!  My copy of SURF'S UP may no longer be playable (I don't have the twofers but the 1990 original CDs), dammit, because I'm enjoying the exercise of relistening to this stuff with fresh and more experienced ears. 

Likewise, I did dig out my copy of HAWTHORNE but I only have one disc and of course it's the one that doesn't have "Walk On By" on it.

Assuming we prove that it's Al on falsetto (I don't have it here to check, but that's my recollection too) how about a prominent backup for Bruce on "Barbara Ann" for "Tried Carl Wilson and I knew he wouldn't do?"