Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

How much the the Beach Boys actually play on their albums? For instance I see the listing for "Pet Sounds"......

The Beach Boys: Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, Al Jardine.

Additional personnel: Glen Campbell, Tommy Tedesco, Jerry Cole, Billy Strange, Barney Kessel (guitar); The Sid Sharpe Strings (strings); Tommy Morgan (harmonica); Carl Fortina, Frank Marocco (accordion); Steve Douglas, Jay Migliori, Roy Caton, Lou Backburn (horns); Leon Russell, Al De Lory, Don Randi (piano); Ray Pohlman, Carole Kaye, Lyle Ritz, Julius Wechter, Bill Pitman (bass); Hal Blaine (drums); Gene Estes, Frank Capp, Jim Gordon (percussion).

Producer: Brian Wilson

In reality are we really listening to the the "additional personnel"

In reality are we really listening to the the "additional personnel"

On more artists then we'll ever know probably

I don't know who played on the BB records, especially Pet Sounds.
But I know who sang.
And with the Boys, that's all that really counts.
(If I could harmonize like that, I might not pick up another guitar in my life.)

In the case of PS, it was Brian's breakthrough studio album. Most of the tracks were laid down at various Hollywood studios by Brian and all the "additional personnel", while the guys were on tour, unaware that they were fast becoming an "oldies act".

When they got back, Brian got them together for a listen of what he'd done, and to begin taping vocals on the songs that needed them. Mike Love (Mr. Excitement as always, and as forward-looking as a caboose) commented, "who's gonna listen to this stuff, Brian, dogs?"

Well, Mike was right. PS tanked, although I did my best to support it and bought my copy the day it came out in early May, 1966 (I think it was the 4th or 5th). Of course, the album has since been regarded as THE modern classic "concept" album, over a year ahead of "Sgt. Pepper".

interesting... thanks. I found a description of that here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6553833/2_pet_sounds/?rnd=1140328317734&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1040

Two points. First, Brian's comment about using the ML comment to inspire the album's title. Brian has lately been revising some history, perhaps because he reads little and his memory isn't all there...It was called "Pet Sounds", because Brian and Marilyn considered it an "album to pet by". Mike Love's remark had northing to do with the title.

The cover shot of the album (above) was taken at the Santa Barbara Zoo's petting compound, which still looks roughly the same.

To think that two of them are gone, and the other three talk through their lawyers.

Second, "lyricist Tony Asher"...Asher was a copywriter for an LA ad agency; Ogilvy or McCann, I forget. Brian met him at one of Van Dyke Parks' parties, and they got to talking. Brian invited him to the infamous once-purple house on Bellagio Way in Bel Air to help him flesh out his musical vision. Asher would come to "work" at 9 a.m., like a regular job, then sit around waiting for Brian to get up, usually till about 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Eventually, Asher would wait for Marilyn to call him, would drive to Bel Air, and they would work all night long, as was Brian's wont.

BTW, after the triumph of "Imagination", Brian's latest album is a waste.

Great album.... lame cover photo.

Yeah, Capitol must've shoved that down their throats. If it went like most BB votes, it was 3-2 in favor.

Brian, Carl against, Mike, Al, Murry for.

Dennis abstaining.

Wait a minnit. Dennis never abstained from anything!

ha.... yea, I've been vaguely aware of the long painful soap opera that is the BB history but never really looked into it. There's a good biography video out there that shows the huge influence of the father... isn't there? do you know the name of that one?

The only BB biopics I've ever seen--and I think I've seen 'em all--are "official" cleaned-up junk that focus on them as an oldies band.

My fave BB bio book is "The Nearest Faraway Place", which pulls few punches. Interesting to compare to "Wouldn't it be Nice" and that awful authorized thingy by Byron Preiss.

The Beach Boys have come to be considered "America's band," but rock journalist White shows that that appellation is rather an affront to the nation. For the band, originally made up of the three Wilson brothers and a cousin, is nearly the ultimate in dysfunctional families. Its members' troubled personal relationships add poignancy to the story of how leader Brian Wilson turned his idyllic childhood of cars, surf, girls, and sports into fodder for a string of hits celebrating a romantic conception of California. Drawing on his long acquaintance with the Beach Boys and interviews with three generations of the Wilson family, White makes his band chronicle also function as a social history of modern California as he tells how the brothers' grandfather was lured from Kansas by Sunkist advertising and as he interpolates vivid descriptions of California culture into the account of the group's long passage from teen-idol status to played-out oldies vendor. There are already several Beach Boys books, but White's is the best researched and the most insightful on the music and its cultural significance. Gordon Flagg --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Yeah, that's it. Darnnit, it's in my library in Brasil...I gotta re-read this one. Amazon, here I come...

The chapters on Brian's dysfunction in the early '80s, show just how far he has come since then. Still, I get concerned when I see his new songs being published by "Brimel" (his second wife, Melinda, who he met when he bought a Cadillac from her in a Santa Monica showroom...). I'm overprotective, I guess.

My friend, Trish, once dated Dennis. Her response to my disappointment with Brian's latest: "For Chrissake, Paul, be glad he's making any music at all."

I suppose I have to agree with her. He's been through hell and back, but I have to say that he built a part of that hell with his own two hands.

Anyone familiar with two made for TV movies on the Beach Boys: 1.) Summer Dreams - The Story of the Beach Boys (1990) done from the perspective of Dennis Wilson.
(I think some lawsuits were filed by the families of the other Beach Boys over the airing of this.)

2.) Beach Boys - An American Family (2000) (This one had a bit in it where it showed Beach Boy dad, Murray Wilson, with his new group - The Sunrays)

I saw these TV movies when they first aired. Pretty corny but some good bits in them. Didn't expect much more being that they were on commercial television!!

>>Beach Boys - An American Family (2000)

thats the one I was thinking about... I think.

The "American Family" one was a bad, bad pile of steaming parrot droppings...

...er, sorry. I meant to say "public relations flack fiction."

D'you know who the producer was on that one?

Mike Love, fer Pete's sake! How accurate do you think it could possibly have been, with our favorite ex-gas station attendant, tonsure-challenged, TM fanatic, wife-beater at the helm?

BTW, the White book has copies of Mike's first divorce papers in the photo section. Hence my "wife-beater" comment.