The Beach Boys, The #16 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Four

 

(Continued from Part Three)

Wilson then set out to record the next project, Smile.  He enlisted the help of songwriter Van Dyke Parks to help with lyrics of the song.  The goal was to link the songs thematically and musically, and the songs included chanting, cowboy songs, incorporating Indian, Hawai'ian, and jazz influences as well as cartoon sound effects and even yodeling.  Brian considered it a "teenage symphony to God".

Recording took a year and followed the same approach as "Good Vibrations".  Not all of Wilson's ideas found favor with Capitol Records.  As a result, the Beach Boys launched their own label, Brother Records, with the goal of giving the group complete creative and promotional control.

By the end of 1966, Wilson had the backing tracks for Smile finished, but the other members of the group returned from a tour of Europe to find that Anderle now appeared to be leading a group who had infiltrated and taken over the Beach Boys.  Weeks turned into months, and the much-anticipated release of Smile was delayed again and again.  

Brian continued to experiment with the recordings, and making matters worse, he suffered from delusions and paranoia.  Carl refused to be drafted in January of 1967, leading to indictment, criminal prosecution, and arrest, and it took several years for his case to be resolved.  Arguments within the group and the influence of outsiders resulted in Parks leaving and Anderle doing the same shortly afterward.  Finally, after months of recording and anticipation as a result of media hype, Smile was shelved.

Some of these songs have been released by Capitol Records on various compilations and Box sets so that they wouldn't be lost treasures.  This song was recorded on September 19 and October 4 at Western Studios.  The track, which was originally slated to open the Smile album, was later included on the 20/20 Album with vocals from Carl, Dennis and Johnston overdubbed onto the original on November 17, 1968 at Capitol Studios.  Here is the original version of "Our Prayer".

 

The controversy and turbulence that surrounded the Smile sessions can mostly be attributed to this song.  Love wasn't able to grasp the meaning of the lyrics, "Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield."  As Parks was not able to make Love understand the poetic imagery to Love's liking, the entire project was shelved and unfinished.  Wilson later finished the album and released it as a solo artist in 2004.  Here is "Cabin Essence". 

Well aware of the lack of product from the group, Capitol released another compilation, Best of the Beach Boys, Volume 2 in 1967, and it too was certified Double Platinum.

In the decades since the planned release of Smile, there continued to be much speculation about the most eagerly-awaited album in history that was never released.  In October of 1967, Jules Siegel wrote in Cheetah magazine ("Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!") about his observation of Brian and the group during the Smile recording sessions.  The article credited the collapse of the album to "an obsessive cycle of creation and destruction that threatened not only his career and his fortune but also his marriage, his friendships, his relationships with the Beach Boys and, some of his closest friends worried, his mind".

According to Carl, the Siegel article "really turned Brian off".  In May, the Beach Boys toured Europe but it was not received.  Taylor left the group to organize the Monterey Pop Festival, an event the group was set to headline but one in which they pulled out of at the last minute.  The cancellation of what proved to be one of the seminal moments in Rock history led to a good deal of criticism of the group. 

The Beach Boys were still under contractual obligation to deliver an album and in contrast to previous efforts, the album took about a month, featured the Beach Boys playing their own instruments rather than the musicians brought in to play on group albums, and was recorded at Wilson's studio rather than at other Hollywood studios.  The result was Smiley Smile, which stalled at #41, broke a streak of eight consecutive Gold albums, and was their worst-selling album to date.  

 

The first single was "Heroes And Villains", which took 20 sessions to finish.  Sections which the group called the "Cantina Scene" and "Bicycle Rider" were dropped, although the Beach Boys often included them in live performances of the song.  reached the Top 10 in some countries but peaked at #12 in the U.S.

Johnston had not worked on much of the album and did not accompany the group on concerts in Hawai'i, but Brian did for the first time in years.

 

Knowing the album had underperformed, the Beach Boys recorded the album Wild Honey (the last to feature Brian as the primary songwriter) for release later in 1967, but it didn't do much better.  "Darlin'"  was inspired by Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night, who often used the title word in his vocabulary and was originally intended to be recorded by that group.  Carl sang lead on the first single from the album.

Neither Brian's problems with drugs and delusions nor his declining songwriting output were revealed to the public until years later.  Around this time, Brian admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital.  "Darlin'" also stalled at #19.

The group's next album didn't fare any better.   In 1968, Love and others such as the Beatles and Donovan traveled to Indian to meet with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968.  The album Friends was a result of that trip which included songs influenced by Transcendental Meditation that the Maharishi taught them.

The lyrics to this single were inspired by a surfing trip Love and some of his old high school friends took, according to a Songfacts interview with Mike.  "I went to the beach with my friends," Mike said, "and we went to the surfing spot at a place called San Onofre, down near the Marine Corps base," he continued.  "And it was such a beautiful day and the waves were great".

Engineer Stephen Desper is to thank for the drum effect heard at the beginning.  Desper blended the original sound with that of one drum strike being repeated four times.  Desper said:

     I had commissioned Phillips, in Holland, to build two

     tape delay units for use on the road (to double live

     vocals). I moved four of the Phillips PB [playback] heads         very close together so that one drum strike was repeated 

     four times about 10 milliseconds apart, and blended

     it with the original to give the effect you hear. 

     Everyone liked the sound and credited me with 

     adding to the commercial success of the single.

     Whether or not that was true, I don't know, but it put 

     me in the engineering seat for many years.

The group did hit #1 in the U.K. and Canada with the non-album single release "Do It Again", but it only made it to #20 in the U.S. 

 

The title song was written by Brian, Carl, Dennis, and Jardine and recorded in 4/

4 time initially.  But Brian soon rearranged the song after realizing that not too many waltzes were heard on the radio.  Brian later said, "The cut 'Friends' was, in my opinion, a good way to keep waltzes alive.  Carl had sung...before and now he spearheaded this cut with a heavy vocal performance."  "Friends" has been used at the famous Berklee College of Music to teach students how to write in 3/4 time.

"Little Bird" was the flip of "Friends" and a fine example of Dennis's work, no slouch as a songwriter by any means.  Brian's music seamlessly changes modulation numerous times, and the chord resolution at "gave me one loving look and told me not to worry about my life" is sublime.

 

The other members wrote and produced material in Brian's absence.  They also covered a Ronettes' minor hit, written by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwhich.  "I Can Hear Music" (from 20/20) is an example of the group's best work, especially at this point in their history.

In 1969, Murry Wilson sold the Beach Boys' catalog to Irving Music for $700,000, which devastated Brian, who had not been told of the sale until afterwards.  That catalog has generated over $100 million in publishing royalties, none of which the group members ever received.

Love wrote in his 2016 memoir that the group had signed away their rights to the songs under duress, and that in the late 1980s it was discovered that the deal was part of an elaborate two-year plan by Abe Somer, the Beach Boys' lawyer.  Somer didn't let the group know that he was also Irving Music's lawyer, an obvious conflict of interest.

After the tumultuous end to their Capitol Records contract, the group signed with Reprise in 1970.  They recorded more than 30 songs for their next release, Sunflower.  Brian contributed seven of the 12 songs on the album, which included significant contributions from all members of the group.  Although the album was well-respected by critics, that did not translate into success with the public.  

Sunflower, largely unappreciated in 1970, was one of their best albums and the band recorded all the music without backing musicians on this song.  "Add Some Music To Your Day" was Credited to Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and Joe Knott.  Wilson said later in CD liner notes that Knott "was a friend of mine who wasn't a songwriter but he contributed a couple of lines."

Dennis and Gregg Jakobson combined to write "Forever", which features Dennis on lead.  Brian said on those same liner notes that "'Forever' has to be the most harmonically beautiful thing I've ever heard.  It's a rock and roll prayer."

 

The Beach Boys' use of layering, reverb and delay effects led some to call "All I Wanna' Do" as a precursor to the so-called "shoegazing" genre, a type of Indie music characterized by the use of obscured vocals, distorted guitar and feedback.  The group had it ready for both the Friends and 20/20 albums but it wound up on Sunflower instead.

Be sure to catch Part Five, exclusively on Inside The Rock Era!