Part one
This is the story of the The Beach Boys' SMiLE album, as I and many others experienced it from the beginning. After the release of "Good Vibrations" in the fall of 1966, fans were excitedly anticipating what would come next. That record, it should be noted, was the result of six months in four different studios, with sections sequenced to produce a "pocket symphony" with a playing time of 3:35. Producer Brian Wilson then conceived his next project as an album-length extension of the same idea, a mixing and matching of parts to form a seamless whole.
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| 1967 single picture sleeve |
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| Can you imagine these sides making the charts? Dream on. |
The bombshell was delivered later that year in the form of an article by Jules Siegel , "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God," which first appeared in Cheetah, one of the first of a growing number of magazines dedicated to the crazy notion that rock music was art-- or make that "Ahhht." The article detailed the rise and fall of SMiLE and, along with a pair of 1968 interviews done by Paul Williams with David Anderle in Crawdaddy magazine, was perhaps the beginning of the legend of what became the most famous and elusive "lost" recording in history.
This is a review of how, and when, various pieces of the SMiLE puzzle fell into place: the when and how we fans collected dribs and drabs of the music over the years.
(Please enjoy the videos here promoting the Capitol Records 2011 box set release.)
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| Domenic Priore's volume is a useful scrapbook for everything SMiLE, including the Siegel piece. |
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| Paul Williams's compendium from Crawdaddy includes his interviews with Anderle. |
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| (here and below) Brian Wilson and Van Dyke parks in the recording studio |
Introduction
Webisode 1
Webisode 2
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| artwork for SMiLE by Frank Holmes |
- Smiley Smile, 1967 (7 tunes, either explicit or implied)
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| SMILEY SMILE |
The release of Smiley Smile in September, 1967, came as a shock to fans who were expecting the grand studio production that "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains" seemed to promise.
Instead, apart from those two tracks, , we got a laid-back, back-to-the-basics recording-- almost an "anti-Beach Boys" record. The other songs intended for SMiLE had been completely redone in Brian's home studio and hastily prepared for release, including "Vegetables," "Wind Chimes," "Wonderful," and (outfitted with new lyrics) "She's Going' Bald." The structure of the original's thundering instrumental, "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" aka "Fire," was turned into the gentle, whimsical "Fall Breaks (and Back to Winter)."
Coming back to Smiley Smile many years later, my opinion of the album has greatly improved. Without comparison to SMiLE, the album stands up well on its own terms and is a pleasure to experience. I recently listened to it once more to make a few pertinent observations.
Besides this three-and-a-half minute released version, at least a dozen other recordings of varying lengths have come to light, some with new verses (At threescore and five, I'm very much alive...), and some with a "cantina" narrative added.) I've heard session recordings which lay bare the voices that are just at the edge of my conscious hearing. Have you ever "felt," more than heard the voices speaking behind the last verse ahead of the tag? Actually, there are two voices overlapping each other, both singing, "Boys... and... girls... and..., until the end of the verse.
At least six or seven different versions are contained in the 2011 SMiLE Sessions box set (as will be
described in my next post to bloggy.).
More than a simple remake, the Smiley Smile version is almost a deconstruction of the one on SMiLE. Among other hallmarks, here are a cornucopia of pet sounds, including bottle-whistles, various kitchen implements (viz. Jules Siegle's article, linked above, for an account of this pan symphony may have originated), and, of course a celery percussion section led by Paul McCartney.
The Boys were reportedly stoned for this number (I believe this), using Brian's empty swimming pool as an echo chamber. Only a snippet of the original "Vega-Tables" was inserted as a tagline.
This piece relies on the contrast between vocal movement and instrumental stasis. A long drawn-out organ built over a moving bass line behind the vocals falls silent behind long instrumental rests. There are yet more sound effects, including a prominent mwa mwa mwa (by what I think is a Moog synthesizer), bells, temple blocks, etc. A harmonica enacts the role of Woody. This Smiley Smile selection has exactly the opposite vibe as "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," whose structure it duplicates.The Boys were reportedly stoned for this number (I believe this), using Brian's empty swimming pool as an echo chamber. Only a snippet of the original "Vega-Tables" was inserted as a tagline.
Variant of SMiLE's "He gives speeches..."
Dennis lead ("Silken hair, more silken hair...), Mike fills; others: backing vocal (AAH AAH DUM DOOBY DOOBY DOO) This vocal riff connects strongly to the same sort of riff in other songs here and also with several SMiLE tracks.
Sudden increase in speed, frequency of vocal, leading to dialogue narrative (Brian and Mike?), accompanied by ascending, corny chords of foreboding, a la movie serial thrillers; she's tried everything, to no avail.
The tag: Mike: "It's too late mama"; Group backing: "no more no more no more no more"; piano; guitar. BW:"Upside your head..."
This is the first of three tracks, all with lead vocals by Carl, that seem to have no direct connection to the SMiLE project, the others being "With Me Tonight" and "Whistle In." "Little Pad" begins with a couple seconds of stoned-out laughter and a nasal self-lampoon melody line; this resolves into a section featuring the Boys accompanied by Hawaiian guitar. In the contrasting module that follows, Carl gently scats and then sings over a bed of ukulele chords, culminated by the verse, "Sure would like to build a pad/ In Hawaii." And then back to where it starts all over again, perhaps endlessly. This time the sound effects include temple blocks and (I think) amplified sand paper, if such a thing could be said to exist.
This is the first of three tracks, all with lead vocals by Carl, that seem to have no direct connection to the SMiLE project, the others being "With Me Tonight" and "Whistle In." "Little Pad" begins with a couple seconds of stoned-out laughter and a nasal self-lampoon melody line; this resolves into a section featuring the Boys accompanied by Hawaiian guitar. In the contrasting module that follows, Carl gently scats and then sings over a bed of ukulele chords, culminated by the verse, "Sure would like to build a pad/ In Hawaii." And then back to where it starts all over again, perhaps endlessly. This time the sound effects include temple blocks and (I think) amplified sand paper, if such a thing could be said to exist.
Listed among twelve titles listed on the proposed back cover (Exhibit A) for SMiLE and on Brian's handwritten original (Exhibit B), yet there is reason to believe "Good Vibrations" was a late addition, insisted upon by Capitol, to boost sales. (Likewise, I think on their previous release, Pet Sounds, the hit single " Sloop John B.," certainly an odd choice for an album so personal in nature, was added to boost sales (to little avail, apparently). It doesn't really prove my case, but I have seen an alternate front cover without the "Good Vibrations" embroidering on the awning. "Good Vibrations doesn't easily fit any of SMiLE's themes: America, innocence, the elements: earth, air, fire, water.
But all the same I wouldn't object to someone acknowledging this as the finest single to have come from rock'n'roll, perhaps for all time.
* Coincidentally, my first google result for "Good Vibrations" linked to a business of that name.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
* Coincidentally, my first google result for "Good Vibrations" linked to a business of that name.
This gentle round begins with an a cappella verse (the line "On and on she goes dumby doo..." The melody comes from a time before we were born. It intimates the edges of eternity itself. Again, Carl carries the verse against the choir of voices and a static organ chord, which rises to restart the a cappella beginning. And so on.
The moral, of course, is "Be careful, my son, that, in pursuing thine own self, thou may'st also consume thyself, as the mamba devours its tale." Thus saith the I Ching in accordance with the flip/ flop of the eternal wicket.
(Somewhere I have an alternate version that moves a little faster and features group vocals out in front. Perhaps it's an actual riff recorded for the original album. I shall count it as such.)
The moral, of course, is "Be careful, my son, that, in pursuing thine own self, thou may'st also consume thyself, as the mamba devours its tale." Thus saith the I Ching in accordance with the flip/ flop of the eternal wicket.
(Somewhere I have an alternate version that moves a little faster and features group vocals out in front. Perhaps it's an actual riff recorded for the original album. I shall count it as such.)
This is another radical change from the SMiLE version, which slid along gracefully with the breeze, before ending with clarion vocals. This one is still as a moment in time, just Carl's pinched lead against that static organ chord under the verses and various chime sounds. The organ finally disengages as the voices sing "The wind chimes tingle-ing, tingle-ing, tingle-ing." The tag introduces a beautiful new a cappella melody before fading away in the distance.
This tune was first a single (b/w "Devoted to You" from the Party! album) by Brian and Mike, the second and last 45-rpm issued on the original Brother Records label. It's fun to hear, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the album.
Whereas the original version moved along with a steady harpsichord accompaniment, this one-- like so many others on Smiley Smile, slows time down to a crawl. There is a massed vocal at the beginning, almost but not quite a Beach Boys' parody, over yet another static organ chord. Carl's gentle vocal is accompanied by the sounds of childhood, as the young girl of the song is born, lives "through the recess, the chalk and numbers" and eventually returns to the mystery from whence she came.
Significantly, I think, the Smiley Smile version drops the final verse of the original. After "a boy bumped into her," etc:
All fall down and lost in the mystery
Lost it all to a nonbeliever
And all that's left is a girl
Who's loved by her mother and father.
And later in the original version she sighs as she thanks God, instead of smiling as she does here. Does this change signify a turn toward optimism?
The Smiley Smile version of "Wonderful" uniquely interpolates what seems a party atmosphere, again like "Heroes and Villains" with some kind of subliminal speech underneath, before returning to the final verse. Herein, Mike performs what I now know to be the tag of the
original "Vega-Tables," another example of Brian's intended modular method of building the SMiLE album.
It needs to be said that Parks's lyrics here are among the best in the history of American verse.
(Whistle in)
Remember the day-ay
Remember the night-night
All day long (all the day long)
Repeating forever as a prayer ring.
Carl sings a more forceful lead here, but it doesn't intrude unduly on the mantra. About a minute long, and then Smiley Smile goes pthhhht.
Total: 9 SMiLE pieces
NB: My listening source is the 2012 mono/ stereo reissue. I'm sure most purchasers of this edition were already familiar with the music but were eager to hear it in stereo. In particular, "Good Vibrations," the album's centerpiece, cried out for a full-blown stereo rendition. This one, described in the album credits as a "stereo extraction mix by Derry Fitzgerald under the supervision of Mark Linett," is a fine example of what digital tech can achieve. One hears it especially in the whirlwind choruses, with the theremin part clearly separate from the rest. "Heroes and Villains," has been available in stereo since it first appeared a decade ago on the Hawthorne, CA compilation. Some of the others ("Wonderful," "Wind Chimes," "Vegetables") do not sound much different from their mono counterparts. I have heard better stereo mixes on amateur bootleg downloads.
Webisode 3
Webisode 4
Webisode 5
Webisode 7
- Wild Honey, 1967 (1 tune)
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| WILD HONEY |
No one knew it at the time, of course, but Wild Honey's concluding track, "Mama Says," is a reworking of a section of SMiLE's "Vega-Tables."
Total: 1 SMiLE piece
Webisode 8
- Friends, 1968. Hidden behind Dennis's vocal on "Little Bird" is an instrumental figure that actually does suggest a bird, but in fact was cribbed from Brian's SMiLE piece, "Child Is Father of the Man."
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| FRIENDS
Total: 1 SMiLE piece
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Webisode 9
- 20/20 from following year was to be the group's last album for Capitol. The two SMILE tunes, here released for the first time in their original form* , were the most significant since 1967). Not surprisingly, the record was a stimulating hodgepodge of material lately completed by the band; but to the hosannahs of SMiLE fanatics everywhere, it concluded with two never-before-heard pieces, the awe-inspiring prairie hymn, "Our Prayer," and the peaceful/ driving sweep of "Cabinessence," the story of the railroads and threshers pushing the American horizon ever westward.
There's one more thing: at the very end of the first track, "Do It Again," there are a few seconds of the sounds of hammering. This was extracted from the portion of SMiLE usually called "Workshop."
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| 20/ 20 |
*On "Cabinessence", Carl Wilson added the lead vocal in 1968; likewise, on "Our Prayer" the Beach Boys overdubbed new vocal parts. Left over from the original sessions is Dennis's all-but-inaudible recitation behind the whirlwind of the Iron Horse:
Truck-driving man, do what you can.
High-tail your load off the road, out of night-life.
It's a gas, man. I don’t believe I gotta grieve.
In and out of luck with a buck and a booth.
Catching on to the truth, in the vast past, the last gasp.
In the land, in the dust, trust that you must catch as catch can.
"Cabinessence" is also one of the best examples of the modular method of composition in SMiLE: it consists of three separate sections that originally conceived to fit in elsewhere in the project.
Webisode 10
Webisode 11
- Sunflower, 1970, provided one "new" find, but it was a five-minute masterpiece they retitled "Cool, Cool Water," building upon material the band had completed for their water theme, "Love to Say Dada," for SMiLE. Of particular note is a short section imitating the undulation of sound traveling over water.
In an ocean or
In a glass
Cool Water is such a gas.
Total: 1 glorious SMiLE piece
Surf's Up from 1971 brought back a SMiLE song that had been known, but never again seen, since Leonard Bernstein touted the title song on television's Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution in 1966. That program included a film clip of Brian singing the soaring melody alone at the piano. Five years later, however, the new album version of "Surf's Up" featured an overdubbed lead vocal by Carl, with the original's jangling backing track. The second half of the released version had Brian's vocal and piano as it had been, spiffed up a little by bass and unobtrusive backing vocals. Until very recently, technology did not permit sound engineers to synch Brian's original vocal with the instrumental track without altering its pitch; they finally succeeded in the 2011 box set, but that's the subject of my comments down the line, in this article's second installment.
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| SURF'S UP
Total: 1 last SMiLE piece, somewhat altered
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- As of 1971 there was a grand total of sixteen SMiLE-related items in release. Some of these have only an indirect, or even oblique relationship with the original recordings.
Webisode 12 (conclusion)
This film actually had a wide screening across the country (I recall Siskel and Ebert's positive reviews). Soon after, it became available in VHS format, and eventually on DVD.
Total: 1 "new" SMiLE piece and one partial backing track
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| THE BEACH BOYS: AN AMERICAN BAND |
This documentary thrilled rabid SMiLE fans, because it exposed audio and video material we never knew existed. There was first the prayer-wheel harpsichord track from "Heroes and Villains," accompanying a stop-action film of Carl Wilson standing in front of a white picket fence, his stance jerkily put into motion by the film's editing. Shortly after this we got to hear the legendary "Fire" music (and its accompanying firehouse film), which many of us thought had been destroyed by Brian as his paranoia dictated that the music had caused actual fires in the city of Los Angeles.
It was clear to us fans that a good deal of unreleased SMiLE material still existed, reason enough to believe, even in 1985, that a finished album could someday appear.
Total: 1 "new" SMiLE piece and one partial backing track
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A lot of fans seemed to take Milward's advice. Sure enough, the late '80s and '90s were the golden age of SMiLE bootlegs (click "bootlegs" icon), which I began to hear first in the form of heavily-traded cassette tapes of the first attempts to assemble the album at last.
It's hard to describe the stunning effect the "new" material had on me when I first heard them, how utterly captivating they were to one who had heard nothing but the officially released material. Until the mid-'90s, however, these attempts were only minimally successful and, early on, much off the mark: some used the The Laughing Gravy's version of "Vegetables" (see tracklist), and one even inserted a track from the Miles Davis/ Gil Evans, Porgy and Bess album, retitled "Holidays."
Eventually these shoddy discs and tapes gave way to handsomely packaged multi-LP bootleg sets, and finally CDs that the faithful could exchange. The bootleggers took advantage of leaks at Capitol Records that allowed them to issue more and more of the original SMiLE material. It is worth noting that most of these would-be producers favored a track order that began with "Heroes and Villains" and ended with "Surf's Up."
Finally, 1990 was the year Capitol Records began releasing their "twofer" series of CDs, all of which included bonus tracks. On the re-release of Smiley Smile (paired with Wild Honey), we were treated to renditions we'd never heard before: a thrilling alternate version of "Heroes and Villains," which included an interval beginning with the words "In the cantina..." The disc also included a lengthy montage of various "Good Vibrations" sessions and an early version of the complete song.
And so matters stood until the long-awaited release of a new SMiLE trove in 1993. That event will form the beginning of my next post.
IN MY ROTATION:
- Tommy Flanagan, Thelonica (enja, 1982)
My own CD copy is on the PolyGram Japan label, so the liner notes, which were probably brilliant, are just exotic wallpaper to me. Be that as it may, here are the liner notes that don't really exist. But I'll pretend that they do.
Thelonica, of course is Tommy's homage to Thelonious Monk. Two versions of Flanagan's title song bookend an album of some of the great Monk originals. Flanagan was one of the very few musicians who really had his own take on the master; his interpretations are precise and fluid in manner Monk himself never played. This trio was a powerful unit who appear to have played with each for quite a long time. By by the time they cut this disc, they almost knew how to read each other's minds.
I love all of these tunes. "Off-Minor" whizzes by like a bullet on AT's ching-chinga-ching charge. "Reflections" features a delicate duet between the pianist and bassist. "Pannonica" grabs me in any form, and "Ugly Beauty" is no oxymoron at all.
I've read some idiotic claims that Ella herself was not capable of deep emotional expression; the lie is given here by her tender performance of "I Got It Bad," which rivals the original version with Ivie Anderson.
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| High above Newport RI, figurative (but not literal) birthplace of Paul Gonsalves |
...and in mah cah
- Mary Lou Williams, Wiki, Inst. of Jazz Studies, Rutgers, allmusic.com/MLW, The Zodiac Suite (Smithsonian Folkways , 1945)
MLW live at Montreux, 1978
This is only one of many MLW collections worthy of my car collection, but it contains a single performance, Libra, that affected me profoundly back in the day, as they say. With this composition, I began to hear jazz harmony in an entirely new way.
There is too much to be said about this recording to recount here. Suffice to say that MLW was a musical visionary. It's hard to pick favorites, but other compositions that attract me include Aries, Taurus, Scorpio, and an Aquarius that morphs into a lovely tango that only Mary could have performed.
My car copy doesn't end there, however. It appends to the Smithsonian Folkways release the version of "Libra" that inspired me as a mere sprat. Oddly, that version times out considerably longer and more developed than the one on the CD, although the liner notes claim its version is the master take. I'm still trying to solve the mystery by consulting the appropriate volume of Mary's Chronogical (sic) reissue series but so far neither of its two candidates seems to match my old Folkways cut.
Stay tuned.
After that, there is a performance of three numbers of the suite by Dizzy Gillespie's big band at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival with Mary as guest soloist. The performance is ragged, much to the chagrin of Ms. Williams, but still coherent and exciting, with "Virgo," "Libra," and "Aries" presented in turn.
(As on the foregoing selection, my copy is a needle-drop from an old (Verve) piano compilation.)
Finally, I append an Oscar Pettiford octet recording of "Scorpio." MLW's authorship of this arrangement is confirmed by its presence, in expanded form, among MSS she submitted to Duke Ellington in 1946 (viz. the performance of the score by the Dutch Jazz Orchestra). The album's CD rerelease on the Fresh Sound label attributes the octet arrangement to Tom Whaley, Duke's copyist.
Next: SMiLE, PART TWO
