Volume 1, Number 1, Page 1 of ESQ/ A LOOK BACK

NOTE:  This piece, very blandly titled, appeared as the lead article in the very first issue of Endless Summer Quarterly, August 1987.  I've copied it, with only a few changes, from the original dot-matrix printing off a word-processor called Bank Street Writer.

THE BEACH BOYS

No one who was in his teens in 1963 can forget the sonic whirlwind of "Surfin' USA."  It was as if Chuck Berry's classic rocker, "Sweet Little Sixteen," had been magically transformed from black-and-white to Technicolor.  Its polished blend of voices became the trademark sound of the Beach Boys:  the sweet falsetto lead of Brian Wilson perched atop the textured harmonies of brothers Carl and Dennis, along with the versatile Al Jardine in the middle ranges, all rounded out by the nasal whine of cousin Mike Love on the fast leads and bass parts.  Like no other band before or since, they made us feel like singing along.

For the suburban Sixties generation, they symbolized ourselves as we dreamed we should be, suntanned and barefoot in white Levis and Pendleton shirt, driving our GTO convertibles to the beach where there were "two girls for every boy."  They enacted and ennobled our search for kicks in their universe of "Fun, Fun, Fun," but perhaps even more significantly, they tapped the teenage heart with ballads of romantic longing and loss in such as "Surfer Girl" and "Don't Worry, Baby."  The Beach Boys were not just cousins, friends and brothers to themselves; they were also our own brothers in fantasy.  Always optimistic, yet equally vulnerable, they were our innocence.

Now they are our lost innocence.  Superseded in the Top 40 in the late Sixties, first by the British Invasion and soon after by San Francisco's psychedelic explosion, the Beach Boys quickly became not only passé, but outcasts in the brave new world of pop music.  America largely rejected the Beach Boys as an unhip relic of our now-despised middle-class roots.  In the curious symbiosis between the American public and its show-business idols, to be sure, we often perform the ritual of killing our gods.  The extraordinary thing is that the Beach Boys managed their own resurrection, mounting two major comebacks in the Seventies and surviving the dilemmas of commerce, art, drugs, and even death, to emerge in the Eighties as America's premier nostalgia act.  Their sheer longevity,  over a quarter century of rock and roll history, sets them apart from the usual run of superstars and places them among the very short list of immortals of American show business.

David Leaf's The Beach Boys and the California Myth (Grosset & Dunlap, 1978; revised edition Courage Books, 1985) was the first serious attempt to unravel the group's tangled history.  Exploring the dark side behind the band's sunny image, Leaf's work drew upon a thorough review of periodical literature scattered over more than a decade, in addition to the author's own interviews of participants, friends, and hangers-on.

At the center of Leaf's story is Brian Wilson, affectionately portrayed as a seemingly ordinary teenager who fell in love with the harmonies of the Four Freshmen and proceeded to translate them into the rock and roll idiom of the early Sixties.  Driven by their jealous and demanding father Murry Wilson, a small businessman and unsuccessful songwriter, the Wilson brothers grew up in suburban Hawthorne, California.  Brian, in particular, found refuge in the imaginary teen paradise of the California dream.  Beginning with the Beach Boys' first local success in 1961, Murry took over the management of the group and propelled them to national stardom by securing a contract with Capitol Records the following year.

Their string of hits, beginning with "Surfin' Safari," continued unabated through 1966, with the appearance of Brian's magnum opus, Pet Sounds.  Seconding and carrying to new heights the "Wall of Sound" conceived by Brian's mentor, Phil Spector, the album set standards of writing, performance, and production still unmatched in pop music.  In the formal sense, the album broke new ground as a loose narrative unified thematically with an avalanche of musical effects, discovering Brian's "pet sounds" in everything from string quartets to bicycle bells.  Signalling, in effect, the emotional boundaries of its creator's adulthood, Pet Sounds combined words and music in a manner somehow reminiscent of an earlier epoch of popular music; it expressed the questing, anxious, and uncertain private side of a generation that was beginning to prefer the public exhortations of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.  Paradoxically, while Pet Sounds signified the attainment of a new musical plateau for the group, it also forecast dramatically the end of their popularity.

At the same time, this chapter of the Beach Boys' story is that of Brian's prolonged creative breakdown.  In December 1964, overwhelmed by his professional and family responsibilities, Brian suffered an emotional collapse and began his twelve-year separation from the rest of the band.  He had worked at a backbreaking pace for three years, writing, teaching the group, arranging, and above all producing records (some eight LPs of Beach Boys material for Capitol, four of them in 1964 alone, not to mention a half-dozen "outside" projects.)

Henceforth Brian would be the phantom Beach Boy, nearly always a presence, to one degree or another, in their recorded sound, but no longer a member of the touring band seen by the public.  When, in 1965, Bruce Johnston replaced him on the road, Brian was freed to create recordings that were, and still are, nothing short of astonishing in their imaginative range and daring combinations of timbre, rhythm, and melody.  Brian, inspired by and contributing mightily to the pop explosion of the mid-Sixties, set out to redefine the art of music.  "Good Vibrations," released in the fall of 1966, was to be the Beach Boys' first and only million-selling single and their entry into something new:  the notion, initiated by a fledgeling rock critical establishment, that contemporary pop music could stand as legitimate art.

Encouraged by the worldwide success of the record, Brian put his heart and soul into a new project, a body of work to change forever the standards by which pop music is judged.  After nearly a year of unprecedented experimentation in the studio, the next album, which was to have been titled Smile, sadly disintegrated under the pressures of group bickering, Brian's LSD intake, and a lawsuit against Capitol Records.  Never released, Smile has become perhaps the most celebrated and sought-after "lost" album in rock history and the single most significant turning point in the Beach Boys' career.

In The Beach Boys (Ballantine Books, 1979), Byron Preiss gives the most complete and detailed account of the musical content of Smile.  Such unfinished masterpieces as the breathtaking "Can't Wait Too Long," "Do You Like Worms?" (evoking the temporal span of America from Plymouth Rock to Hanalei), a four-part "Elements"suite of sometimes frightening mimetic power, and a superior, almost beatific rendition of "Wonderful," were recorded but never released.   Other material, released piecemeal over the next six years, provides a captivating listening experience in itself but lacks the cohesion and sometimes the production values implicit in Brian's original concept.  Excepting the handful of fanatics who have managed to obtain bootlegged copies of the abandoned studio tapes, the public could henceforth have only fitful and sporadic glimpses of the musical vistas surveyed by Brian Wilson in 1966.

At the age of twenty-four, Brian now understood the meaning of pop music success.  The golden boy of American music, he had become a commodity in the mass entertainment market; stretched to his limits, he broke.  Unfortunately, Preiss's book seldom dives beneath the surface to assess the tragedy of Smile.  While it remains the book for the Beach Boys aficionado, including song lyrics, dazzling artwork, a wealth of anecdotal material, and an extensive discography, the book deliberately veers away from the shadows darkening the group's career from the Smile era forward.

A more balanced and up-to-date account is provided in John Milward's The Beach Boys' Silver Anniversary (Dolphin-Doubleday, 1985)  Milward's book, while rivaling the lavish graphic production of Preiss's, manages both to simplify-- in the best sense of the word-- and deepen the story of the Beach Boys.  Based almost entirely on secondary sources, the book nevertheless succeeds as no other in communicating the tragedy of the Beach Boys-- in essence, the tragedy latent in the American success story and, in a larger sense, the tragedy of the American family.  Better than anyone else, perhaps, Milward understands the band's mystique and appeal, and he admirably recaptures the romantic mindset of the Beach Boys fan.  Milward also appends a usefully annotated selective discography, and it is this central role reserved for the Beach Boys' music that saves his book from becoming either maudlin or lurid.

Perhaps not so curiously, nearly all who write about the Beach Boys' music have dwelt upon their pre-1970 material at the expense of their later output.  While it would be pointless to deny their failure to match the consistent brilliance of Pet Sounds, Beach Boys records of the 1970s and 1980s, now almost entirely out of print Warner Brothers and Caribou/ CBS releases, without exception have their cosmic moments.  The best of these justify a faith in the transcendent and redemptive power of all great art.  Such miniature miracles as "'Til I Die," "Marcella," "Mt. Vernon & Fairway," "Had to Phone Ya," "Hey, Little Tomboy," "Good Timin'," "Male Ego," and nearly the whole of Sunflower and The Beach Boys Love You can stand comparison with anything else the band has achieved.  Many of the period's highlights were lovingly compiled on the 1981 Caribou collection Ten Years of Harmony, which provides a fitting complement to the double-platinum Capitol repackages Endless Summer and Spirit of America, the albums that reintroduced the classics of their youth to the 1970s.

Yet by all accounts the group responsible for this music's creation was in the worst of times.  Within the past decade and a half, the Beach Boys, individually and collectively, have undergone traumas that, in the final analysis, we would rather not know about in detail.  Unfortunately, the apparent aim of Steven Gaines's Heroes and Villains (NAL, 1986) is to reopen a lot of old wounds, for the book is bound by the sympathy, good taste, and discretion of a National Enquirer piece.  Having done scores of interviews with nearly everyone of significance involved in the Beach Boys' lives and careers, Gaines has chosen to dwell upon the bitter recriminations of ex-lovers, envious former associates, and spiteful relatives and to descend to the level of office gossip.  In musical matters, moreover, Gaines's many errors, both factual and judgmental, lead one to doubt the accuracy and fairness of the rest.  While the book contains much that is of interest and value, it manages, almost in spite of itself, not to shed any real light on the story of the Beach Boys.

As the teenage messiahs of the Sixties, they made it all seem so simple and natural, a life in the fast lane where the only dues one had to pay were broken hearts.  Between the flesh-and-blood debilitations of family strife and the dog-eat-dog carnage of the pop industry, the men from Hawthorne have since made heavy sacrifices, including the life of Dennis Wilson, who drowned ignominiously in Marina Del Rey three days after Christmas, 1983.  Bankruptcies, divorces, and the precipitate turns of the show business world have left deep scars within the surviving Beach Boys.  In particular, Brian's dirty laundry is now public property; his private agony stands in bizarre contrast to the image of the group he helped create in his youth and to his continuing musical invention, as inspired and dignified as always.

For the band as a whole, existence has taken on an almost schizophrenic appearance.  For many years now, their best work has languished in the marketplace, while their scattered entries on the charts have rarely been their best work.  The broad public continues to perceive them as comforting reminders of the heady, hedonistic Sixties.  The group, which once entertained anti-war marches in Washington, has received smiles and blessings from the Reagans and Bushes; the Beach Boys, in reciprocating, have made perhaps the greatest sacrifice of all.

Yet they endure, a great positive in a time fraught with cynicism and peril.  Brian Wilson, at the age of forty-four, appears at the Grammy Awards in Hollywood, the industry's elder statesman, squinting at a teleprompter and stumbling through his lines to award the Best Producer statuette to someone else.  Absent from his eyes now is the almost palpable fear that has clouded his visage in so many photographs.  He looks good now, trimmed down, beardless, and somehow still baby-faced in spite of the battle lines etched in over the years.  He shakes the hand of Jimmy Jam, the new center of attention, and tries to stay off-camera, yet Brian seems to dominate the time and space.  For better or worse, and in no small measure because of Brian and his mates, what was once pejoratively dismissed as "teen music" is now solidly in the pop mainstream of Western culture.  Once-provincial L.A. is now one of the world's great recording capitals, as befits this "Iowa by the beach" where the great American folk myth has at last come of age.

Just to balance this entry, here's my last missive to ESQ, dated September 5, 1997.  At this time, ESQ was edited and published from Charlotte, NC, by Lee Dempsey and David Beard.  Shortly afterward, it was Beard alone, and I was out of the picture.

Subject:  10th anniversary felicitations

Dear Lee & Dave,

As ESQ's tenth anniversary approaches, I share your pride in what has become one of the best fanzines ever, Beach Boys or otherwise.  Ten years ago, of course, this brainchild of Rick Edgil and Phil Nast was hatched in San Diego on a typewriter, a xerox machine, and a prayer.  As it happened, I had sent Rick an article, my first ever about the Beach Boys, in time to become the lead piece in ESQ's maiden issue.   (I still think it was the best one I ever submitted.)  Though I've submitted many since, I never kid myself:  as Rick and Phil found out, it's a lot easier to write for a fanzine than it is to run one.  I still wonder how you two do it, as I marvel at the fact that this is a 'zine that keeps on topping itself.  I have to think that Lee, with all he's invested in the trail of artifacts left by the Boys, must be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy!

Thanks a lot, fellas.  May all the waves you ride be Big Ones.

2021:  A LOOK BACK

FROM THE BEGINNING, ALBUM BY ALBUM

To return to my original topic:  What exactly was it about "Surfing' U.S.A." that made it much more than an imitation of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen"?  It had nothing to do with the new lyrics or the group's "technicolor" vocal arrangement.  The thing to understand is that Brian Wilson's restructuring of the tune placed the climax much closer to the end of the record.

In both tunes, the climax occurs during the instrumental break, with Johnny Johnson's brief piano spot near the middle of the tune, before a final verse.  Brian Wilson split his instrumental break between an energetic organ turn and a guitar solo, almost exactly like Berry himself would have played it, that punts the ball out of the stadium and over the clouds, followed only by a brief vocal tag into a quick fade-out.

How does a twenty-year-old kid like Brian know how to make such a crucial move?  He certainly didn't pick up the knack during his early piano lessons at home.

Upon reflection, it was that little shift in the song's structure that got me to understand that this record, this remarkable vocal performance, was for all time, not simply hitting its lofty sales goal for the spring and summer of 1963, not simply until the current twenty-first century situation of The Beach Boys vis a vis Brian Wilson.  Overall, it achieved that rare status of outlasting the men who created it in the first place and likely to continue living for a very long time ahead of us.

• The Beginning/ The Garage Tapes (Sea of Tunes 2-disc bootleg, 1961-1962)

• Lost and Found (?, 1961-62)

etc...........

BW timeline

A.  LEARNING

after years of vocalizing, co-creates the groups officially

upswing:  he unpacks and repacks the recording process in his own, unmistakeable musical image

IN MY ROTATION:

ANOTHER SHORT WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR, June 8, 2021:

Just the other day, I bought a new used Aiwa 3-CD changer/ dual cassette from a neighbor living just across Cline Avenue, in the Gates of St. John subdivision.  I'm still trying to learn how to operate this bad boy, but I've successfully managed to hear the latest musical acquisitions, in superior sound.

On the downside, however, it must be said that there seems to be no way to connect a turntable to this player/ changer, nor have I much patience for learning the basic procedures of operation, especially where the remote is concerned.

The likelihood is that I shall return to the old Sony unit with its receiver and use it until I finally can't stand it anymore.  I hope only that the Aiwa can outlast me.

Lightly  & Politely

OUR CAR CLUB:

A KINKS KORNUCOPIA

• Muswell Hillbillies (RCA, 197?)/  Everybody's in Show-Biz (RCA, 197?)

• Face to Face (Pye, 1966)/  Lola Versis Powerman & The Moneygoround, Part One (Pye, 1970)

• Gene Ammons, Gentle Jug (Prestige, 196?)

NEXT: Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent

Stop at the Radiant Radish!

NOTE:  The following is a review I wrote for Endless Summer Quarterly, published July 1993.  I've made a few small corrections along the way.

GOOD VIBRATIONS:  30 YEARS OF THE BEACH BOYS

This five-CD boxed set represents the most lavish compilation yet of archival Beach Boys material, but it is of necessity a compromise, an attempt to please both casual fans, who don't wish to purchase the entire range of their album reissues on CD, and dyed-in-the-wool collectors, who are all ears for stuff from their vast store of unreleased recordings.  At about six hours, the Good Vibration box collection runs broad and deep enough to succeed on both counts.  For the non-specialist, it provides the best coverage yet of the absolute cream of the Beach Boys' output, even including some surprises among the parade of hits, such as versions of "Surfin' Safari" and "409" remastered without fadeouts, as they were first heard as demos by the executives at Capitol Records.  All of the early '60s material, moreover, is presented here in mono, which atones somewhat for Capitol's sole inclusion of stereo masters among its album reissue series three years ago.

At the other end of the fan spectrum, over two hours of music previously unreleased, most of it not even in bootleg form, has made its way onto these discs, thanks to David Leaf and all those long-suffering folks who have spent years bugging Capitol to put out something besides yet another mere greatest hits repackage.  My one kick against this set is the fact that it was not released ten years ago, as it could have been with the exception of just two tracks.  While nothing can be done about that, I still have to wonder whether this release will do the band any good; as a long-overdue token of respect for the Boys, it may have indeed arrived too late.

Be that as it may, here are some impressions of the heretofore unreleased material distributed among the five discs.

DISC 1, covering the period 1961-1965, includes a judicious and revealing selection from the group's heyday.  The program violates chronology somewhat by kicking of with Brian's 1963 demo of "Surfin' USA, accompanying himself on piano.  (It has been written that Brian performed this tune in much the same manner for Jan Berry, who begged him to let Jan & Dean record it.  Instead, Brian gave Jan "Surf City" to play around with.)  The demo differs from the hit record a little in its lyrics and, more importantly, in the absence of the crucial instrumental break, but the unreleased blues instrumental "Punchline," included on this disc, was compressed into a single 12-bar chorus and inserted before the tag on "Surfin' USA" to build the perfect climax and release, that uncanny sense of form that is present on all the great Beach Boys records.

From about the same time comes a fragment of another demo, the ballad "Little Surfer Girl," a little more developed in its instrumentation but too tantalizingly brief to gain much of an impression of the complete song.  Then the program jumps back to the beginning with part of a living-room rehearsal of "Surfin'" done in September 1961, an  a cappella  rendition that apparently predates even the Hite Morgan audition included on the Lost and Found CD.  This song, too, was to undergo some important formal changes, straightening out the awkward rhythm at the end of the chorus.  Some of the chatter at the beginning shows another of the group's hallmarks:  bickering with each other.

One of the nicest surprises in this collection is the inclusion of the version of "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" tacked on to the 1962 demo tape that signed the Beach Boys to Capitol Records, again underlining both the skill of the group in handling complex vocal arrangements and their vast debt to the Four Freshmen.  As an added treat, the booklet included with this release shows the tape box which contained the original reel of these demos:  listed, in addition to "Their Hearts," are two versions of "Surf & Safari" (is one of them an alternate take? a stereo master?), "Lonely Sea," and "Four-oh-nine." Apparently, "Their Hearts" was thrown in as an afterthought, with manager Murry Wilson at its conclusion, bragging about his boys to Nick Venet at Capitol.

"Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" (1980, Washington DC)

Further along in the Freshmen mode, Disc 1 offers several delightful radio spots and the previously unreleased "Things We Did Last Summer," a Jules Styne-Sammy Cahn evergreen arranged and conducted by Dick Reynolds for a television performance in 1963.  (It is not generally known among Beach Boys fans the degree to which Reynolds contributed to the success of the Four Freshmen, providing not only orchestrations, but also vocal arrangements for many of their best-known recordings.) It may very well be that Reynolds, uncredited, did the vocal charts for the Beach Boys in this particular project.

The final track on the first disc features "Hushabye," the beginning of a selection of outtakes from the 1964 Beach Boys Concert album, with the rest ("Surfin' USA,""Surfer Girl," and "Be True to Your School")  oddly presented on the final disc.  However, the greatest surprise, which almost got by me completely, is the unlisted appearance at the very end of a scratchy acetate recording of a multi-tracked Brian Wilson singing "Happy Birthday" to the Freshmen, done in the Freshmen's style, of course.  Unlike everything else in this set, it sounds as if it could have been recorded in a do-it-yourself booth.  But what a gas to end the disc on this note!

On DISC 2, the set moves into the territory bounded by "California Girls" (1965) and "With Me Tonight" (1967), a short slice of time that showcases Brian's phenomenal artistic growth.  Before getting to the meat of things, we hear "Ruby Baby," an outtake from the Party! album, replete with harmony riff and "oink-oink" chorus.  Another radio spot brings us to a selection of seven tunes from Pet Sounds.  (Here the casual fan loses out somewhat:  more than any other Beach Boys' album, this one suffers from not being heard in its entirety.)  Appended to this is a "new" version of "Hang On to Your Ego," with Mike (believe it!) leading off and an entirely fresh backing vocal on the chorus.

The disc (and the set, for my money) comes to its climax with the long-awaited release of Smile-- well, sort of.  In the first place, it should be apparent by now that there is not, nor can there ever be, a definitive issue of the Beach Boys' lost masterpiece, the making of which involved more than sixty sessions spread over eight months, not including the making of the smash single "Good Vibrations."   What eluded Brian in the end was the selection and sequencing of the music to match the broad sweep of his conception, precisely the problem of this box set's compilers.

Still, it would be hard to improve upon the logical presentation offered here.  "Our Prayer," unadorned by the overdubs that graced the 20/ 20 version, leads off the set as a short, spiritual introduction before we plunge into the great American saga with "Heroes and Villains" (identical to the version ("At threescore and five, I'm very much alive") first released as a bonus track on the Smiley Smile/ Wild Honey CD).  This is followed by a "Sections" episode, likely from the "Bag of Tricks" tape reel pictured in the  booklet, which kicks off with a thrilling rendition of "Bicycle Rider" and continues into a series of chants and variations on the theme.  The closing verses are identical to what has been erroneously named "Barnyard."  Then spirituality returns with "Wonderful" (how wonderful to hear this version in release at last!) and coalesces brilliantly with the homespun Americana suite "Cabinessence," in its 20/ 20 guise.

Most of the remaining Smile tracks are arranged to simulate the "Elements' suite proposed originally, but inexplicably "Fire" (aka "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow") is not included-- really a pity, because it would have given a sense of completeness to the whole thing.  Having not come up with anything else to serve as "Air," the set makes do with the sparkling, marimba-clad "Wind Chimes," dropping off unexpectedly into a riff that would later be used on "Can't Wait Too Long."  The "Heroes and Villains" motif is reintroduced with a marvelous cacophony, before dissolving into the harpsichord theme that would become "Cool, Cool Water" is next.  "Surf's Up," featuring Brian accompanying himself on piano, provides the perfect finale.

While not all of Smile has surfaced, within the limitations I've noted, it's fair to say that the long-lost album is finally available to us all, like the Children of Israel receiving the Ten Commandments.  I feel confident that Smile one day will receive the attention and recognition it deserves.

Can't Wait Too Long"


"H.E.L.P. Is On The Way"

DISC 3 surveys the territory between 1967 and 1971 with selections from the last Capitol albums and the early releases on Warner Bros/ Brother Records.  A handful of novelties stud this segment, including a short version of "Can't Wait Too Long."  This variant contains studio chatter in which Brian can be heard running down the lyrics of an entire verse, and the concluding segment is in stereo, with Carl's lead vocal isolated on one channel.  "Cool, Cool Water" is presented in a version originally slated for Wild Honey; it comprises the "Love to Say Da Da" theme only and lacks the super production values accorded the expanded version on Sunflower.  From the 20/ 20/ Sunflower  cusp, we get the first releases of "Games People Play," "I Just Got My Pay," and "H.E.L.P." (which ends with Brian's invitation to visit the Radiant Radish, his health food store in L.A.)   In addition there is "Fourth of July."  Composed by Dennis with Jack Rieley's lyrics, it seems to reflect the contemporary furor surrounding the government's attempt to prevent publication of the Pentagon Papers.  The Boys were never particularly convincing as social prophets-- at least not since the recorded "Pom Pom Play Girl," and this tune sinks under the ponderous weight of its message.

DISC 4 might be considered the set's biggest weakness; attempting to cover the seventeen years between "Sail On Sailor" and "Kokomo," almost twice the span of the first three discs combined,  it barely manages to skim the highlights.  While the music of the '60s must predominate in a set like this, one cannot help but feel that the Beach Boys' output from the '70s and'80s has been slighted.  Unreleased material gets especially short shrift here, consisting of four tracks only, all from the mid-'70s:  a delightfully remastered "Fairy Tale Music" suite from Holland, crystal clear without Rieley's voice-over narration; "It's Over Now" and "Still I Dream of It," a pair of lovely, Dick Reynolds-arranged ballads from Brian's unreleased Adult Child; and "Our Team," an outtake from the M.I.U. Album enhanced by the presence of Marilyn Wilson and Diane Rovell.  But many gems equally worthy have been bypassed to make room for album cuts that sometimes seem mediocre in comparison.

A more thorough treatment of these years will have to await another release down the line.  Many fans, I'm sure, would be gratified to hear the original version of "Sail On Sailor" with Brian's lead vocal, or Dennis in concert performing the beautiful "Barbara," or Al's fanciful production of "Loop De Loop."  The rare 1974 single "Child of Winter" has yet to appear on CD, and many of its companion songs from the abortive second Christmas album a few years later deserve hearing, for they show the continuing vitality and creativity of the Beach Boys at a time when they operated on the margins of a pop culture grown repetitious and stultifying.

As if to make amends, DISC 5 compiles over an hour of odds and ends with the avid collector in mind.  Indeed, some of it seems to have been created specifically for inclusion in this release, such as the stereo versions which completely separate the vocal tracks from the instruments.  These, added to the backing tracks for I Get Around," "Dance, Dance, Dance,"  "Good Vibrations," "Heroes and Villains," "Surf's Up," and "Cabinessence," enable one to assemble a truly formidable extension of the 1968 Stack-O-Tracks release.

Besides these curiosities, the disc includes the demo for "In My Room," quite different in texture from the finished record, and lengthy excerpts from studio sessions for Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations."  The "God Only Knows" segment is particularly welcome, because it culminates with an alternate version with Brian singing lead and a completely unexpected, thrilling tag, done a cappella.  Although I must admit my preference for the originally released version, how difficult it must have been to reject this one!

The remaining tracks are all live in concert recordings or rehearsals.  In addition to the 1964 titles already mentioned, there is the first public performance of "Good Vibrations" at Michigan State University in October, 1966, and a rehearsal of a newly-arranged "Surfer Girl" in Hawaii, 1967.  Can a Lei'd in Hawaii CD be in the offing?

All in all, Beach Boys fans have not received a treat like this in recent memory.  As their new releases in the '90s grow ever more formulaic and uninspired, it's nice to know that Capitol Records has awakened to the potential of their vast catalogue of unreleased performances, both in and out of the studio.  After more than twenty years of questionable releases and ill-conceived reissues, maybe there is yet reason to hope for something better.

IN MY ROTATION:

• Fred Neil, Bleecker &MacDougal (Elektra, 1965)

Except for Neil's album with Vince Martin, Tear Down the Walls, this is his first album under his own name.  It's an all-acoustic set with Neil and Pete Childs on guitar, John Sebastian on harmonica, and either Felix Pappalardi or Douglas H'atelid on bass.  All tunes but one were penned by Neil, the exception being "Water Is Wide," which to me is the album's centerpiece.  The tracks also include the title tune, the famous "Other Side to This Life," "Little Bit of Rain" (which became the title of an LP reissue), "Travelin' Shoes," "Yonder Comes the Blues" ("dressed in high-heel shoes"), the languorous "Handful of Gimme" ("... and a mouthful of much obliged"), "Gone Again," and a song covered by Roy Orbison, "Candy Man."  This album is perhaps not Neil's best, but it's nonetheless excellent, especially considering how thin his discography is.

LIGHTLY & POLITELY

• Bud Powell, Jazz at Massey Hall-Vol, 2(Debut/ OJC, 1953)

• Bud Powell, The Classic Recordings, 1949-1956; The Classic Recordings, 1957-1959 (Enlightenment, 2016 release)

For beginners and devotees alike, these two sets are a bonanza, sixteen Powell albums on eight CDs covering more than a decade of his recording career.   Apart from my usual complaints against Enlightenment sets, no session dates or personnel-- in these collections, no label information, either-- something is problematic about order of presentation, by album release dates rather than session dates.  The first set, indeed, encompasses recordings from 1949, but they appear on Disc 2 instead of at the beginning.  Powell's very first recordings under his own name date from 1947, but you won't hear it until the first disc of the second set.

The Blue Note sides collected in the first set (The Amazing Bud Powell, Volumes 1 and 2) present a particular problem, in that when they were first compiled on ten-inch, and later twelve-inch vinyl LPs,  they threw together music recorded in three separate sessions from 1949, 1951, and 1953, with differing personnel.  Much better here to have the Blue Note CD reissues, which organize the material in a more logical way.

For material originating from the mid-'50s forward, there is no such problem, as it was released at the time it was recorded; so the first set begins with music recorded in 1956, and continues in this way for all but Disc 2 to the end of the first set of four CDs.  Likewise, except for the first disc in the second set (released on the Roulette label as Bud Powell Trio), the music is presented in the order it was recorded, up through 1959.  The other music in the set first appeared, except for two albums on RCA, on the Blue Note and Norman Grand's Mercury, Norgran, and Verve labels.

The biggest gaffe, however, appears on the 1949-56 set, at the beginning of Disc 4, we hear the all-star quintet (Bird, Diz, Bud, Mingus, Max) portion of the 1953 Toronto concert, instead of the essential Bud Powell trio set that preceded it.

Exceptional value, though.  I wish these collections had been available forty years ago.

• John Lewis, The Wonderful World of Jazz/ A Milanese Story (Atlantic, 1960, 1961)

OUR CAR CLUB

• The Kinks Live at the Riviera Theater, Chicago (WXRT broadcast, March 1987)

NEXT:  An old Beach Boys piece for ESQ