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Smiley Smile/Wild Honey
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SMILEY SMILE / WILD HONEY
The Smile That You Send Out Returns To You
– Indian Wisdom
The fall of 1966 was truly a remarkable time for the Beach Boys. “Good Vibrations” was a worldwide sensation and their concert tours (particularly in England) were becoming major events. When the Beach Boys arrived in London in November, 1966, the reaction was positively Beatlemaniacal. As one English newspaper headline trumpeted, “The Beatles’ only real rivals come to Britain and take London airport by surprise.”
Back in Beverly Hills, at Brian’s Laurel Way home, the most creative minds in the record business sought to associate themselves with Brian, inspired by the opportunity…the possibility that Brian could make anything happen just by sheer force of creativity.
Nothing was unthinkable in Brian’s world in 1966. Predating the Beatles’ Apple Records by a year, hotshot record industry executive David Anderle was formulating Brother Records, the Beach Boys’ own label. Other experts were planning to use the Beach Boys’ image to create a recreation company that would trade on their youthful appeal.
Brian, meanwhile, was busily spinning off ideas for albums – an exercise disk, an LP of just water sounds, and most importantly, a record filled with humor. It was that record…the follow-up to Pet Sounds and “Good Vibrations”…on which Brian focused his effort throughout the fall of 1966 and well into 1967.
Tentatively titled Dumb Angel and then renamed Smile, the next Beach Boys album was to be a reflection of Brian’s belief in the healing powers of laughter. Smile…conceived on the heels of “Good Vibrations,” the benchmark in the use of the studio as the ultimate instrument…was to be the next step in the evolution of record production.
In October of ‘66, the week before “Good Vibrations” came out, Brian was quoted as saying, “Our next album will be better than Pet Sounds. It will be as much an improvement over Sounds as that was over Summer Days.”
The news from the studio was obviously promising, and with “Good Vibrations” topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, Capitol, anticipating a huge Christmas present from the Beach Boys, optimistically scheduled Smile for release in December of 1966.
The rock press (notably Crawdaddy founder Paul Williams) flocked to L.A. to hear what Brian was doing. Jules Siegel was dispatched from the Saturday Evening Post to write a story about Brian. CBS-TV sent a film crew for a rock documentary. Advertisements were taken out, front and back album covers were printed and a booklet was created to visually interpret the brilliant and complex lyrics of Van Dyke Parks, Brian’s exceptionally talented collaborator.
But while Wilson and Parks worked feverishly on what turned out to be more than an album’s worth of music, Brian’s obsessive devotion to “perfection” made that December date impossible. Creating an entire record full of music in the fragmentary recording style that he had used to build “Good Vibrations” was an exhausting undertaking, and it couldn’t be done on deadline. In 1966, LPs, even by major groups, were recorded in a few months, but Smile wasn’t a typical album.
Brian continued to record more music; at the same time, he was constantly rearranging pieces of the Smile puzzle. And, as Brian started to focus on “Heroes And Villains,” it was becoming clear that nobody, including Brian, knew when he would finish Smile.
As 1966 ended, the Beach Boys returned from England, literally on top of the music world. In December, they edged out the Beatles as the top vocal group in a year-end fan poll conducted by New Musical Express, a major British rock magazine.
It might have been at this point – when he tried to “explain” Smile to the Beach Boys – that Brian started to lose his confidence and creative momentum. Nevertheless, in early 1967, even as pressure mounted for Brian to finish Smile, recording proceeded at a prolific pace.
But what had begun as an exciting creative adventure was becoming an unhappy time for the participants; Brian’s key relationships…with the Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks and David Anderle…were beginning to deteriorate. Perhaps the burden of being both an artist and a benefactor for so many people were becoming too much for him to bear.
However, judging from the amount of time spent in the studio, whatever personal obstacles existed seemed to only slow down the work. Possibly much more damaging to Brian’s creative energy was that in March of ‘67, the Beach Boys sued Capitol Records (a royalty dispute).
Naturally, communication between the Beach Boys and Capitol became extremely strained. Because of that, the possibility now existed that should Smile be completed, the Beach Boys…as leverage in their lawsuit with Capitol…might choose not to deliver Smile to Capitol. Maybe even scarier was the possibility that even if Smile were submitted, Capitol might decide not to release it. For several weeks, no recording took place. (Sometime in the early spring, Brian’s Smile collaborator, Van Dyke Parks…finding himself in the untenable position of defending his lyrics…left the project.)
At a point in rock music history when it was vital to be “first” with the “new” sound, work on Smile ground to a halt. Critical weeks slipped by without progress. Those delays would prove to be fatal for Smile.
In that litigious and increasingly paranoid climate, Capitol postponed the release date for Smile. A warehouse full of covers and booklets began collecting dust, waiting for vinyl. Ultimately, Capitol would have to cancel the album when in May of 1967, Brian…much to everybody’s dismay, abandoned Smile, unfinished.
The timing of that decision…only weeks before the release of the Beatles’ production masterwork, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…was hardly coincidental. Instinctively, Brian must have known that time had run out, that he’d “lost” his self-defined “production race” with the Beatles…a battle that, prior to Christmas of 1966, Brian seemed to have “in the bag.”
Given the rapidly exploding cultural revolution sweeping through the rock audience, the Beach Boys’ image would soon be unfairly perceived as undeniably unhip. So even if Smile was musically a step ahead of the Beatles (the rock aristocracy who heard Smile at the time said it was incredible), there was reason to be concerned that nobody would pay serious attention to it because it came from the Beach Boys. Unfortunately, nobody got the chance.
Media master Derek Taylor (the former and future Beatles’ publicist who had begun working for the Beach Boys) let it slip in his May 6, 1967 column that the much talked about Smile album would not be coming out. Taylor wrote, “every beautifully-designed, finely-wrought, inspirationally-welded piece of music made these last months by Brian…has been scrapped.”
In the twenty-three years since Smile died and became the most famous unreleased album in rock history, much has been written about this period in the Beach Boys’ life. The story of Smile has been well documented elsewhere. (Seek out California music historian Domenic Priore’s classic book, Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile!)
However, it should also be noted that along with the demise of Smile, Brian lost his new friends, his expanding world and his drive to aesthetically improve his work, to continually top himself. What the loss of Smile meant to Brian personally and in artistic terms to the Beach Boys’ career is incalculable.
While we will never hear the Smile album in its entirety as it was conceived in 1966, it doesn’t take much imagination to know that it would have been a masterpiece. The song line-up – which included “Good Vibrations,” “Heroes And Villains,” “Wonderful,” “Cabin Essence,” “VegaTables,” and “Surf’s Up” – was a guarantee of greatness. The released versions of these songs, even though some of them were never completely produced, are all you need to hear to believe that Smile wasn’t just the product of the burgeoning rock media’s overactive imagination.
Describing what Smile would have been and then comparing it to Smiley Smile is unfair. No record could make up for the disappointment that music fans felt when Smiley Smile was released. Expectations had been raised then dashed by the non-appearance of Smile, and Smiley Smile, its titular and musical substitute, was cruelly criticized as Smile’s unwelcome replacement. Probably nothing more need be noted than Carl Wilson’s perfect baseball analogy. Carl: “Smiley Smile was a bunt instead of a grand slam.”
Nearly a quarter century later, it may be hard to understand how an album that included “Heroes And Villains” and “Good Vibrations” could have been considered anything but great…could have been anything other than a hit…but by the time Smiley Smile was released in September of 1967, the Beach Boys had become cultural dinosaurs. And it happened almost overnight.
When Smiley Smile came out in September of 1967, the era of LSD, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury and the mass media’s “Summer of Love” was in full swing. Despite Carl Wilson, when he was drafted, having bravely declared himself a “Conscientious Objector” against the Vietnam War, the Beach Boys were starting to be perceived as major squares…one of the reasons the group cancelled their scheduled headlining appearance at June’s landmark Monterey Pop Festival. (Monterey happened through the support of rock’s braintrust – i.e. John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas, Lou Adler, Andrew Oldham, etc. Brian had been on Monterey’s Board of Governors, an indication of his status in the rock world. Ironically, it was at Monterey that the Beach Boys’ Southern California sun-drenched hedonism was ceremoniously replaced by Northern California’s anti-materialistic, acid-spiked search for “self” and preoccupation with self-expression.)
There were other contributing factors to the Beach Boys pull out from Monterey. The Beach Boys’ appearance at Monterey didn’t make sense in light of the fact that work on Smile had ended. Monterey was a gathering place for the “far out” sounds of the “new” rock, and the Beach Boys in concert really had no exotic sounds (excepting “Good Vibrations”) to display.
The net result of all this internal and external turmoil was that the Beach Boys didn’t go to Monterey, and it is thought that this non-appearance was what really turned the “underground” tide against them. (However, it could also be argued that if the Beach Boys had shown up and performed their standard show of the day, the “stoned” audience would have laughed the group off the stage.)
Whatever the reason, the Beach Boys weren’t at Monterey, the dawn of the new age of rock as cultural expression of disenfranchised middle class youth. The 1967 opening of San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium as a rock mecca and the ascendancy of the underground rock press (with S.F.-based Rolling Stone replacing L.A. teen mags like Hit Parader) contributed to the shift that decreed the Beach Boys were now passé.
Beach Boys historian Peter Reum believes “Rolling Stone’s condemnation of the Beach Boys was not so much directed at the group and its music. More, it was typical of San Francisco’s mindset in their one-sided battle with Los Angeles for top California city. Rolling Stone found it necessary – especially in light of the fact that the Byrds, the Doors and the Beach Boys were L.A. bands – to reinforce San Francisco’s place as California’s real center of rock music. Ironically, many of the great San Francisco groups, like the Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, recorded their best albums in L.A.”
Nevertheless, truth often gets lost in confrontational times, and at a point in American history when according to the rhetoric of the day, you were “either part of the problem or part of the solution,” and teens were told “don’t trust anybody over thirty,” the Beach Boys’ sweet harmonies were rejected as representative of the old guard. It was as if the Beach Boys had been declared uncool, put on some sort of “unhip” blacklist and exiled to five years of eking out a living touring college gyms and barn-like county centers. As Bruce Johnston recalls, the Beach Boys were viewed as “surfing Doris Days.”
It was into that almost revolutionary vortex of 1967 that Smiley Smile was sent forth, an unwanted soldier in the psychedelic rock wars, sentenced to death by critical firing squad.
And while part of the blame for the record’s bombing was cultural, the content also has to shoulder its fair share. Very simply, Smiley Smile was the first Beach Boys album that was significantly inferior to its predecessor.
A clear line of musical progression could be charted from Surfin’ Safari to Pet Sounds. Smiley Smile, the tenth studio album (not including Christmas and Party) came out of nowhere. It had no antecedents; nothing could have prepared listeners for this record, particularly in light of the pre-Smile noise that had set everybody up for the greatest album ever recorded.
Worse, if the nearly ten month wait between the #1 chart-topping, million-selling “Good Vibrations” and its truncated follow-up, “Heroes And Villains,” had dispatched the group’s momentum, Smiley Smile almost brought their career to a dead stop.
Listening to it nowadays, it’s not hard to understand why. Very simply, with the exception of the two hit singles, Smiley Smile doesn’t sound like a Beach Boys album.
There’s a good reason for that.
In mid-1967, when Brian Wilson called a halt to the Smile sessions, he decided that no longer would the credit “Produced by Brian Wilson” grace Beach Boys records like a benediction from above. Instead, the more democratic “Produced by the Beach Boys” would formalize the fact that after five years of hard work, Brian Wilson would not or could not take complete responsibility for the group’s studio work. (An historical aside: The “Good Vibrations” single had the credit “Produced by Brian Wilson.”) The result of Brian’s abdication, at a time when none of the other Beach Boys was prepared to assume his role, was Smiley Smile, an album of Smile bits and pieces, remnants and remakes.
Domenic Priore writes that “even though the world sorely missed Smile, Smiley Smile is not without merit…like the a cappella vocals that are akin to the late ‘50s vocal groups. In a lot of ways, we’re lucky to have a Beach Boys album like Smiley Smile. Actually, the reason most people didn’t care for Smiley Smile is that it came out in place of Smile.”
Nevertheless, for the Beach Boys, Smiley Smile was the beginning of their march through the desert. And even though their overseas popularity would not be diminished throughout the remainder of the decade, there was no getting around the fact that at home, the Beach Boys, a decade away from becoming “America’s Band,” were outcasts.
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TRACK-BY-TRACK
“Heroes And Villains”
Lead Vocal: Brian
Highest Chart Position: #12
“Heroes And Villains” was originally created as both the centerpiece of the Smile album and the melodic thread that tied the entire record together. In the Beach Boys archives, there are literally dozens of musical snippets (with titles like “Bag Of Trick”) of the basic musical themes, recorded in many different styles. At one point in January 1967, “Heroes And Villains” was finished, and engineer Chuck Britz recalls mixing “Heroes And Villains, Part 1” and “Heroes And Villains, Part 2” for a planned 45 release. (An historical aside: For some still unexplained reason, that version was never released. While reference “dubs” made of the completed “Heroes And Villains” reportedly survive, a copy could not be located for this CD.)
At Brian’s insistence, “Heroes And Villains” was re-recorded for Smiley Smile at a hastily set up “studio” at his new Bel-Air home. (Because there was no echo chamber, microphones and speakers were placed in the emptied out swimming pool.)
As Al Jardine recalls, “We recorded a pale facsimile of ‘Heroes And Villains,’ replete with discordant transitions…Brian re-invented the song for this record…He purposefully under-produced the song.”
Finally, “Heroes And Villains” was mixed, which was exactly the reception it received upon release in July of 1967. “Heroes And Villains,” the long overdue follow-up to “Good Vibrations”…ballyhooed as the most eagerly anticipated single release of 1967…was lost amidst the San Francisco explosion of that summer. As Al Jardine points out, “it was lost because Brian wanted it to be lost. He was no longer interested in pursuing number one…Nobody felt it more painfully than us.”
Despite the fact that this version of “Heroes And Villains” is one of the most famous “might have beens” in rock history (no record could have lived up to the advance billing “Heroes…” got), and an example of the lost promise of Smile, it’s still a truly great track. Listen to how the various sections of music are stitched together to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. A sensational melody, incredible vocals and terrifically clever Van Dyke Parks lyrics makes “Heroes And Villains” the best individual track the Beach Boys released in 1967.
It also contains what may have been some of the most complex harmonies anybody has ever put on record. One of the biggest problems for Smiley Smile was the fact that almost nothing on the rest of this album (except “Good Vibrations,” which was recorded in 1966) has comparable vocals.
In a review of “Heroes And Villains,” Jimi Hendrix wrote, “Don’t particularly like the Beach Boys. Makes me think of a psychedelic barbershop quartet.” A more positive critic pointed out that the “arrangement encompasses barbershop harmony and jazz.” Regardless of what you call it, “Heroes And Villains” was easily the best thing recorded for Smiley Smile.
Historical Update: On Brian Wilson’s acclaimed 1988 solo album, there is a suite titled “Rio Grande” which displays the kind of musical and lyrical coherence that Brian intended to bring to the longer version of “Heroes And Villains.” “Rio Grande” is proof positive that Brian can still call on that undefined energy source whenever he chooses to.
“Vegetables”
Lead Vocal: Al
This song, which features the Beach Boys and Paul McCartney munching on raw veggies for percussion, is one of the five songs on Smiley Smile which were listed on the semi-official Smile track line-up (“Good Vibrations,” “Heroes And Villains,” “Wind Chimes” and “Wonderful” are the others). It appears here in drastically different form.
Those who first heard this album in 1967 recall that the first four bars of “Vegetables” was the initial indication that Brian had given up the race to be the greatest producer in rock. With just a repeating bass and a jug (pouring juice as an effect), “Vegetables,” as it was released, marked the end of Brian Wilson’s reign as the “leader of the studio pack.”
Of course, others felt that this track represented the beginning of Brian’s minimalist period and were blown away by Smiley Smile’s dry, trippy vocals, sparse production and incredible melodies…feeling that once again, as Brian had done on Pet Sounds, he was charting new territory.
Whether it was because he was “burned out,” disinterested or now truly believed that less production was better, the result once more sent the Beach Boys in a brave albeit uncommercial new direction. And, as Peter Reum notes, “it should be pointed out that Brian, even when he wasn’t trying to be, was incredibly influential. Many musicians, notably Robbie Robertson of the Band and Pete Townshend of the Who, were inspired by Smiley Smile and Wild Honey.”
Historical Note: Al Jardine: “The night before a big tour, I was out in the studio recording the vocal (for “Vegetables”), when, to my surprise, Paul McCartney walked in and joined Brian at the console. And, briefly, the two most influential musical Geminis in the world had a chance to work together.
“I remember waiting for long periods of time between takes to get to the next section or verse. Brian (seemed to have) lost track of the session. Paul would come on the talkback and say something like, ‘Good take, Al.’ Later, while I stayed in the booth listening to (my vocal work on) ‘Vegetables,’ Paul played the spectacular ‘A Day In The Life’ (from the as yet unreleased Sgt. Pepper LP). I’ll always regret (missing) that.”
Historical Notes: 1) From the “I know that you’ll feel better” section to the end, the Beach Boys used a piece of the Smile version of “Vegetables.” 2) Brian’s outward concern with health was an obsession during the Smile era. (On one studio outtake circa 1967, he goes on for ten minutes about the dangers of smog.) The song “I’m In Great Shape” was slated to be on Smile. (It’s never been heard publicly and no tape of it could be found in the vaults.) Brian was planning to do a complete album on physical fitness. It was never recorded.
“Fall Breaks And Back To Winter”
(W. Woodpecker Symphony)
Considering the sophistication of instrumental arrangements that Brian had assembled for Smile (and previous works), “Fall Breaks…” might have seemed like a real letdown. But Brian considered this a very “arty” piece of work and an example of the fact that he did not abandon art music when he chose not to release Smile. Taken out of the Smile context, it really does have its moments, like the bizarre “woodpecking” percussion, the use of the squeeze box (playing the “Woody Woodpecker” theme) and the extremely subtle, haunting Beach Boys vocals.
Production Note: The bass line for “Fall Breaks…” is similar to the bass line from the Smile piece, “Fire.” The basic track for “Fire” has never been released on record, but it can be found on the home video, “The Beach Boys: An American Band.”
“She’s Goin’ Bald”
Lead Vocal: Mike
One of the reasons Brian has been hailed as a master in the studio was that he could get certain effects with ingenious arrangements. In this case, however, it was by actually speeding up the tape (on the “what a blow” section that is a goofy take-off on “Get A Job”) that he makes it sound like the Beach Boys were inhaling nitrous oxide.
Note: An earlier version of this song had a completely different lyric about a speechmaking businessman.
“Little Pad”
Lead Vocal: Carl and Brian
It’s been said that much of this album was recorded “under the influence,” and nowhere is that more pronounced than on the laughing verse of this cut.
While the song itself is relatively slight, it does feature very nice vocals and probably the most beautiful harmonic humming we’re ever likely to hear.
“Good Vibrations”
Lead Vocal: Carl (with Mike)
Nothing but perfection here. The Beach Boys’ first million-selling, #1 hit (at one point, it reportedly sold 293,000 copies in four days, with an additional 100,000 back ordered) was a major technical breakthrough…the record that showed anything was possible in the studio. The first track of “Good Vibrations” was recorded 2/18/66; the very first take is part of a bonus track on this CD. Brian worked on it several times during the Pet Sounds sessions. However, it wasn’t until Pet Sounds was completed that he turned his total attention to “Good Vibrations.”
“Good Vibrations” was what Brian called “a pocket symphony.” Listen to the way that Brian brazenly spliced together the different sections. Brian: “There was a lot of ‘Oh, you can’t do this, that’s too modern,’ or ‘That’s going to be too long a record.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not going to be too long; it’s going to be just right.’”
Within the three minutes and thirty-five seconds of “Good Vibrations,” Brian explains, there were “a lot of riff changes. It had a lot of movements…changes, changes, changes. Building harmonies here, drop this voice out, this comes in, bring the echo chamber in, do this, put the Theremin there, bring the cello up a little louder here…a series of intricate harmonies and mood changes…I mean, it was a real production. The biggest production of our life.”
Among all the other innovations that Brian inaugurated with this recording, the cellos (playing triplets) as a rock ‘n’ roll rhythm instrument was probably the most revelatory and revolutionary.
As for the Theremin, which Brian had already used (appropriately on Pet Sounds’ “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”), engineer Chuck Britz remembers, “Brian brought this thing (the Theremin) in and I went out and looked at it ‘cause it had nothing but two little arcs sticking up with a vibrator going in between. And he played it for me. I couldn’t believe that he would use it because it was strictly a thing that had been used years before [it was probably introduced in the film classic, “Spellbound.”] (But) he was into sound, he was definitely into sounds. So we just started doing it, and it worked out beautifully. I really couldn’t believe it would work like that.”
Brian recalls the night, after months of sessions, that “Good Vibrations” was finally done. Brian: “It was at Columbia [Studios]. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix down to mono. It was a feeling of power; it was a rush. A feeling of exhilaration. Artistic beauty. It was everything…I remember saying, ‘Oh my God, sit back and listen to this!’”
Historical Notes: 1) In 1967, “Good Vibrations” was nominated for three Grammy Awards. However, the recording academy’s conservative membership overlooked it and other worthy rock nominees, inconceivably giving “Winchester Cathedral” the award for “Best Contemporary Rock ‘n’ Roll Recording.” And even though “Good Vibrations” did receive numerous other honors, it’s unfortunate that to this day, Brian and the Beach Boys’ records have never been properly recognized by NARAS.
“With Me Tonight”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Probably the best of the non-official Smile tunes on the LP, the intro of this track exemplifies what one writer called Smiley Smile’s “do it yourself acid casualty doo-wop music.”
Domenic Priore: “‘With Me Tonight’ (under the title ‘On And On She Goes’), later received a full-blown, upbeat rock treatment by Sandy Salisbury, but the charm of the lyrics remain captured best in the more subtle mood of the Beach Boys’ version.”
Peter Reum: “The intro of ‘With Me Tonight’ was originally recorded as a vocal chant; later, it was expanded into a song for Smiley Smile.”
“Wind Chimes”
Lead Vocals: Group
On this cut and “Wonderful,” we feel the loss of Smile because while the released versions are very nice, the Smile takes are something else completely, something much more original and powerful.
Nonetheless, “Wind Chimes” survives as a beautiful song full of terrific singing by the Beach Boys, especially the Wilson brothers. Although there is an eerie, disturbing, almost malevolent feeling to the high harmonies that precede the “tingling” fade, the tag (turn up the volume) has gorgeous “Gregorian-chant”-like harmony singing.
“Gettin’ Hungry”
Lead Vocal: Brian and Mike
“Gettin’ Hungry” is a nice little rocker that probably more than anything, foreshadowed what was to come on Wild Honey. The musical highlights of the track are the percolating percussion and when Brian hits the falsetto “my kind of woman.”
Historical Note: “Gettin’ Hungry” was the second and last single released on the original Brother Records label. It was curiously credited not to the Beach Boys, but to “Brian and Mike.”
“Wonderful”
Lead Vocal: Carl
In the Beach Boys’ vaults, there is a version of this song that features Brian at the harpsichord. It is heartbreakingly beautiful. Even as released, it’s a terrific song, and as you listen to the melody and the skilled lyrics, you can only begin to imagine what this would have sounded like fully produced. Nonetheless, Carl turns in a very touching vocal, and this is one of the best cuts on the record.
The bizarre laughing interlude (kind of a higher Beach Boys’ Party!) was an extremely unusual idea, even for 1967.
“Whistle In”
Lead Vocal: Carl (with Mike)
“Whistle In” is a chant in its repeating refrain, similar to “You’re Welcome” and “Mama Says.” Brian, by this time, was recording musical ideas on tape, the way a lot of authors write in journals. This piece was almost like a daily entry in his diary.
Historical Note: A version of this was recorded on 1/27/67, the same day as the “Cantina” section of “Heroes And Villains.” It’s possible that at one point, “Whistle In” was part of “Heroes And Villains.”
Production Note: With the exception of “Good Vibrations,” most of “Heroes And Villains” and part of “Vegetables,” Smiley Smile was recorded in a makeshift studio hastily assembled in the quietly classy L.A. neighborhood of Bel-Air. When Brian said he wouldn’t go to the studio, they “moved the mountain to Mohammed” and built a studio in his living room.
Historical Note: Smiley Smile, which only reached #41 on the LP charts, ended a streak of six straight top ten albums and was the lowest charting Beach Boys disc since their first long-player, 1962’s Surfin’ Safari. Smiley Smile also spent only an anemic 21 weeks in the charts.
That statistical performance was bad enough. But as an indication of how far out of favor the Beach Boys were to fall, Smiley Smile “enjoyed” the longest chart stay of any Beach Boys album until 1973’s Holland. They did not have a top ten LP of new material until 1976’s Brian Wilson comeback record, 15 Big Ones (their only top ten LP with new songs since Pet Sounds). Of course, by then, their career had been resuscitated by 1974’s number one, million-selling hits compilation, Endless Summer and its 1975 top ten platinum follow-up, Spirit Of America.
Historical Update: When the new rock critical establishment came out against the Beach Boys in late 1967, it meant that the Beach Boys would be undeservedly absent from many progressive radio playlists in the late ‘60s and the ‘70s…resulting in their presence on “classic rock” radio today being incongruously minimal.
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Original Wild Honey liner notes
Honey, of the wild variety, on a shelf in Brian’s kitchen, was not only an aide to all of the Beach Boys’ health but the source of inspiration for the record, “Wild Honey.”
Soon after the R&B-flavored “Wild Honey,” came eight other new songs, and a Beach Boys version of “I Was Made To Love Her.”
We think this is a great album. We love to listen to it. We might just be biased because we work for the Beach Boys.
Please see what you think.
– STEVE and ARNY
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It seems that almost everybody…the public, the critics, the record industry and maybe even the Beach Boys themselves…was baffled by Smiley Smile. Shortly after it was released, the group returned to Brian’s house to record Wild Honey, the record that marked the birth of the second era of great Beach Boys music.
For Wild Honey, given Brian’s disinterest in making a studio statement, the Beach Boys consciously decided to make a “simple” record.
It was Wild Honey’s lack of artistic pretension that bewildered the rapidly shrinking legions of Beach Boys fans. For a year, they had patiently waited for Smile. Smiley Smile had hardly mollified them, and many of those who decided to give the Beach Boys another chance were only further alienated by Wild Honey.
But seminal rock critic Paul Williams, who, like many fanatical Brian Wilson supporters, at first wasn’t crazy about Wild Honey, put his reaction in proper perspective in this excerpt from his classic 1969 book, Outlaw Blues. “We expected more (from Brian) than we would expect from any other composer alive, because the tracks we’d heard from Smile were just that good. Smiley Smile was…a confusion…and Wild Honey is just another Beach Boys record, which is only to say that it’s not Smile and it was necessary for us to forget Smile before we could appreciate what came later…I love Wild Honey because it is new and fresh and raw and beautiful and the first step in the direction of even greater things than what was once to be. I celebrate Wild Honey as a work of joy, and one more gift of music from probably the most creative musician alive.”
Unfortunately for the Beach Boys, Paul Williams was in the minority. As far as most critics were concerned, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, released within months of each other, confirmed that the Beach Boys were musically insignificant. To the “hipper than thou” crowd, the group had committed that most inexcusable late ‘60s crime – they’d become irrelevant.
It’s a fact that in 1968, after Wild Honey had already come out, Bob Dylan released John Wesley Harding and the Beatles cut “simpler” records like “Lady Madonna.” And much of that year’s White Album was very basically produced. While there’s no evidence that either Dylan or the Beatles were following Brian’s lead, they certainly were all heading down the same path.
Brian was the first to pull back from the production “race,” and to most of the Beach Boys long-time fans, or the recent converts who had been blown away by Pet Sounds, “Good Vibrations” and Sgt. Pepper, that wasn’t acceptable. They expected more “high” art from Brian because not many could “play” the studio with the virtuosity of a Brian Wilson.
However, as Brian was no longer living the life of a “cutting edge” artist, Wild Honey could only reflect the self-enforced simplicity of his life. Incredibly, he even managed to somehow turn that ingeniousness into a new art form (best exemplified on Wild Honey, Friends and on the first four Paul McCartney solo albums).
But more than anything, maybe the essential truth is that the Beach Boys really didn’t produce either Smiley Smile or Wild Honey as major artistic efforts. Smiley Smile was a scramble, a struggle to piece together musical fragments to make songs. And Wild Honey was a new beginning…the Beach Boys rediscovering the joy of just making good, solid R&B based rock music. The piano lines in Wild Honey are, in their own way, as inventive as Brian’s more textured records…Brian happily going back to his roots, the boogie woogie piano that he had loved as a teen.
In retrospect, Wild Honey sounds like nothing more than a band that, having lost their musical identity as the ultimate studio instrument, is struggling to regain its old one as a rock group, trying to get to know and like each other again. (The Beach Boys, for the first time since 1963, played on most of the instrumental tracks on the album.)
And while the primitive feel of Wild Honey is part of its charm, that same lack of production is the reason it hasn’t worn as well as the group’s mid-60’s albums. Nevertheless, from a 1990 perspective, Wild Honey is a Beach Boys record that is looked back upon very fondly. Even though Wild Honey may not be rock “art,” it’s a sold album.
There’s a lot of great music on Wild Honey, which meant that when hardcore Beach Boys fans, who had listened to Smiley Smile with a blank stare, first heard Wild Honey, their immediate reaction was a relieved, “Yeah.”
Bruce Johnston: “I loved Wild Honey because I thought it was getting us back on the track again. It was probably the funkiest Beach Boys album, very little production, but a lot of music without any complications. I just remember we wanted to be a band again. The whole (Smile) thing had wiped everyone out, and we wanted to play together again.” Carl Wilson offers another angle: “Wild Honey was music for Brian to cool out by.”
Historical Perspective: Released in December of 1967, Wild Honey (despite the presence of the top twenty single “Darlin’”) had the group’s weakest sales performance to date, lasting only 15 weeks on the charts before disappearing.
Taking their cue from Rolling Stone, the “counter-culture” rejected the Beach Boys out of hand. And the Beach Boys, splintered by Smile and Brian’s withdrawal, really couldn’t stop it from happening. Actually, the Beach Boys fall from favor almost seemed preordained. It might not have mattered how great the Beach Boys albums of the late ‘60s were. The climate was such that the Beach Boys’ image was “out of touch.” In those charged times, what that meant was that if they weren’t perceived as cool, their music couldn’t be either.
Historical Note: Peter Reum: “There is significant evidence that even after Smiley Smile was released, Capitol asked Brian to finish Smile. Smiley Smile was released as Brother 9001 and Wild Honey was slated to be Brother 9003. What was going to be Brother 9002 is unknown, but one strong possibility, judging from Capitol’s internal memos of 1967, is that it was supposed to be Smile.”
______________________________________________________________
TRACK-BY-TRACK
“Wild Honey”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Wild Honey is often called the Beach Boys “soul” album, and there’s no better example of that than the title song on which Brian pays tribute to one of his favorite foods. Right away you’ll hear that unlike the previous Beach Boys records, Wild Honey is sparsely produced. Using very basic instrumentation, the Beach Boys cut this entire record in a couple of weeks. Compare that to the month Brian worked on “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes And Villains,” and you’ll immediately understand why Wild Honey, in pre-‘67 Beach Boys terms, sounds like nothing more than a demo for a record.
Record producer David Anderle…in a 1968 Smile post-mortem published as a Crawdaddy conversation with Paul Williams…noted that, “when I listen to Wild Honey, I really remember Brian sitting at that piano by himself just screaming his soul out.” Brian, himself, has stated that all he’s ever needed was a piano and his voice. On Wild Honey, that’s about all that’s there.
“Wild Honey,” the song, begins promisingly with a Theremin line, a strong vocal and basic instrumentation. But those who longed for the magnificent harmonies that were a Beach Boys trademark were looking in the wrong place. “Wild Honey,” like most of this album, has very little group singing. More than anything, that may have been the reason it was so commercially unsuccessful. Like Smiley Smile, Wild Honey didn’t sound like what people had come to expect from a Beach Boys record.
Production Note: Listen for the great organ sounds in the break. The group still had a few sonic tricks up its sleeve.
Historical Note: Brian: “Carl had a lot of fun singing the lead on this one. He was laughing and dancing around the living room.”
“Aren’t You Glad”
Lead Vocal: Mike and Brian
One of the best songs on the album, “Aren’t You Glad” is unpretentiously produced (just piano, guitar, bass, minimal percussion and a nice trumpet line on the intro). “Aren’t You Glad” also features strong vocals; listen to how the Beach Boys blend their voices with the horns.
Production Note: Listen for the drum beat accents on the “heart that won’t stop beating for you” lyric.
“I Was Made To Love Her”
Lead Vocal: Carl
A tribute to one of Motown’s best, Stevie Wonder. Carl’s vocal on “I Was Made To Lover Her” shows his passion for R&B.
“Country Air”
Lead Vocals: Group
The humming over the bass line on the verses builds anticipation for one of the best group vocals on the album. The crowing rooster and their voices meld, a small example of the kind of organic sound effects that were to have been a part of Smile.
Production Note: You’re not having speaker trouble on this one. Even on the master tape, it sounds like a note on the organ is trying to burst through.
“A Thing Or Two”
Lead Vocal: Mike and Brian
“A Thing Or Two” is a great, jazzy rocker; Brian may have intended to record this song with Redwood (see “Darlin’” notes).
“Darlin’”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Highest Chart Position: #19
Probably the best track and most developed production on the album, “Darlin’” was originally written in 1963 as “Thinkin’ ‘Bout You Baby,” a record Brian produced for Sharon Marie, a girlfriend of Mike’s.
Brian resurrected the song in 1967, re-wrote it and named it “Darlin’,” for his long-time friend, singer/songwriter Danny Hutton, who, up until that time, was best known for the 1965 hit, “Roses And Rainbows.”
When the Beach Boys formed Brother Records in 1967, the plan was that everybody would produce outside artists. Brian’s first signing was Redwood, a group formed by Danny Hutton.
Brian originally cut this track for Redwood, but it and other Redwood recordings were never released. Soon after, Redwood changed their name to Three Dog Night, and Brian’s instincts were vindicated, as Three Dog Night, picking up the mantle from the Beach Boys, became the most commercially successful American band of its time.
“I’d Love Just Once To See You”
Lead Vocal: Brian
A precursor of the writing style Brian would again use on Friends (notably “Busy Doin’ Nothin’”), “I’d Love Just Once To See You” is more a casual ditty than a fully developed song. Its shortness notwithstanding, this has always been a favorite because of the lyrical surprise at the end that hints at Brian’s innocent sense of humor.
“Here Comes The Night”
Lead Vocal: Brian
“Here Comes The Night” has some of the best R&B influenced vocals the Beach Boys ever recorded.
Historical Note: A quite passable disco version of “Here Comes The Night,” the Beach Boys first and only foray into disco, was recorded in 1979; Beach Boys fans revolted even though the extended group’s vocals, inventively arranged by Bruce Johnston and the late Curt Becher, were really enjoyable.
“Let The Wind Blow”
Lead Vocal: Mike and Brian
“Let The Wind Blow” features possibly the most interesting chord changes on the album; strong lead vocals carry what is one of Wild Honey’s most beautiful songs. It later became part of their late ‘60s/early ‘70s concert repertoire, and a haunting, soulful version of it, sung by Carl, was included on their 1973 In Concert double LP.
“How She Boogalooed It”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Maybe the most energetic track on Wild Honey, “How She Boogalooed It” was an historic moment for the Beach Boys. This was the first song on a Beach Boys album (other than instrumentals and cover versions) that was written by the members of the Beach Boys without Brian.
“Mama Says”
A great album closer, when Brian leads the shout of “Poof,” you get the feeling he was performing the ultimate magic trick.
The terrific group vocal on this one only amplifies the loss felt by the lack of same on the rest of the album.
Historical Note: This hygienic dictum was originally part of Smile, abruptly appearing as an interpolated section in the original version of “Vegetables.”
___________________________________________________________
BONUS TRACKS
“Heroes And Villains”
Lead Vocal: Brian (with Mike)
This version of “Heroes And Villains” isn’t the legendary “lost” version. It’s also not the long-hoped for seven minute version. And it’s not the reported upon but almost never heard 11-12 minute rendition. Those couldn’t be found in the Beach Boys archives. It may be part of the track that Chuck Britz remembers editing into “Heroes And Villains, Parts 1 and 2” for the original (unreleased) Capitol 45. Then again, maybe it isn’t.
However, this bonus track is one of the key missing links of the Smile legend that could be located. This recording was completed in early ‘67 before Smile fell apart, so it is one of the few surviving examples of what Smile was supposed to be.
At the time, Brian described Smile as an album that “will include lots of humor – some musical and some spoken. It won’t be like a comedy LP – there won’t be any spoken tracks as such – but someone might say something in between verses” (e.g. “You’re under arrest” on this bonus track).
From the section that begins “In the cantina…” on this never-before-released version of “Heroes And Villains,” we finally can hear exactly what Brian meant.
In a late ‘66/early ‘67 interview during which he discussed what was about to be the Beach Boys’ next single (probably referring to this bonus track) Brian called “Heroes And Villains” “a three minute musical comedy. I’m using new production techniques that I think will surprise everyone. I can’t actually describe the effect – you have to hear it.” And now, nearly a quarter century later, here it is.
Production Note: Brian’s vocal is much more prominent in this mix of “Heroes And Villains.” Also, the tone of this cut sounds much more viable as a follow-up to the “Good Vibrations” single than what was ultimately released.
Historical Note: The “In The Cantina” section of “Heroes And Villains” was recorded on January 27, 1967.
“Good Vibrations”
Lead Vocal: Brian
One of the most amazing 45 RPM disks in the history of the record business had its not-so-humble beginnings on these sessions. Beginning on 2/18/66 with what was slated “Good Vibrations-Take One,” these excerpts from the “Good Vibrations” sessions give you some idea of the kind of musical experimentation that Brian was conducting.
Listen to how Brian worked in the studio, in complete command of his orchestra, trying different musical combinations, directing the musicians to play in a certain way, searching for the feel he was after. These are not the outtakes of a rock ‘n’ roll session. Brian, in 1966, was a modern day Mozart creating symphonies live in the studio. (An aside: As you hear some of the literally dozens of “Good Vibrations” fragments that Brian recorded, it’s amazing that his creative vision was so strong that he was ultimately able to assemble a coherent version of “Good Vibrations” that was both commercially and artistically successful.)
Carl Wilson: “The first time I ever heard the music to ‘Good Vibrations,’ the Beach Boys were playin’ up in North Dakota. I came back to my hotel room one night, and the phone rang, and it was Brian. He called from the recording studio and played this really bizarre-sounding music over the phone.”
Glenn Campbell: “I played on about five sessions of ‘Good Vibrations’ that I know of, to show you the extent Brian goes to get a good record.”
Mike Love: “On one passage of one little thing on ‘Good Vibrations,’ we did it over and over and over. Not only was it to get the note – we wanted the notes right – but (Brian was listening to) the timbre and quality of each note, and how the four parts would resonate together, and then (he) would be hearin’ something nobody could hear, including a dog…and he would say, ‘Do it again,’ and we’d say, ‘Do it again – What are ya, crazy?’…it was exhausting, but it came out pretty good…I can remember doing 25-30 vocal overdubs of the same part, and when I say part, I mean the same section of a record, maybe no more than 2-5 seconds long.”
Brian, looking back on “Good Vibrations”: “We put together ‘Good Vibrations’ in a very odd manner. We utilized five or six studios to put the thing together. We recorded the ‘Ah, I love the colorful clothes she wears’ sections at Gold Star, and the ‘I’m pickin’ up good vibrations’ at Columbia. In those days, you could record a single record for fifteen hundred dollars. ‘Good Vibrations’ cost about fifteen thousand.”
To give you an indication of how hard it is to pin down exactly what sessions were used on the actual record (and some of the original session tapes, particularly for the vocals, have disappeared), Chuck Britz thinks that the ultimate released record was “the first session we did in [Western] Studio Three (which is part of this bonus track), with the exception of a few bars from Gold Star and a few bars from RCA…Basically, it was a hit song the minute he cut it.”
Brian: We were well into the mid-sixties, and by that time, I think it was time for somebody to do something that had a little merit, ya know, had a little message to it.”
Britz: “That song was his whole life’s performance in one song. He wanted it right…at that period of time, he was striving to do something that was totally different than what he’d done before.”
Brian: “I’m most proud of ‘Good Vibrations.’ It exemplifies a whole era. I mean, it’s a whole involved piece of music that says something.”
On this bonus track, you’ll first hear glimpses of how “Good Vibrations” came together in the studio. Then, you’ll hear an early version of “Good Vibrations” that features Brian singing lyrics completely different from what appeared on the released record of “Good Vibrations.”
“You’re Welcome”
The “B” side of the “Heroes And Villains” single was the chant, “You’re Welcome,” the kind of vocal gymnastics the Beach Boys used to throw off in their sleep. Their singing on the “well, you’re welcome to come” ending is especially powerful.
“Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring”
The Beach Boys had finished recording Smiley Smile. But before it was released, they spent several days in August rehearsing for and then performing a live concert in Hawaii that was to become a live album nicknamed Lei’d In Hawaii. (It was never released.) This cut was recorded in Hawaii on 8/25/67 during rehearsals for the first day’s concert, and it features the original Beach Boys line-up of Brian, Carl, Dennis, Mike and Al.
To get a sense of how Brian’s voice fit into the vocal blend of the Beach Boys, compare the sound of this recording to this same song on the Capitol “Double Play” CD of Beach Boys Concert/Live In London.
“Can’t Wait Too Long” /
“Been Way Too Long”
Lead Vocal: Brian
This bonus track, made up of several different takes on the same song, needs no analysis or description other than to say that it’s an incredible piece of music that was recorded at various sessions in late 1967 and 1968, well after the Smile sessions had ended.
“Can’t Wait Too Long” gives us an indication of the production depth that Smile tracks would have had. A lot of the music that has come out has been fragmentary, and while “Can’t Wait Too Long” is unfinished, sections of it are complete enough to be a terrific example of how Brian, in Van Dyke Parks’ words, used to “saturate the tape with music.”
This song has never been released before, and in my opinion, it’s the single best piece of unreleased music in the Beach Boys’ archives.
The inclusion of “Can’t Wait Too Long,” the alternate “Heroes And Villains” and the “Good Vibrations” sessions on this CD makes it one of the most exciting Beach Boys releases since “Good Vibrations.”
In fact, listen to the bonus tracks almost as a separate album. “Good Vibrations” displays how Brian was recording sections of music. “Can’t Wait Too Long” shows how he could create mind-boggling variations on a theme. “Heroes And Villains” hints at the humor of Smile. “You’re Welcome” and “Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring” demonstrate the vocal power at their disposal. It’s what makes these bonus tracks, which have never been released (except for “You’re Welcome”), possibly as “important” to the group’s artistic history as what’s on the albums themselves.
However, both LPs on this CD have a lot of wonderful music that shouldn’t be overlooked. Even though Smiley Smile was perceived as a failure because as a structural record, it didn’t live up to Smile, it still is worth listening to. And if Wild Honey seemed so strange because it was really a new beginning for the Beach Boys, that doesn’t mean that on its own terms it’s not a very good record.
After Smiley Smile, the Beach Boys knew they had to re-define the way they made music. Wild Honey, for all its melodic richness, was missing the vocal gymnastics of the past. However, instead of comparing Wild Honey to the hit-packed albums of the past, look ahead at what was to come.
Wild Honey is the building block that began a new phase of the Beach Boys career. Wild Honey was the first step towards 1968’s very satisfying Friends, which was the bridge to 1970’s collaborative Sunflower, maybe the greatest Beach Boys album of the past twenty years. Sunflower led to Surf’s Up and Holland, the album on which Carl fully took over the production reigns from Brian.
While this era would radically differ from the “fun in the sun” years during which Brian was the dominant force, “stage two” of the group’s recording career, beginning with Wild Honey, produced a number of albums (notably Friends, Sunflower and Holland) and many songs (“This Whole World,” “‘Til I Die,” “Trader” and “Sail On Sailor”) which are held in high regard today as Beach Boys standards.
Liner notes by David Leaf (© 1990 David Leaf)
(David Leaf is the author of the critically acclaimed Brian Wilson biography, The Beach Boys And The California Myth.)
______________________________________________________________
1. HEROES AND VILLAINS
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57020 45 RPM Single Released 7/31/67 (Brother 1001)
Charted 8/5/67 Reached #12
2. VEGETABLES
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57450
3. FALL BREAKS AND BACK TO WINTER
(WOODY WOODPECKER SYMPHONY)
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57934
4. SHE’S GOIN’ BALD
(Wilson-Love-Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57941
5. LITTLE PAD
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57933
6. GOOD VIBRATIONS
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #55949 45 RPM Single Released 10/66 (Capitol 5676)
Charted 10/22/66 Reached #1
7. WITH ME TONIGHT
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57935
8. WIND CHIMES
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58034 45 RPM Single Released 10/23/67 (Capitol 2028)
9. GETTIN’ HUNGRY
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58037 45 RPM Single Released 8/28/67 (Brother 1002)
10. WONDERFUL
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58035
11. WHISTLE IN
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58036
12. WILD HONEY
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58371 45 RPM Single Released 10/23/67 (Capitol 2028)
Charted 11/4/67 Reached #31
13. AREN’T YOU GLAD
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58685
14. I WAS MADE TO LOVE HER
(Cosby-Hardaway-May-Wonder)
Jobete Music Co., Inc. ASCAP
Master #58588
15. COUNTRY AIR
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58686
16. A THING OR TWO
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58586
17. DARLIN’
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58585 45 RPM Single Released 12/18/67 (Capitol 2068)
Charted 12/23/67 Reached #19
18. I’D LOVE JUST ONCE TO SEE YOU
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58687
19. HERE COMES THE NIGHT
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58584
20. LET THE WIND BLOW
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58600
21. HOW SHE BOOGALOOED IT
(Love-Johnston-Jardine-Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58688
22. MAMA SAYS
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58689
23. HEROES AND VILLAINS (Alternate Take)*
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57020 (Mixed 2/10/27 – Engineer: Chuck Britz)
24. GOOD VIBRATIONS (Various Sessions)*
(B. Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #55949A From various sessions at Gold Star Studios (2/18 & 4/9/66), United Western Studios (5/4, 5/27, 6/2, 6/16, 6/18 & 9/1/66), and Sunset Sound Studios (8/24/66) – Engineers: Chuck Britz, Larry Levine, Bruce Botnick and “Cal”
25. GOOD VIBRATIONS (Early Take)*
(B. Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
All Vocals By Brian Wilson
26. YOU’RE WELCOME*
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57021 Single Released 7/31/67 (Brother 1001)
B-side to “Heroes And Villains” single
27. THEIR HEARTS WERE FULL OF SPRING*
(Bobby Troup)
Fred Raphael Music, Ltd. ASCAP
Master #93499A Recorded 8/25/67 at Honolulu International Center, Hawaii, at rehearsal for that evening’s live performance.
28. CAN’T WAIT TOO LONG*
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58587
* BONUS TRACKS
ALL TRACKS IN ORIGINAL MONO SOUND
EXCEPT #28 WHICH IS STEREO
“Smiley Smile” LP – Produced By The Beach Boys.
Recorded at United Western Studios, Gold Star Studios, CBS Studios, and Brian Wilson’s Home Studio except where noted.
Engineered by Jim Lockert and Chuck Britz.
Originally released 9/5/67 (Brother T-9001) Charted 9/30/67 Reached #41
“Wild Honey” LP – Produced By The Beach Boys.
Recorded at Brian Wilson’s Home Studio.
Engineered by Jim Lockert.
Second Engineer: Bill Halverson.
Originally released 12/4/67 by Capitol Records (Capitol T-2859)
Charted 12/30/67 Reached #24
_____________________________________________
In the preparation of this compact disc, every effort has been made to make these historic recordings sound as they did when Brian, Carl, Mike, Dennis, Al and Bruce first made them. Numerous tapes were auditioned in order to find the best sounding master. No remixing was attempted, as it was felt that this would not be faithful to the original productions. The original mono and stereo tapes were transferred using a specially modified ampex tape machine and custom-made analog-to-digital converters.
The disc has been mastered using the Pacific Microsonics HDCD system which encodes 24 bits onto a conventional 16 bit CD. The bonus tracks have been selected from a variety of sources and were mixed directly from the original three and four track masters.
Mark Linett
Los Angeles, CA
December 2000
_____________________________________________
REISSUE PRODUCED AND COORDINATED BY MARK LINETT.
24-BIT DIGITALLY REMASTERED BY JOE GASTWIRT AT OCEANVIEW DIGITAL MASTERING, LOS ANGELES, CA, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF MARK LINETT – 2000.
“Good Vibrations” BONUS TRACKS MIXED BY MARK LINETT AND LARRY WALSH AT CAPITOL RECORDING STUDIOS, “Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring” and “Can’t Wait Too Long” MIXED BY MARK LINETT AT YOUR PLACE OR MINE STUDIOS, LOS ANGELES.
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH BY ANDY PALEY.
CHART INFORMATION COURTESY OF BILLBOARD AND JOEL WHITBURN.
“SMILE” SESSION PHOTOS BY JASPER DAILEY (COURTESY OF THE PETER REUM COLLECTION)
LINER NOTES BY DAVID LEAF.
ART DIRECTION BY TOMMY STEELE.
DESIGN BY CHUCK AMES.
PHOTO RESEARCH BY BRAD BENEDICT.
FOR INFORMATION ON THE BEACH BOYS FAN CLUB, SEND A SELF-ADDRESSED, STAMPED #10 ENVELOPE TO:
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BEACH BOYS DOUBLE CDs AVAILABLE INCLUDE:
SURFIN’ SAFARI / SURFIN’ USA (31517)
SURFER GIRL / SHUT DOWN VOLUME TWO (31515)
LITTLE DEUCE COUPE / ALL SUMMER LONG (31516)
TODAY! / SUMMER DAYS (AND SUMMER NIGHTS!!) (31639)
PARTY! / STACK-O-TRACKS (31641)
SMILEY SMILE / WILD HONEY (31862)
FRIENDS / 20/20 (31638)
BEACH BOYS CONCERT / LIVE IN LONDON (31861)
SUNFLOWER / SURF’S UP (25692)
CARL & THE PASSIONS “SO TOUGH” / HOLLAND (25694)
IN CONCERT (25933)
15 BIG ONES / LOVE YOU (27945)
M.I.U. ALBUM / L.A. (LIGHT ALBUM) (27950)
KEEPIN’ THE SUMMER ALIVE / THE BEACH BOYS (27948)
OTHER BEACH BOYS CDs AVAILABLE INCLUDE:
PET SOUNDS (26266)
ENDLESS HARMONY (24002)
ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS (95734)
GREATEST HITS VOLUME 1 (21860)
GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2 (20238)
GREATEST HITS VOLUME 3 THE BEST OF THE BROTHER YEARS 1970-1986 (24511)
THE PET SOUNDS SESSIONS – BOX SET (37662)
GOOD VIBRATIONS-THIRTY YEARS OF THE BEACH BOYS – BOX SET (81294)
BEACH BOYS VIDEO/DVD AVAILABLE INCLUDE:
ENDLESS HARMONY (VHS) (92154)
ENDLESS HARMONY (DVD) (92353)
ALL TRACKS 24-BIT DIGITALLY REMASTERED
(P) 2001 © 1990 Capitol Records, Inc. Manufactured by Capitol Records, Inc., 1750 N. Vine Street, Hollywood, CA 90028. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in U.S.A.
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______________________________________________________________
SMILEY SMILE / WILD HONEY
The Smile That You Send Out Returns To You
– Indian Wisdom
The fall of 1966 was truly a remarkable time for the Beach Boys. “Good Vibrations” was a worldwide sensation and their concert tours (particularly in England) were becoming major events. When the Beach Boys arrived in London in November, 1966, the reaction was positively Beatlemaniacal. As one English newspaper headline trumpeted, “The Beatles’ only real rivals come to Britain and take London airport by surprise.”
Back in Beverly Hills, at Brian’s Laurel Way home, the most creative minds in the record business sought to associate themselves with Brian, inspired by the opportunity…the possibility that Brian could make anything happen just by sheer force of creativity.
Nothing was unthinkable in Brian’s world in 1966. Predating the Beatles’ Apple Records by a year, hotshot record industry executive David Anderle was formulating Brother Records, the Beach Boys’ own label. Other experts were planning to use the Beach Boys’ image to create a recreation company that would trade on their youthful appeal.
Brian, meanwhile, was busily spinning off ideas for albums – an exercise disk, an LP of just water sounds, and most importantly, a record filled with humor. It was that record…the follow-up to Pet Sounds and “Good Vibrations”…on which Brian focused his effort throughout the fall of 1966 and well into 1967.
Tentatively titled Dumb Angel and then renamed Smile, the next Beach Boys album was to be a reflection of Brian’s belief in the healing powers of laughter. Smile…conceived on the heels of “Good Vibrations,” the benchmark in the use of the studio as the ultimate instrument…was to be the next step in the evolution of record production.
In October of ‘66, the week before “Good Vibrations” came out, Brian was quoted as saying, “Our next album will be better than Pet Sounds. It will be as much an improvement over Sounds as that was over Summer Days.”
The news from the studio was obviously promising, and with “Good Vibrations” topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, Capitol, anticipating a huge Christmas present from the Beach Boys, optimistically scheduled Smile for release in December of 1966.
The rock press (notably Crawdaddy founder Paul Williams) flocked to L.A. to hear what Brian was doing. Jules Siegel was dispatched from the Saturday Evening Post to write a story about Brian. CBS-TV sent a film crew for a rock documentary. Advertisements were taken out, front and back album covers were printed and a booklet was created to visually interpret the brilliant and complex lyrics of Van Dyke Parks, Brian’s exceptionally talented collaborator.
But while Wilson and Parks worked feverishly on what turned out to be more than an album’s worth of music, Brian’s obsessive devotion to “perfection” made that December date impossible. Creating an entire record full of music in the fragmentary recording style that he had used to build “Good Vibrations” was an exhausting undertaking, and it couldn’t be done on deadline. In 1966, LPs, even by major groups, were recorded in a few months, but Smile wasn’t a typical album.
Brian continued to record more music; at the same time, he was constantly rearranging pieces of the Smile puzzle. And, as Brian started to focus on “Heroes And Villains,” it was becoming clear that nobody, including Brian, knew when he would finish Smile.
As 1966 ended, the Beach Boys returned from England, literally on top of the music world. In December, they edged out the Beatles as the top vocal group in a year-end fan poll conducted by New Musical Express, a major British rock magazine.
It might have been at this point – when he tried to “explain” Smile to the Beach Boys – that Brian started to lose his confidence and creative momentum. Nevertheless, in early 1967, even as pressure mounted for Brian to finish Smile, recording proceeded at a prolific pace.
But what had begun as an exciting creative adventure was becoming an unhappy time for the participants; Brian’s key relationships…with the Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks and David Anderle…were beginning to deteriorate. Perhaps the burden of being both an artist and a benefactor for so many people were becoming too much for him to bear.
However, judging from the amount of time spent in the studio, whatever personal obstacles existed seemed to only slow down the work. Possibly much more damaging to Brian’s creative energy was that in March of ‘67, the Beach Boys sued Capitol Records (a royalty dispute).
Naturally, communication between the Beach Boys and Capitol became extremely strained. Because of that, the possibility now existed that should Smile be completed, the Beach Boys…as leverage in their lawsuit with Capitol…might choose not to deliver Smile to Capitol. Maybe even scarier was the possibility that even if Smile were submitted, Capitol might decide not to release it. For several weeks, no recording took place. (Sometime in the early spring, Brian’s Smile collaborator, Van Dyke Parks…finding himself in the untenable position of defending his lyrics…left the project.)
At a point in rock music history when it was vital to be “first” with the “new” sound, work on Smile ground to a halt. Critical weeks slipped by without progress. Those delays would prove to be fatal for Smile.
In that litigious and increasingly paranoid climate, Capitol postponed the release date for Smile. A warehouse full of covers and booklets began collecting dust, waiting for vinyl. Ultimately, Capitol would have to cancel the album when in May of 1967, Brian…much to everybody’s dismay, abandoned Smile, unfinished.
The timing of that decision…only weeks before the release of the Beatles’ production masterwork, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…was hardly coincidental. Instinctively, Brian must have known that time had run out, that he’d “lost” his self-defined “production race” with the Beatles…a battle that, prior to Christmas of 1966, Brian seemed to have “in the bag.”
Given the rapidly exploding cultural revolution sweeping through the rock audience, the Beach Boys’ image would soon be unfairly perceived as undeniably unhip. So even if Smile was musically a step ahead of the Beatles (the rock aristocracy who heard Smile at the time said it was incredible), there was reason to be concerned that nobody would pay serious attention to it because it came from the Beach Boys. Unfortunately, nobody got the chance.
Media master Derek Taylor (the former and future Beatles’ publicist who had begun working for the Beach Boys) let it slip in his May 6, 1967 column that the much talked about Smile album would not be coming out. Taylor wrote, “every beautifully-designed, finely-wrought, inspirationally-welded piece of music made these last months by Brian…has been scrapped.”
In the twenty-three years since Smile died and became the most famous unreleased album in rock history, much has been written about this period in the Beach Boys’ life. The story of Smile has been well documented elsewhere. (Seek out California music historian Domenic Priore’s classic book, Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile!)
However, it should also be noted that along with the demise of Smile, Brian lost his new friends, his expanding world and his drive to aesthetically improve his work, to continually top himself. What the loss of Smile meant to Brian personally and in artistic terms to the Beach Boys’ career is incalculable.
While we will never hear the Smile album in its entirety as it was conceived in 1966, it doesn’t take much imagination to know that it would have been a masterpiece. The song line-up – which included “Good Vibrations,” “Heroes And Villains,” “Wonderful,” “Cabin Essence,” “VegaTables,” and “Surf’s Up” – was a guarantee of greatness. The released versions of these songs, even though some of them were never completely produced, are all you need to hear to believe that Smile wasn’t just the product of the burgeoning rock media’s overactive imagination.
Describing what Smile would have been and then comparing it to Smiley Smile is unfair. No record could make up for the disappointment that music fans felt when Smiley Smile was released. Expectations had been raised then dashed by the non-appearance of Smile, and Smiley Smile, its titular and musical substitute, was cruelly criticized as Smile’s unwelcome replacement. Probably nothing more need be noted than Carl Wilson’s perfect baseball analogy. Carl: “Smiley Smile was a bunt instead of a grand slam.”
Nearly a quarter century later, it may be hard to understand how an album that included “Heroes And Villains” and “Good Vibrations” could have been considered anything but great…could have been anything other than a hit…but by the time Smiley Smile was released in September of 1967, the Beach Boys had become cultural dinosaurs. And it happened almost overnight.
When Smiley Smile came out in September of 1967, the era of LSD, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury and the mass media’s “Summer of Love” was in full swing. Despite Carl Wilson, when he was drafted, having bravely declared himself a “Conscientious Objector” against the Vietnam War, the Beach Boys were starting to be perceived as major squares…one of the reasons the group cancelled their scheduled headlining appearance at June’s landmark Monterey Pop Festival. (Monterey happened through the support of rock’s braintrust – i.e. John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas, Lou Adler, Andrew Oldham, etc. Brian had been on Monterey’s Board of Governors, an indication of his status in the rock world. Ironically, it was at Monterey that the Beach Boys’ Southern California sun-drenched hedonism was ceremoniously replaced by Northern California’s anti-materialistic, acid-spiked search for “self” and preoccupation with self-expression.)
There were other contributing factors to the Beach Boys pull out from Monterey. The Beach Boys’ appearance at Monterey didn’t make sense in light of the fact that work on Smile had ended. Monterey was a gathering place for the “far out” sounds of the “new” rock, and the Beach Boys in concert really had no exotic sounds (excepting “Good Vibrations”) to display.
The net result of all this internal and external turmoil was that the Beach Boys didn’t go to Monterey, and it is thought that this non-appearance was what really turned the “underground” tide against them. (However, it could also be argued that if the Beach Boys had shown up and performed their standard show of the day, the “stoned” audience would have laughed the group off the stage.)
Whatever the reason, the Beach Boys weren’t at Monterey, the dawn of the new age of rock as cultural expression of disenfranchised middle class youth. The 1967 opening of San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium as a rock mecca and the ascendancy of the underground rock press (with S.F.-based Rolling Stone replacing L.A. teen mags like Hit Parader) contributed to the shift that decreed the Beach Boys were now passé.
Beach Boys historian Peter Reum believes “Rolling Stone’s condemnation of the Beach Boys was not so much directed at the group and its music. More, it was typical of San Francisco’s mindset in their one-sided battle with Los Angeles for top California city. Rolling Stone found it necessary – especially in light of the fact that the Byrds, the Doors and the Beach Boys were L.A. bands – to reinforce San Francisco’s place as California’s real center of rock music. Ironically, many of the great San Francisco groups, like the Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, recorded their best albums in L.A.”
Nevertheless, truth often gets lost in confrontational times, and at a point in American history when according to the rhetoric of the day, you were “either part of the problem or part of the solution,” and teens were told “don’t trust anybody over thirty,” the Beach Boys’ sweet harmonies were rejected as representative of the old guard. It was as if the Beach Boys had been declared uncool, put on some sort of “unhip” blacklist and exiled to five years of eking out a living touring college gyms and barn-like county centers. As Bruce Johnston recalls, the Beach Boys were viewed as “surfing Doris Days.”
It was into that almost revolutionary vortex of 1967 that Smiley Smile was sent forth, an unwanted soldier in the psychedelic rock wars, sentenced to death by critical firing squad.
And while part of the blame for the record’s bombing was cultural, the content also has to shoulder its fair share. Very simply, Smiley Smile was the first Beach Boys album that was significantly inferior to its predecessor.
A clear line of musical progression could be charted from Surfin’ Safari to Pet Sounds. Smiley Smile, the tenth studio album (not including Christmas and Party) came out of nowhere. It had no antecedents; nothing could have prepared listeners for this record, particularly in light of the pre-Smile noise that had set everybody up for the greatest album ever recorded.
Worse, if the nearly ten month wait between the #1 chart-topping, million-selling “Good Vibrations” and its truncated follow-up, “Heroes And Villains,” had dispatched the group’s momentum, Smiley Smile almost brought their career to a dead stop.
Listening to it nowadays, it’s not hard to understand why. Very simply, with the exception of the two hit singles, Smiley Smile doesn’t sound like a Beach Boys album.
There’s a good reason for that.
In mid-1967, when Brian Wilson called a halt to the Smile sessions, he decided that no longer would the credit “Produced by Brian Wilson” grace Beach Boys records like a benediction from above. Instead, the more democratic “Produced by the Beach Boys” would formalize the fact that after five years of hard work, Brian Wilson would not or could not take complete responsibility for the group’s studio work. (An historical aside: The “Good Vibrations” single had the credit “Produced by Brian Wilson.”) The result of Brian’s abdication, at a time when none of the other Beach Boys was prepared to assume his role, was Smiley Smile, an album of Smile bits and pieces, remnants and remakes.
Domenic Priore writes that “even though the world sorely missed Smile, Smiley Smile is not without merit…like the a cappella vocals that are akin to the late ‘50s vocal groups. In a lot of ways, we’re lucky to have a Beach Boys album like Smiley Smile. Actually, the reason most people didn’t care for Smiley Smile is that it came out in place of Smile.”
Nevertheless, for the Beach Boys, Smiley Smile was the beginning of their march through the desert. And even though their overseas popularity would not be diminished throughout the remainder of the decade, there was no getting around the fact that at home, the Beach Boys, a decade away from becoming “America’s Band,” were outcasts.
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TRACK-BY-TRACK
“Heroes And Villains”
Lead Vocal: Brian
Highest Chart Position: #12
“Heroes And Villains” was originally created as both the centerpiece of the Smile album and the melodic thread that tied the entire record together. In the Beach Boys archives, there are literally dozens of musical snippets (with titles like “Bag Of Trick”) of the basic musical themes, recorded in many different styles. At one point in January 1967, “Heroes And Villains” was finished, and engineer Chuck Britz recalls mixing “Heroes And Villains, Part 1” and “Heroes And Villains, Part 2” for a planned 45 release. (An historical aside: For some still unexplained reason, that version was never released. While reference “dubs” made of the completed “Heroes And Villains” reportedly survive, a copy could not be located for this CD.)
At Brian’s insistence, “Heroes And Villains” was re-recorded for Smiley Smile at a hastily set up “studio” at his new Bel-Air home. (Because there was no echo chamber, microphones and speakers were placed in the emptied out swimming pool.)
As Al Jardine recalls, “We recorded a pale facsimile of ‘Heroes And Villains,’ replete with discordant transitions…Brian re-invented the song for this record…He purposefully under-produced the song.”
Finally, “Heroes And Villains” was mixed, which was exactly the reception it received upon release in July of 1967. “Heroes And Villains,” the long overdue follow-up to “Good Vibrations”…ballyhooed as the most eagerly anticipated single release of 1967…was lost amidst the San Francisco explosion of that summer. As Al Jardine points out, “it was lost because Brian wanted it to be lost. He was no longer interested in pursuing number one…Nobody felt it more painfully than us.”
Despite the fact that this version of “Heroes And Villains” is one of the most famous “might have beens” in rock history (no record could have lived up to the advance billing “Heroes…” got), and an example of the lost promise of Smile, it’s still a truly great track. Listen to how the various sections of music are stitched together to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. A sensational melody, incredible vocals and terrifically clever Van Dyke Parks lyrics makes “Heroes And Villains” the best individual track the Beach Boys released in 1967.
It also contains what may have been some of the most complex harmonies anybody has ever put on record. One of the biggest problems for Smiley Smile was the fact that almost nothing on the rest of this album (except “Good Vibrations,” which was recorded in 1966) has comparable vocals.
In a review of “Heroes And Villains,” Jimi Hendrix wrote, “Don’t particularly like the Beach Boys. Makes me think of a psychedelic barbershop quartet.” A more positive critic pointed out that the “arrangement encompasses barbershop harmony and jazz.” Regardless of what you call it, “Heroes And Villains” was easily the best thing recorded for Smiley Smile.
Historical Update: On Brian Wilson’s acclaimed 1988 solo album, there is a suite titled “Rio Grande” which displays the kind of musical and lyrical coherence that Brian intended to bring to the longer version of “Heroes And Villains.” “Rio Grande” is proof positive that Brian can still call on that undefined energy source whenever he chooses to.
“Vegetables”
Lead Vocal: Al
This song, which features the Beach Boys and Paul McCartney munching on raw veggies for percussion, is one of the five songs on Smiley Smile which were listed on the semi-official Smile track line-up (“Good Vibrations,” “Heroes And Villains,” “Wind Chimes” and “Wonderful” are the others). It appears here in drastically different form.
Those who first heard this album in 1967 recall that the first four bars of “Vegetables” was the initial indication that Brian had given up the race to be the greatest producer in rock. With just a repeating bass and a jug (pouring juice as an effect), “Vegetables,” as it was released, marked the end of Brian Wilson’s reign as the “leader of the studio pack.”
Of course, others felt that this track represented the beginning of Brian’s minimalist period and were blown away by Smiley Smile’s dry, trippy vocals, sparse production and incredible melodies…feeling that once again, as Brian had done on Pet Sounds, he was charting new territory.
Whether it was because he was “burned out,” disinterested or now truly believed that less production was better, the result once more sent the Beach Boys in a brave albeit uncommercial new direction. And, as Peter Reum notes, “it should be pointed out that Brian, even when he wasn’t trying to be, was incredibly influential. Many musicians, notably Robbie Robertson of the Band and Pete Townshend of the Who, were inspired by Smiley Smile and Wild Honey.”
Historical Note: Al Jardine: “The night before a big tour, I was out in the studio recording the vocal (for “Vegetables”), when, to my surprise, Paul McCartney walked in and joined Brian at the console. And, briefly, the two most influential musical Geminis in the world had a chance to work together.
“I remember waiting for long periods of time between takes to get to the next section or verse. Brian (seemed to have) lost track of the session. Paul would come on the talkback and say something like, ‘Good take, Al.’ Later, while I stayed in the booth listening to (my vocal work on) ‘Vegetables,’ Paul played the spectacular ‘A Day In The Life’ (from the as yet unreleased Sgt. Pepper LP). I’ll always regret (missing) that.”
Historical Notes: 1) From the “I know that you’ll feel better” section to the end, the Beach Boys used a piece of the Smile version of “Vegetables.” 2) Brian’s outward concern with health was an obsession during the Smile era. (On one studio outtake circa 1967, he goes on for ten minutes about the dangers of smog.) The song “I’m In Great Shape” was slated to be on Smile. (It’s never been heard publicly and no tape of it could be found in the vaults.) Brian was planning to do a complete album on physical fitness. It was never recorded.
“Fall Breaks And Back To Winter”
(W. Woodpecker Symphony)
Considering the sophistication of instrumental arrangements that Brian had assembled for Smile (and previous works), “Fall Breaks…” might have seemed like a real letdown. But Brian considered this a very “arty” piece of work and an example of the fact that he did not abandon art music when he chose not to release Smile. Taken out of the Smile context, it really does have its moments, like the bizarre “woodpecking” percussion, the use of the squeeze box (playing the “Woody Woodpecker” theme) and the extremely subtle, haunting Beach Boys vocals.
Production Note: The bass line for “Fall Breaks…” is similar to the bass line from the Smile piece, “Fire.” The basic track for “Fire” has never been released on record, but it can be found on the home video, “The Beach Boys: An American Band.”
“She’s Goin’ Bald”
Lead Vocal: Mike
One of the reasons Brian has been hailed as a master in the studio was that he could get certain effects with ingenious arrangements. In this case, however, it was by actually speeding up the tape (on the “what a blow” section that is a goofy take-off on “Get A Job”) that he makes it sound like the Beach Boys were inhaling nitrous oxide.
Note: An earlier version of this song had a completely different lyric about a speechmaking businessman.
“Little Pad”
Lead Vocal: Carl and Brian
It’s been said that much of this album was recorded “under the influence,” and nowhere is that more pronounced than on the laughing verse of this cut.
While the song itself is relatively slight, it does feature very nice vocals and probably the most beautiful harmonic humming we’re ever likely to hear.
“Good Vibrations”
Lead Vocal: Carl (with Mike)
Nothing but perfection here. The Beach Boys’ first million-selling, #1 hit (at one point, it reportedly sold 293,000 copies in four days, with an additional 100,000 back ordered) was a major technical breakthrough…the record that showed anything was possible in the studio. The first track of “Good Vibrations” was recorded 2/18/66; the very first take is part of a bonus track on this CD. Brian worked on it several times during the Pet Sounds sessions. However, it wasn’t until Pet Sounds was completed that he turned his total attention to “Good Vibrations.”
“Good Vibrations” was what Brian called “a pocket symphony.” Listen to the way that Brian brazenly spliced together the different sections. Brian: “There was a lot of ‘Oh, you can’t do this, that’s too modern,’ or ‘That’s going to be too long a record.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not going to be too long; it’s going to be just right.’”
Within the three minutes and thirty-five seconds of “Good Vibrations,” Brian explains, there were “a lot of riff changes. It had a lot of movements…changes, changes, changes. Building harmonies here, drop this voice out, this comes in, bring the echo chamber in, do this, put the Theremin there, bring the cello up a little louder here…a series of intricate harmonies and mood changes…I mean, it was a real production. The biggest production of our life.”
Among all the other innovations that Brian inaugurated with this recording, the cellos (playing triplets) as a rock ‘n’ roll rhythm instrument was probably the most revelatory and revolutionary.
As for the Theremin, which Brian had already used (appropriately on Pet Sounds’ “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”), engineer Chuck Britz remembers, “Brian brought this thing (the Theremin) in and I went out and looked at it ‘cause it had nothing but two little arcs sticking up with a vibrator going in between. And he played it for me. I couldn’t believe that he would use it because it was strictly a thing that had been used years before [it was probably introduced in the film classic, “Spellbound.”] (But) he was into sound, he was definitely into sounds. So we just started doing it, and it worked out beautifully. I really couldn’t believe it would work like that.”
Brian recalls the night, after months of sessions, that “Good Vibrations” was finally done. Brian: “It was at Columbia [Studios]. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix down to mono. It was a feeling of power; it was a rush. A feeling of exhilaration. Artistic beauty. It was everything…I remember saying, ‘Oh my God, sit back and listen to this!’”
Historical Notes: 1) In 1967, “Good Vibrations” was nominated for three Grammy Awards. However, the recording academy’s conservative membership overlooked it and other worthy rock nominees, inconceivably giving “Winchester Cathedral” the award for “Best Contemporary Rock ‘n’ Roll Recording.” And even though “Good Vibrations” did receive numerous other honors, it’s unfortunate that to this day, Brian and the Beach Boys’ records have never been properly recognized by NARAS.
“With Me Tonight”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Probably the best of the non-official Smile tunes on the LP, the intro of this track exemplifies what one writer called Smiley Smile’s “do it yourself acid casualty doo-wop music.”
Domenic Priore: “‘With Me Tonight’ (under the title ‘On And On She Goes’), later received a full-blown, upbeat rock treatment by Sandy Salisbury, but the charm of the lyrics remain captured best in the more subtle mood of the Beach Boys’ version.”
Peter Reum: “The intro of ‘With Me Tonight’ was originally recorded as a vocal chant; later, it was expanded into a song for Smiley Smile.”
“Wind Chimes”
Lead Vocals: Group
On this cut and “Wonderful,” we feel the loss of Smile because while the released versions are very nice, the Smile takes are something else completely, something much more original and powerful.
Nonetheless, “Wind Chimes” survives as a beautiful song full of terrific singing by the Beach Boys, especially the Wilson brothers. Although there is an eerie, disturbing, almost malevolent feeling to the high harmonies that precede the “tingling” fade, the tag (turn up the volume) has gorgeous “Gregorian-chant”-like harmony singing.
“Gettin’ Hungry”
Lead Vocal: Brian and Mike
“Gettin’ Hungry” is a nice little rocker that probably more than anything, foreshadowed what was to come on Wild Honey. The musical highlights of the track are the percolating percussion and when Brian hits the falsetto “my kind of woman.”
Historical Note: “Gettin’ Hungry” was the second and last single released on the original Brother Records label. It was curiously credited not to the Beach Boys, but to “Brian and Mike.”
“Wonderful”
Lead Vocal: Carl
In the Beach Boys’ vaults, there is a version of this song that features Brian at the harpsichord. It is heartbreakingly beautiful. Even as released, it’s a terrific song, and as you listen to the melody and the skilled lyrics, you can only begin to imagine what this would have sounded like fully produced. Nonetheless, Carl turns in a very touching vocal, and this is one of the best cuts on the record.
The bizarre laughing interlude (kind of a higher Beach Boys’ Party!) was an extremely unusual idea, even for 1967.
“Whistle In”
Lead Vocal: Carl (with Mike)
“Whistle In” is a chant in its repeating refrain, similar to “You’re Welcome” and “Mama Says.” Brian, by this time, was recording musical ideas on tape, the way a lot of authors write in journals. This piece was almost like a daily entry in his diary.
Historical Note: A version of this was recorded on 1/27/67, the same day as the “Cantina” section of “Heroes And Villains.” It’s possible that at one point, “Whistle In” was part of “Heroes And Villains.”
Production Note: With the exception of “Good Vibrations,” most of “Heroes And Villains” and part of “Vegetables,” Smiley Smile was recorded in a makeshift studio hastily assembled in the quietly classy L.A. neighborhood of Bel-Air. When Brian said he wouldn’t go to the studio, they “moved the mountain to Mohammed” and built a studio in his living room.
Historical Note: Smiley Smile, which only reached #41 on the LP charts, ended a streak of six straight top ten albums and was the lowest charting Beach Boys disc since their first long-player, 1962’s Surfin’ Safari. Smiley Smile also spent only an anemic 21 weeks in the charts.
That statistical performance was bad enough. But as an indication of how far out of favor the Beach Boys were to fall, Smiley Smile “enjoyed” the longest chart stay of any Beach Boys album until 1973’s Holland. They did not have a top ten LP of new material until 1976’s Brian Wilson comeback record, 15 Big Ones (their only top ten LP with new songs since Pet Sounds). Of course, by then, their career had been resuscitated by 1974’s number one, million-selling hits compilation, Endless Summer and its 1975 top ten platinum follow-up, Spirit Of America.
Historical Update: When the new rock critical establishment came out against the Beach Boys in late 1967, it meant that the Beach Boys would be undeservedly absent from many progressive radio playlists in the late ‘60s and the ‘70s…resulting in their presence on “classic rock” radio today being incongruously minimal.
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Original Wild Honey liner notes
Honey, of the wild variety, on a shelf in Brian’s kitchen, was not only an aide to all of the Beach Boys’ health but the source of inspiration for the record, “Wild Honey.”
Soon after the R&B-flavored “Wild Honey,” came eight other new songs, and a Beach Boys version of “I Was Made To Love Her.”
We think this is a great album. We love to listen to it. We might just be biased because we work for the Beach Boys.
Please see what you think.
– STEVE and ARNY
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It seems that almost everybody…the public, the critics, the record industry and maybe even the Beach Boys themselves…was baffled by Smiley Smile. Shortly after it was released, the group returned to Brian’s house to record Wild Honey, the record that marked the birth of the second era of great Beach Boys music.
For Wild Honey, given Brian’s disinterest in making a studio statement, the Beach Boys consciously decided to make a “simple” record.
It was Wild Honey’s lack of artistic pretension that bewildered the rapidly shrinking legions of Beach Boys fans. For a year, they had patiently waited for Smile. Smiley Smile had hardly mollified them, and many of those who decided to give the Beach Boys another chance were only further alienated by Wild Honey.
But seminal rock critic Paul Williams, who, like many fanatical Brian Wilson supporters, at first wasn’t crazy about Wild Honey, put his reaction in proper perspective in this excerpt from his classic 1969 book, Outlaw Blues. “We expected more (from Brian) than we would expect from any other composer alive, because the tracks we’d heard from Smile were just that good. Smiley Smile was…a confusion…and Wild Honey is just another Beach Boys record, which is only to say that it’s not Smile and it was necessary for us to forget Smile before we could appreciate what came later…I love Wild Honey because it is new and fresh and raw and beautiful and the first step in the direction of even greater things than what was once to be. I celebrate Wild Honey as a work of joy, and one more gift of music from probably the most creative musician alive.”
Unfortunately for the Beach Boys, Paul Williams was in the minority. As far as most critics were concerned, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, released within months of each other, confirmed that the Beach Boys were musically insignificant. To the “hipper than thou” crowd, the group had committed that most inexcusable late ‘60s crime – they’d become irrelevant.
It’s a fact that in 1968, after Wild Honey had already come out, Bob Dylan released John Wesley Harding and the Beatles cut “simpler” records like “Lady Madonna.” And much of that year’s White Album was very basically produced. While there’s no evidence that either Dylan or the Beatles were following Brian’s lead, they certainly were all heading down the same path.
Brian was the first to pull back from the production “race,” and to most of the Beach Boys long-time fans, or the recent converts who had been blown away by Pet Sounds, “Good Vibrations” and Sgt. Pepper, that wasn’t acceptable. They expected more “high” art from Brian because not many could “play” the studio with the virtuosity of a Brian Wilson.
However, as Brian was no longer living the life of a “cutting edge” artist, Wild Honey could only reflect the self-enforced simplicity of his life. Incredibly, he even managed to somehow turn that ingeniousness into a new art form (best exemplified on Wild Honey, Friends and on the first four Paul McCartney solo albums).
But more than anything, maybe the essential truth is that the Beach Boys really didn’t produce either Smiley Smile or Wild Honey as major artistic efforts. Smiley Smile was a scramble, a struggle to piece together musical fragments to make songs. And Wild Honey was a new beginning…the Beach Boys rediscovering the joy of just making good, solid R&B based rock music. The piano lines in Wild Honey are, in their own way, as inventive as Brian’s more textured records…Brian happily going back to his roots, the boogie woogie piano that he had loved as a teen.
In retrospect, Wild Honey sounds like nothing more than a band that, having lost their musical identity as the ultimate studio instrument, is struggling to regain its old one as a rock group, trying to get to know and like each other again. (The Beach Boys, for the first time since 1963, played on most of the instrumental tracks on the album.)
And while the primitive feel of Wild Honey is part of its charm, that same lack of production is the reason it hasn’t worn as well as the group’s mid-60’s albums. Nevertheless, from a 1990 perspective, Wild Honey is a Beach Boys record that is looked back upon very fondly. Even though Wild Honey may not be rock “art,” it’s a sold album.
There’s a lot of great music on Wild Honey, which meant that when hardcore Beach Boys fans, who had listened to Smiley Smile with a blank stare, first heard Wild Honey, their immediate reaction was a relieved, “Yeah.”
Bruce Johnston: “I loved Wild Honey because I thought it was getting us back on the track again. It was probably the funkiest Beach Boys album, very little production, but a lot of music without any complications. I just remember we wanted to be a band again. The whole (Smile) thing had wiped everyone out, and we wanted to play together again.” Carl Wilson offers another angle: “Wild Honey was music for Brian to cool out by.”
Historical Perspective: Released in December of 1967, Wild Honey (despite the presence of the top twenty single “Darlin’”) had the group’s weakest sales performance to date, lasting only 15 weeks on the charts before disappearing.
Taking their cue from Rolling Stone, the “counter-culture” rejected the Beach Boys out of hand. And the Beach Boys, splintered by Smile and Brian’s withdrawal, really couldn’t stop it from happening. Actually, the Beach Boys fall from favor almost seemed preordained. It might not have mattered how great the Beach Boys albums of the late ‘60s were. The climate was such that the Beach Boys’ image was “out of touch.” In those charged times, what that meant was that if they weren’t perceived as cool, their music couldn’t be either.
Historical Note: Peter Reum: “There is significant evidence that even after Smiley Smile was released, Capitol asked Brian to finish Smile. Smiley Smile was released as Brother 9001 and Wild Honey was slated to be Brother 9003. What was going to be Brother 9002 is unknown, but one strong possibility, judging from Capitol’s internal memos of 1967, is that it was supposed to be Smile.”
______________________________________________________________
TRACK-BY-TRACK
“Wild Honey”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Wild Honey is often called the Beach Boys “soul” album, and there’s no better example of that than the title song on which Brian pays tribute to one of his favorite foods. Right away you’ll hear that unlike the previous Beach Boys records, Wild Honey is sparsely produced. Using very basic instrumentation, the Beach Boys cut this entire record in a couple of weeks. Compare that to the month Brian worked on “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes And Villains,” and you’ll immediately understand why Wild Honey, in pre-‘67 Beach Boys terms, sounds like nothing more than a demo for a record.
Record producer David Anderle…in a 1968 Smile post-mortem published as a Crawdaddy conversation with Paul Williams…noted that, “when I listen to Wild Honey, I really remember Brian sitting at that piano by himself just screaming his soul out.” Brian, himself, has stated that all he’s ever needed was a piano and his voice. On Wild Honey, that’s about all that’s there.
“Wild Honey,” the song, begins promisingly with a Theremin line, a strong vocal and basic instrumentation. But those who longed for the magnificent harmonies that were a Beach Boys trademark were looking in the wrong place. “Wild Honey,” like most of this album, has very little group singing. More than anything, that may have been the reason it was so commercially unsuccessful. Like Smiley Smile, Wild Honey didn’t sound like what people had come to expect from a Beach Boys record.
Production Note: Listen for the great organ sounds in the break. The group still had a few sonic tricks up its sleeve.
Historical Note: Brian: “Carl had a lot of fun singing the lead on this one. He was laughing and dancing around the living room.”
“Aren’t You Glad”
Lead Vocal: Mike and Brian
One of the best songs on the album, “Aren’t You Glad” is unpretentiously produced (just piano, guitar, bass, minimal percussion and a nice trumpet line on the intro). “Aren’t You Glad” also features strong vocals; listen to how the Beach Boys blend their voices with the horns.
Production Note: Listen for the drum beat accents on the “heart that won’t stop beating for you” lyric.
“I Was Made To Love Her”
Lead Vocal: Carl
A tribute to one of Motown’s best, Stevie Wonder. Carl’s vocal on “I Was Made To Lover Her” shows his passion for R&B.
“Country Air”
Lead Vocals: Group
The humming over the bass line on the verses builds anticipation for one of the best group vocals on the album. The crowing rooster and their voices meld, a small example of the kind of organic sound effects that were to have been a part of Smile.
Production Note: You’re not having speaker trouble on this one. Even on the master tape, it sounds like a note on the organ is trying to burst through.
“A Thing Or Two”
Lead Vocal: Mike and Brian
“A Thing Or Two” is a great, jazzy rocker; Brian may have intended to record this song with Redwood (see “Darlin’” notes).
“Darlin’”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Highest Chart Position: #19
Probably the best track and most developed production on the album, “Darlin’” was originally written in 1963 as “Thinkin’ ‘Bout You Baby,” a record Brian produced for Sharon Marie, a girlfriend of Mike’s.
Brian resurrected the song in 1967, re-wrote it and named it “Darlin’,” for his long-time friend, singer/songwriter Danny Hutton, who, up until that time, was best known for the 1965 hit, “Roses And Rainbows.”
When the Beach Boys formed Brother Records in 1967, the plan was that everybody would produce outside artists. Brian’s first signing was Redwood, a group formed by Danny Hutton.
Brian originally cut this track for Redwood, but it and other Redwood recordings were never released. Soon after, Redwood changed their name to Three Dog Night, and Brian’s instincts were vindicated, as Three Dog Night, picking up the mantle from the Beach Boys, became the most commercially successful American band of its time.
“I’d Love Just Once To See You”
Lead Vocal: Brian
A precursor of the writing style Brian would again use on Friends (notably “Busy Doin’ Nothin’”), “I’d Love Just Once To See You” is more a casual ditty than a fully developed song. Its shortness notwithstanding, this has always been a favorite because of the lyrical surprise at the end that hints at Brian’s innocent sense of humor.
“Here Comes The Night”
Lead Vocal: Brian
“Here Comes The Night” has some of the best R&B influenced vocals the Beach Boys ever recorded.
Historical Note: A quite passable disco version of “Here Comes The Night,” the Beach Boys first and only foray into disco, was recorded in 1979; Beach Boys fans revolted even though the extended group’s vocals, inventively arranged by Bruce Johnston and the late Curt Becher, were really enjoyable.
“Let The Wind Blow”
Lead Vocal: Mike and Brian
“Let The Wind Blow” features possibly the most interesting chord changes on the album; strong lead vocals carry what is one of Wild Honey’s most beautiful songs. It later became part of their late ‘60s/early ‘70s concert repertoire, and a haunting, soulful version of it, sung by Carl, was included on their 1973 In Concert double LP.
“How She Boogalooed It”
Lead Vocal: Carl
Maybe the most energetic track on Wild Honey, “How She Boogalooed It” was an historic moment for the Beach Boys. This was the first song on a Beach Boys album (other than instrumentals and cover versions) that was written by the members of the Beach Boys without Brian.
“Mama Says”
A great album closer, when Brian leads the shout of “Poof,” you get the feeling he was performing the ultimate magic trick.
The terrific group vocal on this one only amplifies the loss felt by the lack of same on the rest of the album.
Historical Note: This hygienic dictum was originally part of Smile, abruptly appearing as an interpolated section in the original version of “Vegetables.”
___________________________________________________________
BONUS TRACKS
“Heroes And Villains”
Lead Vocal: Brian (with Mike)
This version of “Heroes And Villains” isn’t the legendary “lost” version. It’s also not the long-hoped for seven minute version. And it’s not the reported upon but almost never heard 11-12 minute rendition. Those couldn’t be found in the Beach Boys archives. It may be part of the track that Chuck Britz remembers editing into “Heroes And Villains, Parts 1 and 2” for the original (unreleased) Capitol 45. Then again, maybe it isn’t.
However, this bonus track is one of the key missing links of the Smile legend that could be located. This recording was completed in early ‘67 before Smile fell apart, so it is one of the few surviving examples of what Smile was supposed to be.
At the time, Brian described Smile as an album that “will include lots of humor – some musical and some spoken. It won’t be like a comedy LP – there won’t be any spoken tracks as such – but someone might say something in between verses” (e.g. “You’re under arrest” on this bonus track).
From the section that begins “In the cantina…” on this never-before-released version of “Heroes And Villains,” we finally can hear exactly what Brian meant.
In a late ‘66/early ‘67 interview during which he discussed what was about to be the Beach Boys’ next single (probably referring to this bonus track) Brian called “Heroes And Villains” “a three minute musical comedy. I’m using new production techniques that I think will surprise everyone. I can’t actually describe the effect – you have to hear it.” And now, nearly a quarter century later, here it is.
Production Note: Brian’s vocal is much more prominent in this mix of “Heroes And Villains.” Also, the tone of this cut sounds much more viable as a follow-up to the “Good Vibrations” single than what was ultimately released.
Historical Note: The “In The Cantina” section of “Heroes And Villains” was recorded on January 27, 1967.
“Good Vibrations”
Lead Vocal: Brian
One of the most amazing 45 RPM disks in the history of the record business had its not-so-humble beginnings on these sessions. Beginning on 2/18/66 with what was slated “Good Vibrations-Take One,” these excerpts from the “Good Vibrations” sessions give you some idea of the kind of musical experimentation that Brian was conducting.
Listen to how Brian worked in the studio, in complete command of his orchestra, trying different musical combinations, directing the musicians to play in a certain way, searching for the feel he was after. These are not the outtakes of a rock ‘n’ roll session. Brian, in 1966, was a modern day Mozart creating symphonies live in the studio. (An aside: As you hear some of the literally dozens of “Good Vibrations” fragments that Brian recorded, it’s amazing that his creative vision was so strong that he was ultimately able to assemble a coherent version of “Good Vibrations” that was both commercially and artistically successful.)
Carl Wilson: “The first time I ever heard the music to ‘Good Vibrations,’ the Beach Boys were playin’ up in North Dakota. I came back to my hotel room one night, and the phone rang, and it was Brian. He called from the recording studio and played this really bizarre-sounding music over the phone.”
Glenn Campbell: “I played on about five sessions of ‘Good Vibrations’ that I know of, to show you the extent Brian goes to get a good record.”
Mike Love: “On one passage of one little thing on ‘Good Vibrations,’ we did it over and over and over. Not only was it to get the note – we wanted the notes right – but (Brian was listening to) the timbre and quality of each note, and how the four parts would resonate together, and then (he) would be hearin’ something nobody could hear, including a dog…and he would say, ‘Do it again,’ and we’d say, ‘Do it again – What are ya, crazy?’…it was exhausting, but it came out pretty good…I can remember doing 25-30 vocal overdubs of the same part, and when I say part, I mean the same section of a record, maybe no more than 2-5 seconds long.”
Brian, looking back on “Good Vibrations”: “We put together ‘Good Vibrations’ in a very odd manner. We utilized five or six studios to put the thing together. We recorded the ‘Ah, I love the colorful clothes she wears’ sections at Gold Star, and the ‘I’m pickin’ up good vibrations’ at Columbia. In those days, you could record a single record for fifteen hundred dollars. ‘Good Vibrations’ cost about fifteen thousand.”
To give you an indication of how hard it is to pin down exactly what sessions were used on the actual record (and some of the original session tapes, particularly for the vocals, have disappeared), Chuck Britz thinks that the ultimate released record was “the first session we did in [Western] Studio Three (which is part of this bonus track), with the exception of a few bars from Gold Star and a few bars from RCA…Basically, it was a hit song the minute he cut it.”
Brian: We were well into the mid-sixties, and by that time, I think it was time for somebody to do something that had a little merit, ya know, had a little message to it.”
Britz: “That song was his whole life’s performance in one song. He wanted it right…at that period of time, he was striving to do something that was totally different than what he’d done before.”
Brian: “I’m most proud of ‘Good Vibrations.’ It exemplifies a whole era. I mean, it’s a whole involved piece of music that says something.”
On this bonus track, you’ll first hear glimpses of how “Good Vibrations” came together in the studio. Then, you’ll hear an early version of “Good Vibrations” that features Brian singing lyrics completely different from what appeared on the released record of “Good Vibrations.”
“You’re Welcome”
The “B” side of the “Heroes And Villains” single was the chant, “You’re Welcome,” the kind of vocal gymnastics the Beach Boys used to throw off in their sleep. Their singing on the “well, you’re welcome to come” ending is especially powerful.
“Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring”
The Beach Boys had finished recording Smiley Smile. But before it was released, they spent several days in August rehearsing for and then performing a live concert in Hawaii that was to become a live album nicknamed Lei’d In Hawaii. (It was never released.) This cut was recorded in Hawaii on 8/25/67 during rehearsals for the first day’s concert, and it features the original Beach Boys line-up of Brian, Carl, Dennis, Mike and Al.
To get a sense of how Brian’s voice fit into the vocal blend of the Beach Boys, compare the sound of this recording to this same song on the Capitol “Double Play” CD of Beach Boys Concert/Live In London.
“Can’t Wait Too Long” /
“Been Way Too Long”
Lead Vocal: Brian
This bonus track, made up of several different takes on the same song, needs no analysis or description other than to say that it’s an incredible piece of music that was recorded at various sessions in late 1967 and 1968, well after the Smile sessions had ended.
“Can’t Wait Too Long” gives us an indication of the production depth that Smile tracks would have had. A lot of the music that has come out has been fragmentary, and while “Can’t Wait Too Long” is unfinished, sections of it are complete enough to be a terrific example of how Brian, in Van Dyke Parks’ words, used to “saturate the tape with music.”
This song has never been released before, and in my opinion, it’s the single best piece of unreleased music in the Beach Boys’ archives.
The inclusion of “Can’t Wait Too Long,” the alternate “Heroes And Villains” and the “Good Vibrations” sessions on this CD makes it one of the most exciting Beach Boys releases since “Good Vibrations.”
In fact, listen to the bonus tracks almost as a separate album. “Good Vibrations” displays how Brian was recording sections of music. “Can’t Wait Too Long” shows how he could create mind-boggling variations on a theme. “Heroes And Villains” hints at the humor of Smile. “You’re Welcome” and “Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring” demonstrate the vocal power at their disposal. It’s what makes these bonus tracks, which have never been released (except for “You’re Welcome”), possibly as “important” to the group’s artistic history as what’s on the albums themselves.
However, both LPs on this CD have a lot of wonderful music that shouldn’t be overlooked. Even though Smiley Smile was perceived as a failure because as a structural record, it didn’t live up to Smile, it still is worth listening to. And if Wild Honey seemed so strange because it was really a new beginning for the Beach Boys, that doesn’t mean that on its own terms it’s not a very good record.
After Smiley Smile, the Beach Boys knew they had to re-define the way they made music. Wild Honey, for all its melodic richness, was missing the vocal gymnastics of the past. However, instead of comparing Wild Honey to the hit-packed albums of the past, look ahead at what was to come.
Wild Honey is the building block that began a new phase of the Beach Boys career. Wild Honey was the first step towards 1968’s very satisfying Friends, which was the bridge to 1970’s collaborative Sunflower, maybe the greatest Beach Boys album of the past twenty years. Sunflower led to Surf’s Up and Holland, the album on which Carl fully took over the production reigns from Brian.
While this era would radically differ from the “fun in the sun” years during which Brian was the dominant force, “stage two” of the group’s recording career, beginning with Wild Honey, produced a number of albums (notably Friends, Sunflower and Holland) and many songs (“This Whole World,” “‘Til I Die,” “Trader” and “Sail On Sailor”) which are held in high regard today as Beach Boys standards.
Liner notes by David Leaf (© 1990 David Leaf)
(David Leaf is the author of the critically acclaimed Brian Wilson biography, The Beach Boys And The California Myth.)
______________________________________________________________
1. HEROES AND VILLAINS
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57020 45 RPM Single Released 7/31/67 (Brother 1001)
Charted 8/5/67 Reached #12
2. VEGETABLES
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57450
3. FALL BREAKS AND BACK TO WINTER
(WOODY WOODPECKER SYMPHONY)
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57934
4. SHE’S GOIN’ BALD
(Wilson-Love-Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57941
5. LITTLE PAD
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57933
6. GOOD VIBRATIONS
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #55949 45 RPM Single Released 10/66 (Capitol 5676)
Charted 10/22/66 Reached #1
7. WITH ME TONIGHT
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57935
8. WIND CHIMES
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58034 45 RPM Single Released 10/23/67 (Capitol 2028)
9. GETTIN’ HUNGRY
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58037 45 RPM Single Released 8/28/67 (Brother 1002)
10. WONDERFUL
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58035
11. WHISTLE IN
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58036
12. WILD HONEY
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58371 45 RPM Single Released 10/23/67 (Capitol 2028)
Charted 11/4/67 Reached #31
13. AREN’T YOU GLAD
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58685
14. I WAS MADE TO LOVE HER
(Cosby-Hardaway-May-Wonder)
Jobete Music Co., Inc. ASCAP
Master #58588
15. COUNTRY AIR
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58686
16. A THING OR TWO
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58586
17. DARLIN’
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58585 45 RPM Single Released 12/18/67 (Capitol 2068)
Charted 12/23/67 Reached #19
18. I’D LOVE JUST ONCE TO SEE YOU
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58687
19. HERE COMES THE NIGHT
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58584
20. LET THE WIND BLOW
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58600
21. HOW SHE BOOGALOOED IT
(Love-Johnston-Jardine-Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58688
22. MAMA SAYS
(B. Wilson-M. Love)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58689
23. HEROES AND VILLAINS (Alternate Take)*
(B. Wilson-V.D. Parks)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57020 (Mixed 2/10/27 – Engineer: Chuck Britz)
24. GOOD VIBRATIONS (Various Sessions)*
(B. Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #55949A From various sessions at Gold Star Studios (2/18 & 4/9/66), United Western Studios (5/4, 5/27, 6/2, 6/16, 6/18 & 9/1/66), and Sunset Sound Studios (8/24/66) – Engineers: Chuck Britz, Larry Levine, Bruce Botnick and “Cal”
25. GOOD VIBRATIONS (Early Take)*
(B. Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
All Vocals By Brian Wilson
26. YOU’RE WELCOME*
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #57021 Single Released 7/31/67 (Brother 1001)
B-side to “Heroes And Villains” single
27. THEIR HEARTS WERE FULL OF SPRING*
(Bobby Troup)
Fred Raphael Music, Ltd. ASCAP
Master #93499A Recorded 8/25/67 at Honolulu International Center, Hawaii, at rehearsal for that evening’s live performance.
28. CAN’T WAIT TOO LONG*
(Brian Wilson)
Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #58587
* BONUS TRACKS
ALL TRACKS IN ORIGINAL MONO SOUND
EXCEPT #28 WHICH IS STEREO
“Smiley Smile” LP – Produced By The Beach Boys.
Recorded at United Western Studios, Gold Star Studios, CBS Studios, and Brian Wilson’s Home Studio except where noted.
Engineered by Jim Lockert and Chuck Britz.
Originally released 9/5/67 (Brother T-9001) Charted 9/30/67 Reached #41
“Wild Honey” LP – Produced By The Beach Boys.
Recorded at Brian Wilson’s Home Studio.
Engineered by Jim Lockert.
Second Engineer: Bill Halverson.
Originally released 12/4/67 by Capitol Records (Capitol T-2859)
Charted 12/30/67 Reached #24
_____________________________________________
In the preparation of this compact disc, every effort has been made to make these historic recordings sound as they did when Brian, Carl, Mike, Dennis, Al and Bruce first made them. Numerous tapes were auditioned in order to find the best sounding master. No remixing was attempted, as it was felt that this would not be faithful to the original productions. The original mono and stereo tapes were transferred using a specially modified ampex tape machine and custom-made analog-to-digital converters.
The disc has been mastered using the Pacific Microsonics HDCD system which encodes 24 bits onto a conventional 16 bit CD. The bonus tracks have been selected from a variety of sources and were mixed directly from the original three and four track masters.
Mark Linett
Los Angeles, CA
December 2000
_____________________________________________
REISSUE PRODUCED AND COORDINATED BY MARK LINETT.
24-BIT DIGITALLY REMASTERED BY JOE GASTWIRT AT OCEANVIEW DIGITAL MASTERING, LOS ANGELES, CA, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF MARK LINETT – 2000.
“Good Vibrations” BONUS TRACKS MIXED BY MARK LINETT AND LARRY WALSH AT CAPITOL RECORDING STUDIOS, “Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring” and “Can’t Wait Too Long” MIXED BY MARK LINETT AT YOUR PLACE OR MINE STUDIOS, LOS ANGELES.
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH BY ANDY PALEY.
CHART INFORMATION COURTESY OF BILLBOARD AND JOEL WHITBURN.
“SMILE” SESSION PHOTOS BY JASPER DAILEY (COURTESY OF THE PETER REUM COLLECTION)
LINER NOTES BY DAVID LEAF.
ART DIRECTION BY TOMMY STEELE.
DESIGN BY CHUCK AMES.
PHOTO RESEARCH BY BRAD BENEDICT.
FOR INFORMATION ON THE BEACH BOYS FAN CLUB, SEND A SELF-ADDRESSED, STAMPED #10 ENVELOPE TO:
BBFC
Mail Stop 504, 252 Convention Center Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89109
http://www.beachboysfanclub.com/
BEACH BOYS BRITAIN IS THE OFFICIAL BRITISH FAN CLUB FOR THE BEACH BOYS. FOR INFORMATION, WRITE TO:
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FOR INFORMATION ON THE BRIAN WILSON FAN CLUB, WRITE TO:
Brian Wilson Fan Club
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http://www.celebritymerch.com/bw/index.htm
FOR INFORMATION ON THE MIKE LOVE FAN CLUB, WRITE TO:
The Mike Love Fan Club
114 Gov. Winthrop Road, Somerville, MA 02145
http://www.mikelovefanclub.com/
OTHER BEACH BOYS FAN CLUBS AND FANZINES ARE:
Endless Summer Quarterly
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Good Vibrations Quarterly
600 Sandra Court, Hampton, Virginia 23669
Beach Boys Stomp
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P.O. Box 106, North Strathfield 2137, Australia
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BEACH BOYS DOUBLE CDs AVAILABLE INCLUDE:
SURFIN’ SAFARI / SURFIN’ USA (31517)
SURFER GIRL / SHUT DOWN VOLUME TWO (31515)
LITTLE DEUCE COUPE / ALL SUMMER LONG (31516)
TODAY! / SUMMER DAYS (AND SUMMER NIGHTS!!) (31639)
PARTY! / STACK-O-TRACKS (31641)
SMILEY SMILE / WILD HONEY (31862)
FRIENDS / 20/20 (31638)
BEACH BOYS CONCERT / LIVE IN LONDON (31861)
SUNFLOWER / SURF’S UP (25692)
CARL & THE PASSIONS “SO TOUGH” / HOLLAND (25694)
IN CONCERT (25933)
15 BIG ONES / LOVE YOU (27945)
M.I.U. ALBUM / L.A. (LIGHT ALBUM) (27950)
KEEPIN’ THE SUMMER ALIVE / THE BEACH BOYS (27948)
OTHER BEACH BOYS CDs AVAILABLE INCLUDE:
PET SOUNDS (26266)
ENDLESS HARMONY (24002)
ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS (95734)
GREATEST HITS VOLUME 1 (21860)
GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2 (20238)
GREATEST HITS VOLUME 3 THE BEST OF THE BROTHER YEARS 1970-1986 (24511)
THE PET SOUNDS SESSIONS – BOX SET (37662)
GOOD VIBRATIONS-THIRTY YEARS OF THE BEACH BOYS – BOX SET (81294)
BEACH BOYS VIDEO/DVD AVAILABLE INCLUDE:
ENDLESS HARMONY (VHS) (92154)
ENDLESS HARMONY (DVD) (92353)
ALL TRACKS 24-BIT DIGITALLY REMASTERED
(P) 2001 © 1990 Capitol Records, Inc. Manufactured by Capitol Records, Inc., 1750 N. Vine Street, Hollywood, CA 90028. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in U.S.A.
HDCD®
72435-31862-2-7
See Hollywood and Vine
hollywoodandvine.com/beachboys
__________________________________________________________
Surfin' Safari / Surfin' USA
Surfer Girl / Shut Down, Volume Two
Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long
Today! / Summer Days, Summer Nights
Party! / Stack-O-Tracks
Smiley Smile / Wild Honey
Concert / Live In London
Sunflower / Surf's Up
Friends / 20/20
Carl & The Passions: So Tough / Holland
Keeping The Summer Alive / Beach Boys (1985 Release)
M.I.U. / Light Album
15 Big Ones / Love You
Surfer Girl / Shut Down, Volume Two
Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long
Today! / Summer Days, Summer Nights
Party! / Stack-O-Tracks
Smiley Smile / Wild Honey
Concert / Live In London
Sunflower / Surf's Up
Friends / 20/20
Carl & The Passions: So Tough / Holland
Keeping The Summer Alive / Beach Boys (1985 Release)
M.I.U. / Light Album
15 Big Ones / Love You
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