Annette "on her toes dancing in heaven."

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Monday, April 8, 2013

Former ‘Mouseketeer’ Annette Funicello dies at the age of 70, after suffering for years with MS
Her only daughter, Gina Gilardi, said, ‘She’s on her toes dancing in heaven… no more MS’

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST MinistriesBAKERSFIELD, CA (ANS) -- Actress Annette Funicello, the dark-haired darling of TV's “The Mickey Mouse Club” in the 1950s, and for her beach movies with Frankie Avalon, is finally out of her pain.

Annette Funicello

She died today (Monday, April 8, 2013) at the age of 70 from complications of Multiple Sclerosis at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, California.
Her family confirmed to “Extra” that that they were by her side at the Bakersfield hospital when she was taken off life support. Funicello had been in an MS coma for years.
Annette Funicello was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1987 and became a spokeswoman for treatment of the chronic, often-debilitating disease of the central nervous system. In 1992, Annette finally announced she had MS, a secret she kept for many years. As the illness progressed, she lost the ability to walk in 2004 and to speak in 2009.
Funicello was married to her first husband, Jack Gilardi, from 1965 until 1981, and had three children. In 1986, she married California harness racing horse breeder/trainer Glen Holt, and they had moved from the Los Angeles area after a 2011 fire gutted their home in Encino.
Her only daughter, Gina Gilardi, released a statement saying, “She's on her toes dancing in heaven… no more MS. My brothers and I were there, holding her sweet hands when she left us.”

Annette as a Mouseketeer

Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, told Fox News, “Annette was and always will be a cherished member of the Disney family, synonymous with the word Mouseketeer, and a true Disney Legend. She will forever hold a place in our hearts as one of Walt Disney's brightest stars, delighting an entire generation of baby boomers with her jubilant personality and endless talent.
“Annette was well known for being as beautiful inside as she was on the outside, and she faced her physical challenges with dignity, bravery and grace. All of us at Disney join with family, friends, and fans around the world in celebrating her extraordinary life.”
The child star was hand-selected to appear on Walt Disney's show and became an immediate sensation, receiving up to 8,000 fan letters per month, Fox News reported. Funicello was so popular that she only went by her first name throughout her appearance on the show, and she shared a special relationship with Walt Disney, whom she always called “boss”, also licensed Annette lunch boxes, Colorforms dolls, coloring books, comic books and even mystery novels featuring her in fictionalized adventures.
“He was the dearest, kindest person, and truly was like a second father to me. He was a kid at heart,” she was quoted as saying.

Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in one of their famous beach movies

Regarding her illness and her extraordinary life, she later wrote about in her autobiography, “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and also spoke about her battle with MS, saying, “My equilibrium is no more; it's just progressively getting worse. But I thank God I just didn't wake up one morning and not be able to walk. You learn to live with it. You learn to live with anything, you really do. I've always been religious. This just makes me appreciate the Lord even more because things could always be worse. I know he will see me through this.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Funicello was a 12-year-old dance-school student when Walt Disney saw her performing the lead role in “Swan Lake” at her dance-school's year-end recital at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank in the spring of 1955.
She joined a group of other talented young performers hired to become Mousketeers on “The Mickey Mouse Club,” the children's variety show that debuted on ABC in October 1955 and quickly became a daily late-afternoon ritual for millions of young Americans.
“Like her fellow female Mousketeers, Funicello wore a mouse-eared beanie, a blue pleated skirt, and a white, short-sleeved turtleneck sweater with her name emblazoned in block letters across her chest,” said the LA Times story.

Annette in her later years in a wheelchair

“But there was something special about the Mouseketeer with the curly black hair that unexpectedly turned her into the ensemble cast's biggest star.”
Funicello made her acting debut on “The Mickey Mouse Club” serial “Adventure in Dairyland.” She also appeared in two of the popular “Spin and Marty” serials about a Western dude ranch for boys, with Tim Considine and David Stollery in the title roles. And in 1958, Disney showcased his prized Mousketeer in her own “Annette” serial.
Now she is finally out of her pain, but Annette Funicello has left behind such great memories for her millions of fans who watched not only her many TV shows and movies, but later on, the courageous way she dealt with her debilitating illness.

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Dan Wooding, 72, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the “Passion for the Persecuted” award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top “Newsmakers of 2011” from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is “Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s.” To order a copy, go to: Caped Crusader - Amazon

---

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New Music Video & Podcast from touring Beach Boys Band member

NEW ~ Pray For Surf ~ an interview with Philip Bardowell ( former member of the Beach Boys Tour Band) 

Philip Bardowell talks about Carl Wilson, Mike Love, John Stamos, the spiritual nature of Beach Boys music, his journey into faith, and his new music video and album.

Stream

Download

Hello All,

Well the music video for my latest single "Jesus in my Life" is finally out! Thanks to everyone who has supported me on this project. Please feel free to share the video with your friends and family. My true heart's desire is to see those that are in need come to the foot of the cross and find true hope in Christ.

Philip

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

WWW.PHILIPBARDOWELL.COM

•200+ rare Beach Boys videos @ http://uk.youtube.com/BB45s •Type keywords in the Search box above •Visit http://www.PrayForSurf.net for more "stuff" •

Beatles Rooftop Concert

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Monday, December 24, 2012

Up On the London Rooftop with The Beatles
Ken Mansfield remembers that and his other times with the ‘Fab Four’ and his shocking fall from grace that brought him to Christ

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

LAKE FOREST, CA (ANS) -- An Arctic blast swept over the rooftop of the Apple Corps Building in Savile Row, Mayfair, London, on January 30, 1969 when The Beatles assembled (along with keyboardist Billy Preston) for their famous last-ever 42-minute concert, about half of which was used the dramatic close of their Let It Be film.

The Beatles singing Get Back during the rooftop concert

Traffic in the street below was in chaos as news spread throughout freezing London that the “Fab Four” where about to do a concert on the top of their famous building and the police tried to control the crowds as the show began.

According to a story at (here)  one of the songs, Get Back, the third rooftop version, was somewhat distracted owing to police presence, seeking to bring the show to a close. The song almost breaks down but lurches to a finish, with Paul ad-libbing “You've been playing on the roofs again, and you know your Momma doesn't like it, she's gonna have you arrested!”

Among those witnessing this piece of rock and roll history was Ken Mansfield, the American head of Apple Records USA, and in an interview for my Front Page Radio show on the KWVE Radio Network, he recalls that fateful day which marked the end of The Beatles live recordings.

“The thing that’s interesting is that the Apple building was right in the middle of a very exclusive district and we had painted the building white and of course no one none of the people in that area liked us being there,” said Mansfield, now 75. “So when the band cranked up the sound that day at lunch time and this rock and roll music was just wafting down the streets they were pretty upset about it.

Ken Mansfield with Paul McCartney

“We were doing the film Let It Be and one of the concepts of the film was to have live footage of The Beatles. They hadn’t played in years so it became kind of the logistics became very hard. What do we do? So we had this idea that we would book a club in Germany and we would do this giant promotion of this new band coming out of England that would be the next Beatles.”
So this would be like reliving the old days of The Beatles.
“Yeah,” he replied, “that was the reason we thought about Germany and all that. So we gave the band the name Ricky And The Red Streaks and we were going to do this big promotion Ricky And The Red Streaks in this small club maybe two-hundred people seating. Then the people would come to see this new hot band we would lock the doors and The Beatles would walk out and we’d have our live footage and of course the people would be going crazy in the club.
“Well we could never pull things like that off because we couldn’t keep a secret. You can imagine how many people if they knew The Beatles were performing together for the first time in years. So we just couldn’t come up with an idea to play the concert on the rooftop of the Apple Corps Building instead.
“And like I said, January top of it was freezing up there. So anyway the guys came up I went to their dressing room which was one of the offices just before and we set like a one o’clock concert date time and they were back in the room there like a nervous band getting ready to do a show. And then they came out and they did the show and it was just magnificent.
“There were just a handful of us up there up there including another American, Billy Preston, and a girl from Arizona. Alan Parsons was pulling cables for the concert, but anyway it was the most incredible special moment I’ve ever experienced and it turned out to be one of the most historic moments in rock and roll -- the last time they played together.
“So you know that two of them are gone [John Lennon and George Harrison] and those of who were involved with them who are still alive, have this bond with each other like guys in a foxhole who had lived through something that were forever bonded by that moment.”
Ken Mansfield then explained how he got the job with Apple Records in the US.
“Well it’s amazing,” he said. “I was the promotion manager at Capital Records in Hollywood and when The Beatles came over to America on tour in 1965, it was my job just to work with them in general doing just whatever they needed -- press conference and all that kind of stuff.
“I was a twenty something year old guy and was pretty hip with a suntan, a Cadillac convertible and a house up in the Hollywood hills with a swimming pool. It I was like everything The Beatles had read about growing up because the media was so fascinated with California. So in all honesty they were about as fascinated with me as I was what them because I just kind of represented California to them.

Sign on Capitol Records Building in Hollywood

At that point because they’d become so famous that everyone that they worked with, such as the head of EMI in the UK, or the chairman of the board of Capital Records, were all the grey haired and wearing suits and all of a sudden they’re working with a twenty something year old guy like them, so we just hit it off. I mean it was just something they had a day off they invited me up to the house where they were staying and we were just hanging around the pool.
“You know John wanted to know where Mulholland Drive was and Ringo wanted to know if I could introduce him to Buck Owens because he was a Capitol artist.
Were you a hippie looking guy then?
“I was getting there,” said Ken. “My hair was as long as that of The Beatles hair, and so we just hit it off. They came back on the tour in 1966 and I worked with them again and then they got the idea to set up Apple Records as this was the most important market for record sales in those days, with fifty percent of all record sales.
“So when they decided to launch the label as they really wanted to concentrate on America, they needed somebody to run the company and I was the guy they knew and had worked with as an executive. So they sent for me to go to England and also Europe for the first time on their dime and what’s so fascinating is their mindset is they wanted to be businessmen themselves.
“So I got off the plane in London and Peter Asher of Peter and Gordon, who I used to pick up in America as he came in as Peter and Gordon, picked me up in a white Rolls limousine and drove me to my suite in one of the posh London hotels. And I get to the hotel and Peter Brown comes to the door to give me my schedule and he said ‘You’re going to have breakfast in the morning with all four of the lads and at lunchtime we’re going to go over the schedule together and then Ringo’s going to take you to the theater to see the new Robert Morley play. So it was just an incredible time.
“So anyway, we put together the marketing plan for the launch in America and I went back and hired a special promotion team and we decided which four records we were going to release. You know and the thing that’s so interesting about this is that these guys always showed up for our meetings on time and they came in with their notepads and their plastic things in their shirt pocket and they were ready for the launch of our first four records.”

Mary Hopkin

Mansfield said they included Mary Hopkin’s Those Were The Days, which became a smash it for the newly-formed label as well as three others which strangely also included the Black Dyke Band, formerly Black Dyke Mills Band, one of the oldest and best-known brass bands in the world. The band has won many prizes and competitions over the years. The A-side was an instrumental composed by Lennon–McCartney called “Thingumybob” (the theme to a Yorkshire Television sitcom of the same name starring Stanley Holloway). The flipside was a brass band instrumental version of another Lennon–McCartney song, “Yellow Submarine”. The single was released under the name John Foster & Sons Ltd Black Dyke Mills Band, produced by McCartney, and was one of the first four singles issued on the Apple label. In 1979, the Black Dyke Mills Band worked again with McCartney on a track for the Wings album Back to the Egg. For those who don’t know that’s a North of England brass band.”
He went on to say, “The Beatles were never on Apple at that time as they were actually a Capitol act, but the deal we arranged with them is the Apple label actually had a control run which was actually a Capitol number, but that way The Beatles could be on the label so it would give the label prestige. So now the most important record is the first Beatles single. Well they’d done this thing called Hey Jude and the problem with Hey Jude was it was seven and a half minutes long.
“The problem was in America in those days a hit record a hit record had to be under two and a half minutes. Radio stations wouldn’t even play a record over two and a half minutes because they were all having these battles over who could play the most hits. So we’re sitting we didn’t have the furniture in the Apple building yet, so we’re sitting on the floor and they just painted the inside of the building white and all green carpet and we had a table with some food on it and this giant sound system.
“So we were sitting on the floor and McCartney especially was afraid to release Hey Jude because he was afraid nobody would play it. Now this was The Beatles in 1968 and they could have belched on a record and it would have been number one,” he added with a huge laugh.
“So I had an idea and I said to Paul, ‘Trust me with it’, because we had to guard everything they did like mad because it would get out. I asked Paul to let me take a copy of it and I will hopscotch my way back to Hollywood and I’ll stop at some of the major radio stations and meet with the music directors that have the best ears at picking hits and let them say what they think.
“Well I went to Philadelphia and met with Jim Hilliard at WFIL and went down to Miami where Jim Dunlap was at WQAM and I hit like four cities on the way back and they all fell on the floor. I got to LA called back to Paul and said you know I think it’s a go and you know the history of Hey Jude. But to think that a Beatle would sit there worried that somebody wasn’t going to play a record called Hey Jude.”
I then asked Mansfield if that that time he had a Christian faith, or if that came along later.
“No in fact, it was never discussed. Jesus or God was just really not on the table,” he said.
I wondered if that was because John Lennon had caused such a furor when he said that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus.
“That was a little later and that was actually that was a mess for us,” he said. “John was just saying was there was a problem with today’s youth because they worship a rock band and he said because of that ‘we’re bigger than Jesus’ in their minds. You know poor John, who was great as a writer and a lyricist, he was he had a problems sometimes whereby he might have a hundred word thought and he would try to communicate it in seventeen words and the words he left out it were easy to misconstrue. And he apologized for that again and again but nobody would let him up from that. And I talked to somebody that was with John not long before he died and that was still on John’s mind that he just couldn’t seem to get past that.”
So how long were you working with them altogether?
Well, I worked with them on the tour in 1965 and then they came back in 1966 and then they brought me to work with them in 1968 and I worked with them right to the end of 1969, right about Abbey Road time.”
And were you pinching yourself that you were working with the world’s most famous rock band?
“Well,” said Mansfield, “here’s what’s so wild about that I’m gonna admit this on your radio program. I didn’t get it with The Beatles. I just thought they were just such neat guys they were a great band but I thought like every other rock band there would be this thing and then it would fade away and I even told Ringo once, ‘I can’t wait for this to all be over so you and I can just hang out.’ Well I liked him you know but he’s still a Beatle to this day.
“So the only thing about it was I wasn’t as much in awe of it in that way or pinching myself because the responsibility I had was so giant, and that whole thing was just so over the top that there was nothing like it. I felt very privileged to they were very kind and I think this is a very British thing in a way it’s like inner circles their great loyalty to old friendships and the people you grew up with and the people you know. And so it’s like this inner circle to be in one of the inner circles not the inner circle but like to be included and they were very kind to me. They had dinners with me every day when you’re in the limo or one of their homes or the hotel whatever you were doing when the people weren’t there it was just like being with a good pal.”
So when Apple collapsed and all this did you go through a really rough time then?
“Well no,” said Mansfield, “because we saw it coming that day on the roof; we knew that that was the end. The Beatles didn’t say this was the last time, but we all kind of sensed it when Alan Klein came on the scene.”
Klein, who took over their management, was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive, whose clients had included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
So Ken Mansfield then joined MGM and later worked with Andy Williams, who owned his CBS label and he became president of that.
But eventually, it all came crashing down for Mansfield, and he said, “My life just fell apart with no explanation. It was like I had a perfect resume with all this success, yet it was just like nothing worked for me.”
Was it because of heroin that the problems arose?
“No I wasn’t,” he said. “We did our drugs, but fortunately heroin just didn’t happen to be one of mine. Harry Nilsson, Ringo and I, we were totally into the drugs scene in LA and just going crazy all the time. Ringo’s life fell apart he went off to something like the Betty Ford clinic. So in 1984, I bailed out to Nashville as I had just lost everything. I quit getting the projects. I was spending too much money I was having to good a time and I ended up going from having servants and an estate with guest houses in the Hollywood Hills and ten acres on the ocean in Mendocino County with drivers and just all this kind of thing, to where I lost everything.
“I had three cardboard boxes and three suitcases and I decided to go to Nashville where I had success with producing Waylon Jennings group, The Outlaws. When I got there, I decided that I was going be crazier, get I’m get more stoned, and be even badder this time around.

Connie and Ken

“After three days of getting to Nashville, I met Connie, a beautiful young lady and she told me I needed the Lord. I had a guru at one time but I was a mess and had lost a fortune. And she brought me to the Lord from the very bottom. I had gone from being a millionaire to being destitute and I was one day from being homeless. I was actually out in Nashville looking at parks where I could sleep maybe under the benches on the little baseball diamonds.”
But he said that after he committed his life to Christ, things began to get even worse for him.
“It wasn’t like, oh gee, I became a Christian and everything became wonderful. It was trials and the betrayals that were even worse. Connie, who is my wife right now, said it was like watching Job go through all his sufferings,” said Mansfield.
Another major event that happened to Mansfield is that he was diagnosed in 1996 with incurable bone marrow cancer in in recent years is that you were diagnosed with an incurable cancer. But then, after much prayer and experimental cancer treatments, he is still alive today.
Eventually things improved and now he and Connie have a ministry together and he shares his testimony at churches all over America.
“I tell the story about my time with The Beatles, my years of decadence and falling apart and my road of coming to Christ,” he said. “And it just shows how God will use anybody and I realize now that I thought that I was a big deal because I was with The Beatles and God revealed to me that I wasn’t a big deal. The Lord has told me, ‘I just used that to give you a platform later on.
“So many people come to I speak at churches and events and so many people come because they’re fascinated with The Beatles and they get to meet the guy that was with The Beatles and they come in and some of them walk away saved.”
One of his books is called THE White Book, and another is The Beatles, The Bible and Bodega Bay which he says tell his extraordinary story which he said he wrote when “I felt I was washed up on the beach.”
Another is Between Wyomings and you can see a video about it at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB39KYxbDCw
His latest is Stumbling on Open Ground: Love, God, Cancer, and Rock 'n' Roll which is being published by Thomas Nelson in which he deals with a near fatal illness in which he says, “Dealing with cancer is not as linear as most books describe the ordeal. Going into it, going through it, and coming out of cancer is not that orderly. The battle is more of a hanging on, a falling apart, a sense of loss, and a lot of lonely flailing among the rubble.”
For more information, please go to: http://www.fabwhitebook.com or www.kmansfield.com
Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

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Dan Wooding, 72, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the “Passion for the Persecuted” award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top “Newsmakers of 2011” from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is “Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s.” To order a copy, go to: Caped Crusader - Amazon

---

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The Beach Boys All-In-The-Family Album

The Beach Boys All-In-The-Family Album

Phil Miglioratti

The Beach Boys, birthed as a garage band with some harmony thrown in, grew into an American phenomenon releasing a string of hit albums covering the surf music wave, the car craze, and surfer girls. "Best of The Beach Boys" fans often overlook the creative, even daring albums they recorded. Artists and critics from across the music spectrum praise the groundbreaking "Pet Sounds" ('66) and the mind-blowing "SMiLE" (studio tapes finally released some 40 year later) but overlook "Party!" ('65), possibly the first unplugged album by a rock group or "Concert" ('64), one of the earliest (and loudest) live shows by a rock and roll band. "Stack-O-Tracks" ('68), the first backing-track-only album, was ahead of it's time; a precursor to bootleg studio tapes (many bands are including similar bonus tracks on their new CD product).

Unnoticed in their catalogue of surfing music, teen testosterone car songs and odes to girls from New York City to California, is an album that actually appeals to the entire family. The only Beach Boys 33 and 1/3 that includes songs written for every generation; from the little ears of preschoolers to children, mom and dad (even grandparents!), as well as teenage rock and roll fans. Unnoticed because it has always been topically categorized, this All-In-The-Family album is otherwise known as "The Beach Boys Christmas Album." Repackaged several times by Capitol Records, it continues to sell, with several of the tunes appearing on numerous and varied compilation albums.

Yes, of course, the topics sung about in each song relate to Christmas (excluding Auld Lang Syne, a type of coda to the album that looks ahead a few days to New Year's Eve) but the diversity of age-group appeal is unparalleled in the entire Beach Boys catalog. 

From its first release in October, 1964, it was immediately apparent that Brian Wilson had crafted an album of songs intended to appeal to at least two sets of listeners; side one for the emerging teenage audience they had won over only a few years earlier and tracks on the flip side of the long-play disc aimed at the traditional tastes of an older audience. That second side was arranged by Dick Reynolds who also arranged tunes for the Four Freshmen who's music had a huge influence on Brian Wilson. The big band and/orchestra sounds of the second side standards were in stark contrast to the rock and roll sounds of the first side … but if we carefully evaluate each tune, this is an album that appeals to more than rock and roll fans and the adult contemporary audience.

"Little Saint Nick," released as a Christmas single in 1963, was a Christmas "car" song for teenage guys. An alternative version of LSN, using the backing track from "Drive-In" which subsequently appeared on the All Summer Long album, was released in 1998 on the "Ultimate Christmas" CD, demonstrating this song was clearly aimed at the surf and drag crowd of young listeners who were in the process of making the Beach Boys both famous and rich.

"The Man With All The Toys," an upbeat rocker, told a story any 60's early elementary school kid would enjoy. Saint Nick is alive and well so don't forget to leave a plate of cookies and a glass of milk when you go to bed Christmas Eve. Change the topic and you've got one of the earliest rock and roll songs that would grab kids who listen today to Disney radio.

"Santa's Beard" is a big brother-little brother tale that could have been about scores of other unrelated-to-Christmas mischievous messes older boys get into when unhappily put in charge of a younger sibling (walking to school, Friday night baby-sitting). Wally and the Beaver played out variations of a Santa's Beard storyline every week on CBS TV.

"Merry Christmas Baby" tells the sad story of a teenage couple breaking up. Breaking up is hard to do during the Christmas season, but painful any time of year. Change the title (and lyrics) to, say, Lonely Summer, Baby and you've got a top ten hit. 

"Christmas Day" might as well be sung and danced to by the Lawrence Welk singers and orchestra on their highly rated weekly musical variety show. Maybe this was Brian's idea of a song teenagers would like that their parents (and even grandparents) would to not object to. A tip-of-the-hat to Murry?

"Frosty The Snowman" may be the quintessential winter song for kids ... of all ages. Here is the family station wagon (the 60's version of the mini-van) sing-along song while driving to grandmother's house for Christmas (or any Sunday) dinner. Opening with Dick Reynolds' orchestra, the boys perform in a sing-along-with-Mitch (Miller) style.

"We Three Kings Of Orient Are" is well known as a traditional Christmas carol a family might have heard sung at the front door to their home by a roving band of Christmas carolers or while listening to the church choir. "Three Kings," the only song overtly about Christ on the album, explains why Christians celebrate Christmas but is similar to the non-Christmas hymns the Wilsons sang to praise the savior on other Sundays of the year at church. Possibly also considered for the album, the Beach Boys also recorded "The Lord's Prayer," the flip side to their "Little Saint Nick" single in 1963. 

 "Blue Christmas," released in 1957, may have appealed to an older sister or brother but is certainly a tune mom and dad would enjoy; especially mom. Moms, that is, who hear Brian in one ear and an easy-on-the-eyes Elvis crooning in the other. Loneliness is certainly not limited to Christmastime. Couples, young or old, married or engaged, would relate easily to the emotional pallet of the lyrics.

"Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," preformed as the biggest big band tune on the album, could have fit well with any of the late 50's early 60's prime time variety shows that served as stay-at-home-dates for mom and dad. Shows like the Andy Williams Show (on which we first heard the Osmonds) motivated dad to get off the couch, walk to the TV set and change the channel to one go the many musical variety shows of that day. A trip to the dance hall or night club without leaving home. A message for the kids but music for the adults.

"White Christmas" was a hit when grandma and grandpa were raising mom and dad in the 40's. A song to help Bing Crosby fans reminisce about more than Christmas. Irving Berlin's song evokes memories of simpler times, a frightening war, and a cozy fireplace. Beach Boys fans who skipped this one, raise your hands!

"I'll Be Home For Christmas" pulled on every adult's heart strings. An older sister or brother stranded at college or married and relocated to a distant state unable to return home for the Christmas holiday. A traveling salesman husband out beating the bushes for sales as the holiday approaches. Parents and grandparents longing to see an estranged family member. Is it possible this was one of the songs the Wilsons sang with Mike Love's family every Christmas?

"Auld Lang Syne" was a traditional Scottish tune sung on New Year's Eve as reminder about the importance of relationships, starting the new year fresh, even forgiven. Brian enlisted Dennis on the voice over that served as both a farewell coda and a look to future times together.

"The Beach Boys Christmas" album, though 100% holiday and holy day, was the one album Brian designed with the entire family in mind. Sure, true Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fans enjoy every note of every song. But as we examine the primary target (rather than the holiday topic) of each song, we discover a collection of great early 60's recordings by a coming-of-age rock and roll band and its producer that relates to all ages in a variety of styles. Forty eight years ago Brian WIlson produced a two-sided album that continues to have musical interest for young children, school-age brothers (and sisters), dating teenagers, married couples, lonely lovers, nostalgic grandparents, family members watching TV on the living room couch together and families worshipping the Christ of Christmas. Not bad for a young man who endured some painful family episodes growing up. 

Thank you Brian and boys for songs of peace and love, sadness and joy, snow and salvation that capture our hearts and ears at Christmas regardless of our generational identify. Merry Christmas to all.

•Summer Days (and Summer nIghts!) ~ The Quintessential Beach Boys Album

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Beach Boys - Greatest Song of All TIme

1. The Beach Boys – “God Only Knows”

Pet Sounds, 1966

Brian Wilson famously referred to The Beach Boys’ long lost album SMiLE as “a teenage symphony to God.” The record has since been released in two completed forms–as a rerecorded Wilson solo outing in 2004 and just last year in its original incarnation. While both versions are near perfect, SMiLE is less a teenage symphony to God than it is a surrealist painting of America. There’s plenty of obtuse spirituality in Wilson’s music and Van Dyke Parks’ abstract lyrics, but little of it involves romance. And if a symphony is coming from a teenager, it has to involve romance. Brian Wilson didn’t write a symphony to God because he had already written a teenage symphony to God. It didn’t take an entire album either. It didn’t even take three minutes.

A lot has been written and said about “God Only Knows” over the years; how it was one of the first (if not the first) radio songs to use the word “God” in its title; how it was eventually praised by everyone from The Beatles to Stiff Little Fingers; how, in 1966, it was insane to open a love song with the seemingly pessimistic line “I may not always love you.” On penning the lyrics, Wilson collaborator Tony Asher clarified that “…by the second part, the real meaning of the song has come out: ‘I’ll love you till the sun burns out, then I’m gone,’ ergo ‘I’m gonna love you forever.’”

But I’d argue that “God Only Knows” has resonated with generations of music fans simply because of its concept. The combination of Asher’s modern pop lyrics with Wilson’s baroque instrumentation makes it old yet young, skeptical yet innocent, escorting the listener to the intersection of youth and adulthood, even if they weren’t there already. It brims with the unbridled passion of being a teenager, the idea of proclaiming your love to the heavens. But it also deals with the complex uncertainty of being an adult. As much as Carl Wilson’s angelic tenor wishes love could be simple and of the puppy variety, the ache in his voice tells us that maturity means otherwise, whether the 19-year-old was aware of it at the time or not. It’s easy to scramble and revert to the adolescent view of unconditional love when faced with its more adult obstacles: commitment, faith, seeing your partner die if you’re together long enough. Only 23 when he wrote the song, Brian Wilson may not have truly faced any of these things in his life just yet (although he had plenty of non-romantic issues to deal with), but he must have known he was about to.

Whenever I hear the skyward notes of Alan Robinson’s French horn at the song’s beginning and its fadeout, I’m reminded of another important piece of music from growing up: the closing theme to ThunderCats. No joke. The end credits of eachThunderCats episode were different from the opening ones because they rolled over a fully orchestrated version of the kitschy, over-synthesized theme song (both written by composer Bernard Hoffer). What’s more is that the song prominently featured a French horn. And there was something about the lonely brass that suddenly made the show feel more adult. It wasn’t of course; ThunderCats was and still is pretty silly, as much as I love it. But that didn’t matter. By using the French horn and other century-old instruments as vehicles for contemporary subject matter, Bernard Hoffer tapped into a magically conflicting energy. And so did Brian Wilson.

Along with Asher and the rest of The Beach Boys, he awoke the dormant adult in every kid and the dormant kid in every adult. The entire world will listen to it for years to come. Till their records skip. Till their iPods break. Till everyone dies. Till the sun burns out. -Dan Caffrey

Originally posted @ http://consequenceofsound.net/2012/09/top-100-songs-ever-50-1/

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The Quintessential Beach Boys Album

The Quintessential Beach Boys Album

Phil Miglioratti

Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)

SIDE 1.

1  The Girl From New York City (1:54) [Brian Wilson]

2  Amusement Parks U.S.A. (2:29) [Brian Wilson]

3 Then I Kissed Her (2:15) [Phil Spector/Ellie Greenwich/Jeff Barry]

4 Salt Lake City (2:00) [Brian Wilson]

5 Girl Don't Tell Me (2:18) [Brian Wilson]

6 Help Me, Rhonda (2:45) [Brian Wilson]Single Version

SIDE 2

1 California Girls (2:36) [Brian Wilson]

2 Let Him Run Wild (2:20) [Brian Wilson]

3 You're So Good To Me (2:13) [Brian Wilson]

4 Summer Means New Love (1:58) [Brian Wilson]

5 I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man (2:16) [Brian Wilson]

6 And Your Dream Comes True (1:03) [Brian Wilson/Mike Love]

Discussions abound as to which of the many albums in the Beach Boys’ catalog is the best of all-time. While the casual fan would choose from an endless list of greatest hits packages, replies from hardcore fans range from Pet Sounds to Sunflower to Love You. Recently, some have injected That’s Why God Made The Radio into the discussion.

Best psychedelic album? Smiley Smile, for sure. Best R&B attempt? Wild Honey. Cars? Shut Down Vol. 2 or maybe Little Deuce Coupe. All Summer Long probably wins for best all-things-summer. Best "live" album? Four concerts and an unplugged party fuel a hot debate here. Surfing? Another multi-choice category. Most mellow? Friends. How about Holland for best FM album?

How is it that this surf and car culture group has released so many albums that fit is so many different categories?

Which leads me to the question, with such an expansive and distinct body of work, which one would be top your Best-Introduction-to-the-Beach-Boys list? Of their 30+ original releases, which album of new material (not a compilation of greatest hits) best acquaints a new listener with the most genres of their songs? If you could only play one album, for someone who has not yet heard any Beach Boys material, to demonstrate the breadth of their song categories and musical styles, which would you choose? Which one wins the crown of being the quintessential collection?

Pet Sounds, arguably the greatest rock/pop album of all-time (#1 or #2 on the most respected and reported international lists) is a masterpiece that showcases the creative-producing, genius-composing, harmonic-recording/singing skills of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

Today! featured a side of great rock and roll songs and a side of evocative love songs, the latter a prelude to Pet Sounds)s.

15 Big Ones is all over the musical map and covers tunes from the 50's and 60's, a song about meditation, a Beach-Boys-styled-single about summer - even a gospel-inspired, Gospel-preaching song.

MIU may have been Al’s, Light Album possibly Carl’s, but no album comes close to Sunflower showcasing the songwriting talent of all six of the Beach Boys.

SMilE, finally released, belongs in a category unto itself. Beautiful. Creative. Ahead of its time yet classic Americana at its core.

Others may also deserve consideration, but my candidate for the one album that would best prepare a new listener for the deep and wide range of the Beach Boys’ catalog is Summer Days (and Summer Nights!). Their second album of 1965, it went to #2 on the charts, buoyed by the hit single version of Help Me Rhonda and the summer release of California Girls. But why does Summer Days deserve to be the quintessential ("the most perfect or typical example or embodiment") album? Consider these benefits for the first-time listener:

• Four out of five band members tackle a lead vocal (Bruce was still an unofficial member, thanks to a tight contract with Columbia records where he produced groups along with Terry Melcher). Mike showcases two different styles on his lead parts on The Girl From New York City and California Girls, Brian steps into new territory on Let Him Run Wild and You’re So Good To Me, Alan hits both Help Me Rhonda and Then I Kissed Her out of the park (studio?), and Carl rocks on his first serious lead vocal for Girl Don't Tell Me. While Dennis seems mostly absent, new Beach Boy Bruce Johnston debuts in the background vocals of California Girls.
• This set of twelve songs provides us with 7 genres (“a class or category of artistic endeavor”) of Beach Boys tunes. Two monster hit singles. A cover version. An instrumental. Two summer fun songs. A subtle stab at humor. Three breaking their mold rockers. And a signature vocal snippet. 

Summer Days (and Summer Nights!) introduces the first-time listener to:

The Beach Boy Single

Help Me Rhonda, a revved-up remake of Help Me Ronda (notice variant spelling) from their previous Today! album, was the Beach Boys’ second number one single (each topping the charts in the Beatl-ear). In retrospect, it prefigures future single releases such as Little Girl I Once Knew (released a few months later), Darlin’ (post-Good Vibrations) and even Marcella more than I Get Around (their first number one hit). The single that became their opening live-in-concert anthem for decades, California Girls, topped out at #3 on the charts and now sits in between summer singles of their early career and those to come (Do It Again, Keepin’ The Summer Alive, It’s OK). Both singles are girl-themed but one points back to the California myth of sun and fun, the other continuous exploring serious relationships (such as Wendy, Caroline or Deirdre).

The Beach Boy Cover

Brian Wilson’s musical genius may be most easily discerned in the way he took a good song that had already hit the Top 40 and transformed it into a totally new sonic experience. Whether the original was rhythm and blues (Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Do You Wanna Dance), an old sea chantey (Sloop John B), or a Chuck Berry signature tune (Barbara Ann, Rock & Roll Music), a cover version by the Brian Wilson produced and arranged Beach Boys made it a completely different song. Carl also outshined the original with his production of I Can Hear Music on the 20/20 album.

With Then I Kissed Her, Brian faced the challenge of covering a song written and produced by the iconic creator of the vaunted wall of sound, Phi Spector (with whom Brian had a love – fear fixation). Be My Baby, another Spector production, has probably played over and over on either a turntable or in Brian’s mind on a daily basis for the past 45+ years. With Then I Kissed Her, Brian remained faithful to the original (unlike, say, Do You Wanna Dance) but took the song miles beyond the original production; especially vocally.

The Girl From New York City, technically not a cover but a Brian Wilson original, was nonetheless an answer/response to the Ad Libs’ The Boy From New York City. It may also have been a hats-off to Leslie Gore, the girl from New York City who appeared with them on the T.A.M.I. Show a year earlier.

The Beach Boys, possibly more than any group or solo artist, have beautifully exploited the use of recording an already known song (usually a hit) and, with their unique sound pallet, making it their own. In doing so, they often stole it, so to speak, from the original artist or group. Think of these future releases: California Dreamin’, Come Go With Me, Cotton Fields, and most certainly Barbara Ann from the all-cover-versions Party! Album. [Note: see full listing at www.CoversProject.com]

Instrumental

Summer Means New Love follows a dozen previous instruments-only album cuts (Surf Jam, Shut Down Part II)) but also hints at two amazing instrumentals on their forthcoming Pet Sounds release. Summer Means New Love is a step up from those earlier instrumentals and a step toward Let’s Go Away For Awhile and Pet Sounds as well as Fall Breaks on Smiley Smile and Passing By on the Friends album.

Keepin’ the Summer Alive

Salt Lake City represents the early surf and street songs that made the Beach Boys a household name and it was anything but an “album-filler.” Like Catch A Wave, reworked into Sidewalk Surfin’ and a top 30 hit for Jan & Dean, Salt Lake City could have been a successful release for a number of groups (for example: Rip Chords, Hondells, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, the Cowsills (It was reported that Bill Cowsill was briefly considered to replace Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys touring lineup)). "Listen to the instrumental track. Lot of stuff going on there.“ (Andrew Doe)

Amusement Parks U.S.A. takes us on a Surfin’ USA -type tour of the country. City-by-city we visit the best amusement parks of that day and, as with their early surfing songs, we experience each stop through the eyes of a teen-coming-of-ager (I still remember the rush of free fall on the parachutes ride at Chicago’s Riverview Park). And the fun, fun, fun continues as Beach Boys fan are still cruising after all these years … some still fogging up the windows in the parking lot.

Brian Wilson Humor

When I’m Bugged At My Old Man was initially released, Beach Boys fans had little information about the family dysfuntionality and dad Murry Wilson’s heave-handed discipline methods. Without that point of reference, I missed Brian’s point completely, until I recognized it was, as from earlier albums, an attempt at using humor to reveal an inner struggle. With the uncovering of biographical details of these now famous relational conflicts, what at first seemed silly is now understood as a not-so-subtle revelation.

Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson, Our Favorite Recording Sessions, Bull Session with Big Daddy – cuts record executives considered album-fillers (Capitol failed to include these tunes in early re-issues of the original albums) and often skipped over by casual listeners  (especially in the digital age when you do not need to worry about scratching a vinyl groove!) – were “funny” on the surface but revelatory on a deeper level.

Cassius Clay (now Muhammed Ali) and Sonny Liston were two champion boxers of the 60’s and their fights drew international attention. That boxing competition motif continues to be played out in the relationship of Mike and Brian. Mike’s sarcastic humor (see an insightful interview with Mike by David Beard @ http://www.examiner.com/beach-boys-in-national/david-beard), intimidated Brian. Their pretend battle in Our Favorite Recording Sessions is another hint at their fiery competition, albeit one that has produced some of the best songs of the rock and roll era. SMiLE, while evolving into a serious landscape of how American manifest destiny pushed its way west, was originally conceived as an album devoted to humor (“You’re under arrest!” survives in Heroes & Villains).

With that background, it is easy to see I’m Bugged At My Ol’ Man in the same vein. Brian, utilizing humor, dark as it is, and a noticeably different (silly? funny?) vocal style while pounding out an old-time boogie-woogie, reveals once again some of his personal and painful story. Looking back, Brian was giving us clues to a painful inner struggle; a confessional not unlike the more sophisticated Till I Die on Surf’s Up. He may also have been preparing us for his desire to Break Away from his life as a Beach Boy and go back in his room for physical safety and spiritual peace; a place of shelter.

Breaking the Mold Rockers

Three songs on Summer Days have musical roots in the first side of the Today! album while also bridging to Pet Sounds and beyond.

Girl Don’t Tell Me is a great summer song for a summer days themed album but it is also one of three rockers that may have been Brian Wilson attempts to stand nose-to-nose with the Beatles. Though, in retrospect, Brian had at least matched the Beatles in sound and substance, the British invaders had certainly won the Top 40 and Gold Album races. You’re So Good To Me (an older cousin to Don’t Hurt My Little Sister?) reminds me a little of John Lennon’s lead vocal on I’m A Loser and the wailing bridge on Break Away. The sound Brian created on Let Him Run Wild could have fit between Beatles’ releases of Ticket to Ride and We Can Work It Out. It was a precursor to the Little Girl I Once Knew (this late 1965 single, highly praised by Beatle John Lennon, never made it on any original Beach Boys album and was prematurely bumped off the Top 40 by Capitol Records’ release of Barbara Ann) and rockers to come (such as Dennis’ It’s About Time or Got To Know the Woman on Sunflower).

 

SMiLE

And Your Dream Comes true connects us to the amazing Beach Boys’ harmonies we heard on Graduation Day and Their Hearts Were Full of Spring as well as Our Prayer on the forthcoming 20/20 album.  This brief (1:03) Disney-esque ending to the Summer Days (and Summer Nights!) seems unfinished but it is a clue to Brian’s snippet approach he took with Good Vibrations and the entire SMiLE album. Like, You’re Welcome (this flip side to Heroes & Villains was another Beach Boys song that never appeared on an original album), it is a brief burst of sonic harmony; too quickly gone but never to be forgotten.

So there it is, my candidate for the album most suited to introduce a newbie to the musical catalog of the Beach Boys. This is the make-it-your-first-iTunes-Beach-Boys-album-download. First-timers get a tip of the hat to the past and a peek into the future but unlike other Beach Boys albums that also reached back and pushed forward (such as Today!), Summer Days (and Summer Nights!) also offers a half dozen or more types of songs scattered across their unparalleled catalog of music. It is obviously not possible for every sound or every style to be represented on one 12 tune album but Summer Days (and Summer Nights!) is the closest. The most representative album in the Beach Boys’ catalog of the Beach Boys’ catalog.

Copyright Phil Miglioratti, Pray For Surf

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