Exclusive Excerpt from "Good Vibrations - Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective"

Pray For Surf is honored to present an excerpt from

"Good Vibrations: - Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective" 

Edited by Philip Lambert, author of "Inside the Music of Brian Wilson" and Professor of Music at Baruch College and the Graduate Center City, University of New York

Good Vibrations
Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective

Edited by Philip Lambert

University of Michigan Press • Ann Arbor

Copyright  © the University of Michigan  2016 • All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright  Law and except  by reviewers for the public press), without  written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan  Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper

Preface

in 2012, to celebrate fifty years since  their  music  first hit the airwaves, the surviving members of the Beach Boys set aside decades of litigious acrimony  and  reunited for a months-long international tour and  the  group’s  first album  of all-new material in  twenty years. Huge crowds danced and  cheered, oblivious to a sea of incongruities: septuagenarians calling themselves  “Boys,” song lyrics seemingly  aimed  at the sensibilities of their grandchildren, and striking differences between  the youthful  voices on their  familiar hit records  and the more  mature vocal- isms of creative  mastermind Brian Wilson, his cousin,  lead singer  Mike Love, and lifelong friend  Al Jardine.  But the shows were a success for the same reason  that  the  band  has always been  a concert draw: soaring  vocal harmonies, infectious themes  capturing the pristine  innocence of an idealized  era, and a danceable blend  of classic rock ’n’ roll with elements of doo-wop and jazz. In seventeen top-ten singles and thirteen hit albums of the group’s first four years, and seventeen more  albums of new music in the ensuing decades, the Beach Boys amassed a repertory that would still be influencing the  shape  of popular music generations later,  from the 1990s indie collective Elephant 6 to millennial alternative rock bands such  as Animal Collective  and  Fleet Foxes. Other fiftieth  anniversaries soon  followed: Brian Wilson’s first number-one single as coauthor ( Jan and Dean’s “Surf City,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1963); the Beach Boys’ first number-one single (“I Get Around,” July 1964); the Beach  Boys’ first number-one album  and  first gold  album  (Beach Boys’ Concert, in the  top  spot  in December 1964, certified  gold  in February 1965); the  pinnacles of Brian  Wilson’s artistic  ambitions, in album  for- mat (Pet Sounds, released in May 1966), in 45 rpm  (“Good Vibrations,” number one  and  gold in December 1966), and  in rock mythology (the unfinished Smile, 1966–67).

The history of the Beach  Boys began  as an  apt  reflection of their times.  Their sun-soaked pop  songs of the  early sixties were just catchy and  distinctive  enough to share  airtime  with the  British invaders.  Later in the decade, influenced in part by a friendly  rivalry with the  Beatles, they evolved toward  more  ambitious album  projects  and  immersion in the drug culture. Then,  as Brian Wilson withdrew as exclusive leader, the band  flirted  with variable absorptions in pop  styles of the  seventies and eighties,  all while releasing  chart-topping greatest  hits albums  and  continuing to thrive  as a touring band.  Since the late eighties,  when Brian Wilson began  to record as a solo artist, the band  has been  splintered but never  out  of the  public  eye. What has stayed constant throughout this half-century is a core  belief  in the  warmth  and  immediacy  of blended vocal harmony and  in the myth of the California  lifestyle, rich with possibility and  opportunity. The  Beach Boys can still sing about  it because, in their  lyrics at least, they still believe in it.

Good Vibrations:  Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective helps mark a milestone in this history by exploring the band’s legacy and place in American culture. The book brings together scholars of diverse specialties, hailing  from  four  countries over three continents. The  essays gathered here  take  on  the  full fifty-year range  of the  Beach  Boys’ music,  from  the  perspectives  of music  historians, music  theorists,  and cultural critics. Together these  new scholarly  examinations will refresh our understanding of some of the familiar tropes  in the group’s  history, including the  Beach  Boys’ musical  contributions to 1960s culture and the California myth; the style of their music, indebted in variable proportions to pop and rock traditions; and the legend  of Smile, one of popular music’s most notorious unfinished albums.  The  book  places special focus on the individual  whose creative vision brought the whole enterprise to life, Brian Wilson, without  minimizing contributions made  by others, such as frequent lyricist Mike Love. This focus helps to advance  our understanding of Brian  Wilson’s gifts, first displayed  in well-crafted songs of the early Beach Boys albums, equally evident in the group’s multipart vocal arrangements, and eventually expanding to include innovations in the recording studio.

Fifty years of biographies and rock criticism have elevated Brian Wilson to his rightful  place in the  pantheon of American  record-makers. After early spurts  of revelatory  journalism by the  likes of Jules Siegel (“The Religious Conversion of Brian Wilson: Goodbye Surfing, Hello God,” Cheetah, October 1967) and  Tom Nolan  (“The Beach Boys: A California Saga,” Rolling Stone, October 28 and  November 11,  1971), serious  commentary  on the Beach Boys and their  creative leader  began  in 1978 with David Leaf’s The Beach Boys and the California Myth (New York: Grosset and  Dunlap). In 1994, Timothy  White’s The Nearest Faraway  Place gave the  group a deeper historical  context (New York: Henry  Holt), and  in 2006, Peter Ames Carlin’s biography Catch a Wave sharpened the focus on Brian Wilson and his personal triumphs and struggles (Emmaus, Penn.: Rodale). Other authors have offered  richer accounts of watershed moments  in Brian Wilson’s creative evolution, notably Charles  L. Granata’s Wouldn’t It Be Nice of 2003, a study of the circumstances surrounding the making  of Pet Sounds (Chicago: Chicago  Review Press),  and  Domenic Priore’s  investigation of the  Smile story in  2005  (London: Sanctuary). Serious  scrutiny  of music  and  lyrics began  with Daniel  Harrison’s es- say “After  Sundown”  in  1997 (in  Understanding Rock, ed.  Covach  and Boone, New York: Oxford  University Press) and continued with my book Inside the Music of Brian Wilson in 2007 (New York: Continuum) and Kirk Curnutt’s Brian Wilson in 2012 (Bristol, Conn.:  Equinox).

These  latter  three authors begin  the  collection of essays presented here.  First, Kirk Curnutt explores the various critical responses to Beach Boys songs, in light of common perceptions of Brian Wilson and his authorial sensibilities. Curnutt lends a rich, personal perspective to the en- tire corpus  of Brian Wilson’s work to date, offering  valuable insights into the nature of celebrity and the limitations of biography. Daniel Harrison then  focuses very specifically on  an  element of Beach  Boys songs that many admirers probably  haven’t thought much  about:  extramusical enhancements provided by scene-setting spoken  words or  sound  effects. Readers  of Harrison’s essay will find serious,  enlightening discussion  of cuts from Beach Boys albums  that  don’t  usually attract  much  attention, such as “Drive-In” (from  All Summer Long, 1964) and  “Bull Session with ‘Big Daddy’” (The Beach Boys Today!, 1965). Concluding the opening trio of musical commentaries, my essay about  the  harmony of Brian Wilson songs highlights favorite chords  and progressions in music spanning the songwriter’s entire career, encompassing Beach Boys albums, solo work, and collaborations with other artists. It demonstrates one way of probing a basic question: What  makes  a Brian  Wilson song  sound  like a Brian Wilson song?

The middle portion of the book is a quartet of essays focused  on particular moments in Beach Boys history. Keir Keightley first brings us out of the formative years of rock ’n’ roll and into the early 1960s, examining the Beach Boys as contributors to, and definers  of, a new culture of popular  music.  Bringing  special  focus to the  Beach  Boys’ All Summer Long album  (1964), Keightley situates the group within American  society and the changing face of popular music in a pivotal decade. Jadey O’Regan then surveys trends and developments in nine of the early Beach  Boys albums, bringing the historical  focus up to 1966 and Pet Sounds. O’Regan provides rich detail  for  the  evolution of the  group’s  song  forms,  lyri-cal themes, and  vocal styles during this crucial  time  period. After that, Dale Carter  takes  us into  the  volatile  politics  and  drug  culture of the decade’s  middle years, offering  a thoughtful perspective on an influential cultural milieu. Carter’s synthesis lends valuable context to what are Brian Wilson’s most ambitious musical aspirations in album format—the thoughtful craftsmanship and  studio  innovations of Pet Sounds (1966) and Smile (1967). My essay that follows then  explores his most important achievement in the  genre  of the  hit single: “Good  Vibrations”  (1966). I focus especially on the  song’s evolution after  its initial  release:  how it changed in live performance, and how it has been  reimagined by count- less cover artists in the fifty-odd years since its first release.

The book concludes with a duet  of essays about  one  of pop-rock’s most infamous  musical sagas: the Smile project, filled with artistic promise but tragically abandoned in 1967, only to be rejuvenated by the Brian Wilson Band in 2004. Andrew Flory first considers what happened to the Smile tapes—and to the Smile myth—in the  decades  since Brian  Wilson walked away from  them.  Flory asks thoughtful questions about the  nature  of an amorphous masterpiece, and about  the role of ardent fans in shaping the  music’s legacy. Finally, Larry Starr reflects  on  the  entirety of the  Smile legend, from  initial  recording sessions through occasional releases  of Smile material on subsequent Beach  Boys albums,  up to the 2004 “premiere.” Starr’s personal response to a compelling, convoluted tale enriches the experience of the music for all of us.

What next  for Brian Wilson and  the  Beach Boys? Brian was back on tour  with his  band  in  2013, double-billed with Jeff Beck  and  sharing the stage with Al Jardine  and  onetime Beach Boy David Marks. In 2015, he released a new solo album  (No Pier Pressure). Mike Love and  Bruce Johnston continued playing state fairs and  casinos as the “Beach  Boys.” Longtime fans danced along,  a little  more  slowly than  they once  did, while new generations of audiences had  first encounters with the  effervescence of a jazzy vocal harmony, the exuberance of a falsetto wail. After a half-century,  the good vibrations were still resonating.

Note: Source references for all of the essays are listed together at the end of the book.

Contents

Part I: Musical  Commentaries

1.    “Brian Comes Alive”: Celebrity, Performance, and the Limitations of Biography  in Lyric Reading 3

kirk curnutt

2.   Pet Sound  Effects 31

daniel  harrison

3.   Brian Wilson’s Harmonic Language 63

philip lambert

Part II: Historical Inquiries

4.   Summer of ’64 105

keir keightley

5.   When I Grow Up: The Beach Boys’ Early Music 137

jadey o’regan

6.   Into the Mystic? The Undergrounding of Brian Wilson, 1964–1967 168

dale  carter

7.   Good Reverberations 189

philip lambert

Part III: Smile

8.   Fandom and Ontology  in Smile 215

andrew flory

9.   A Listener’s Smile 242

larry starr

General Bibliography 263

Contributors 275

Index 277