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Post by jk on May 22, 2021 9:41:04 GMT
A new story on the upcoming album Van Dyke Parks Orchestrates Veronica Valerio: Only in America.
Fascinating! I have a love-hate relationship with VDP. How about this from 25 years ago (if you can bear with the occasional explanation in Dutch)? Han Reiziger (1934-2006) loved and valued music of all kinds but was besotted with that of Mozart. He and his Sunday morning TV show are sorely missed.
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Post by carllove on May 22, 2021 20:03:36 GMT
One of my favorite "guest appearances" and one of my favorite Chicago songs is "Wishing You Were Here". In addition to The Beach Boys' (Carl, Dennis, and Al) background vocals, I especially like Terry Kath's lead vocal and Peter Cetera's vocal on the bridge.
Usually when I listen to "Wishing You Were Here", I can't help but think what they, The Beach Boys, woulda/shoulda/coulda done in the mid/late 1970's if - IF - James Guercio could've gotten the same production out of them like he did with Chicago just a few years earlier. Yes, it starts with songwriting, and, other than Dennis, no other Beach Boy was churning out classics, other than a few Brian gems. But, "Wishing You Were Here" was meant to be a Beach Boys' song. The intro (with the waves), the lyrics, the harmonies...sometimes I wish The Beach Boys would've covered it, maybe with Brian or Dennis on the lead vocal and Carl on the bridge, but I'm not sure they would've done it justice. But, you know, I think with the way Brian was singing on his last couple of solo albums, I think Joe Thomas could've, and maybe still could produce a good version. I'm thinking of the "Summer's Gone" vibe.
I miss Terry Kath almost as much as I miss Carl! What a talent! Gives me chills!
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Post by Kapitan on May 24, 2021 16:58:34 GMT
Over the past couple weeks I occasionally listened to Ricci Martin's 1977 album Beached. Today I'm going to dive in to another 1977 album from someone in the Beach Boys periphery: Blonde Chaplin's Blondie Chaplin. The album includes drumming by Ricky Fataar and organ by Carli Munoz for some more Beach Boys bona fides, not to mention accordion from the Band's Garth Hudson and piano from Traffic's Dave Mason. A (presumably 2004) review of the album from Allmusic.com has this to say:
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Post by kds on May 24, 2021 17:04:45 GMT
Roger Waters tried to tap the vocal talents of The Beach Boys for Pink Floyd's The Wall album. Supposedly, The Beach Boys declined due to the dark subject matter of the album, but Bruce Johnston provided some background vox on a few songs.
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Post by Kapitan on May 24, 2021 17:48:46 GMT
Today I'm going to dive in to another 1977 album from someone in the Beach Boys periphery: Blonde Chaplin's Blondie Chaplin. The album includes drumming by Ricky Fataar and organ by Carli Munoz for some more Beach Boys bona fides, not to mention accordion from the Band's Garth Hudson and piano from Traffic's Dave Mason. After my first listen, I was disappointed. When I revisited The Flame last week, I was surprised by how much more I enjoyed it than I had when discovering it years ago. Blondie Chaplin, on the other hand, sounds like an album comprising only low-end album tracks, the opposite of a greatest hits package.
The playing is good. The production is fine. The songs--all Blondie originals--are pretty mediocre. I plan to listen at least another time or two this week, but right now I could only sing to you a few notes of the last song. Everything before that has left literally no impression. I can tell you what I was thinking about those songs, but I cannot sing to you even one line of the refrains of any of them. Granted, I've been working, not listening intently. But even so, that's not a great sign.
You could say it's a harder rocking version of Martin's Beached, in fact, in that it's a well done album of filler.
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Post by jk on May 24, 2021 21:29:54 GMT
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Post by Kapitan on May 25, 2021 17:41:34 GMT
That is a nice one, jk. I wonder whether Fig knew Blondie from South Africa, or whether they just happened to be two South Africans who connected in the States later. They were born within about a year of one another.
Something funny about Fig's wiki page: the discography lists only albums under other people's names that he played on, not his own solo album! (It is relatively briefly mentioned in his bio section, mostly to list the contributors.)
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Post by Kapitan on May 25, 2021 17:52:15 GMT
Maybe some of you know this one--it was a #13 hit in the US in 1972--but I'd only seen the band name in various group-associated stories, never investigating.
"Dancing in the Moonlight" was by King Harvest, an early 70s band that featured future Beach Boys keyboardist and producer Ron Altbach, who also was in Mike Love's Celebration; as well as guitarist Eddie Truleja and saxophonist Rod Novak, who went on to play on Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue. (Bobby Figueroa, a longtime Beach Boys drummer and percussionist, was also in the group at times.)
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Post by Kapitan on May 25, 2021 20:01:15 GMT
While listening to King Harvest, I also found this recent (Nov. 2020) interview with Ron Altbach about them. I haven't listened yet, but plan to, and will share Beach Boys content if it's remotely interesting.
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Post by jk on May 25, 2021 20:12:04 GMT
Maybe some of you know this one--it was a #13 hit in the US in 1972--but I'd only seen the band name in various group-associated stories, never investigating.
"Dancing in the Moonlight" was by King Harvest, an early 70s band that featured future Beach Boys keyboardist and producer Ron Altbach, who also was in Mike Love's Celebration; as well as guitarist Eddie Truleja and saxophonist Rod Novak, who went on to play on Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue. (Bobby Figueroa, a longtime Beach Boys drummer and percussionist, was also in the group at times.)
I know it better in the UK cover version by Toploader. Indeed, a well-crafted song. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toploader
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Post by Kapitan on May 27, 2021 17:12:45 GMT
Here is one I just listened to for the first time today after scanning AGD's site for group members' guest spots. Carl Wilson appears on this tune, Henry Gross's 1975 song "One More Tomorrow."
Interesting aside, Gross's biggest hit was a 1976 song "Shannon," which was inspired by the death of Carl Wilson's Irish setter by that name. (Both men had Irish setters by that name, which seems like a crazy coincidence.) Gross had been touring with the Beach Boys in 1975, which is when he spoke to Carl about it. That song reached #6 in the US. (I hadn't heard that song before, either. I'd never heard of Gross at all.)
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Post by Kapitan on May 27, 2021 17:29:27 GMT
"Dancing in the Moonlight" was by King Harvest, an early 70s band that featured future Beach Boys keyboardist and producer Ron Altbach, who also was in Mike Love's Celebration; as well as guitarist Eddie Truleja and saxophonist Rod Novak, who went on to play on Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue. (Bobby Figueroa, a longtime Beach Boys drummer and percussionist, was also in the group at times.)
Here is one from their 1976 self titled album that includes Mike and Carl.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 27, 2021 17:35:00 GMT
Here is "Shannon". This song was huge in the summer of 1976. A bunch of classmates went to the New Jersey shore for a week after high school graduation. "Shannon" was everywhere. We listened to Endless Summer and Spirit Of America 8 tracks in the car all week long. "Rock And Roll Music" was just released and was on the radio constantly. Almost every bar we stopped in had a band who was covering Beach Boys' songs. Good times, great memories.
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Post by Kapitan on May 27, 2021 17:52:32 GMT
Sheriff John Stone were you aware that "Shannon" was about Carl's dog, and know the connection there to the Beach Boys at the time?
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 27, 2021 18:03:26 GMT
Sheriff John Stone were you aware that "Shannon" was about Carl's dog, and know the connection there to the Beach Boys at the time? Yes, I think I was. If it wasn't in the summer of 1976 it was shortly after that. Like I mentioned in my above post, and I can't over-exaggerate it - The Beach Boys were everywhere in 1976. The Henry Gross/Carl Wilson/Beach Boys connection appeared in the various music publications/articles, and I was devouring everything I could find about the band.
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