Albums Back from the Dead

 

It’s no secret that the Beach Boys and the Beatles saw themselves as friendly rivals and influences. Vocal parts of the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” were influenced by the Beach Boys’ “I Get Around.” And the race was on: Rubber Soul begat Pet Sounds which begat Revolver. The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” single certainly upped the ante and expectations were high for the next album Smile.

But then the Beach Boys basically went off the rails with Brian Wilson’s drug use and resulting mental issues. Plus, I would argue that while interesting, the songs recorded for Smile just weren't strong enough. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came out in May 1967, and when Smile was kind of salvaged with Smiley Smile issued four months later, there really wasn’t much of a competition anymore.

However, the Beach Boys' influence on the Beatles continued at least for a little while. It’s been suggested that the Beach Boys’ Wild Honey may have helped convince the Beatles to use a more of a back-to-basics approach for The Beatles, and certainly the opening track “Back in the U.S.S.R” is a Beach Boys homage.

I wondered if the competition was still in effect, whether the Beach Boys might have followed the Beatles with their own double album (and this is, of course, assuming Capitol Records execs would have agreed to this for a band whose market value was by now greatly diminished).

I wanted to take all the tracks the Beach Boys recorded in 1968 following the release of their Friends LP and expand the 1969 album 20/20 to two discs.

SIDE A

1. Intro 

2. Do It Again 

3. We're Together Again 

4. Well, You Know I Knew 

5. Peaches 

6. Be with Me 

SIDE B

1. All I Want to Do 

2. Walkin'

3. Away 

4. Cabinessence 

5. Sail Plane Song 

6. Been Way Too Long (Can't Wait Too Long) 

SIDE C

1. I Can Hear Music 

2. Old Folks Home / Old Man River 

3. Is It True What They Said About Dixie? 

4. Cotton Fields 

5. Bluebirds over the Mountain 

6. Mona Kana 

SIDE D

1. Oh Yeah 

2. Never Learn Not to Love 

3. Walk on By 

4. Time to Get Alone 

5. I Went to Sleep 

6. The Nearest Faraway Place 

7. A Time to Live in Dreams 

8. Rendezvous (Do It Again) 

Twenty-four tracks are taken from two sessions: May – July 1968 and September – November 1968. The two concessions are “Cabinessence,” originally recorded in 1966 for Smile but which received new overdubs in 1968 before being included on 20/20, and “Away,” an outtake from the Friends sessions.

In arranging the tracks for the four sides of this theoretical album, I considered humor (which was very important to Brian Wilson) and pseudo themes. My version of this album opens with a snippet from “The Gong,” taken from the I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions. I only use the 27 seconds of the Dennis Wilson's (3:16-3:44) "new day" speech as a lead-in for “Do It Again.” I use the alternate version of this song from I Can Hear Music that's about 25 seconds longer than the single version. I thought it was kind of humorous to have "Do It Again" followed by "We're Together Again." The rest of the first side is dominated by Dennis Wilson songs. One of these, "Peaches," was a demo and I've used a fan-created mix that helps smooth out the rough edges.

After opening with the rockin' "All I Want to Do," the second side has a vague travel theme with “Walkin’” followed humorously by “Away,” and then “Cabinessence” (“Who ran the iron horse? Have you seen the grand coolie workin' on the railroad?”) and “Sail Plane Song.” I ended the side with “Been Way Too Long” (aka “Can't Wait Too Long”) and used a fan-created, six-minute “ultimate mix” version.

The third side opens with “I Can Hear Music” and then focuses on covers of older music, including “Old Man River / Old Folks Home” (1920s), “Is It True What They Said About Dixie?” -- with the Wilson brothers' mother on lead vocal -- (1930s),  “Cotton Fields” (1940s) and “Bluebirds over the Mountain” (1950s), before ending with the instrumental “Mona Kana.”

The final side opens with the oddity “Oh Yeah,” and the last five tracks share a vague theme of “time” and “dreams.” To close the final side, I used an edit of only the last 42 seconds of “Rendevous,” an early version of “Do It Again,” to bookend the album.

Overall, I think this gives a much bigger picture of the Beach Boys at this time than the actual 20/20 album. But even if this version of the album had been released at the time, I can’t say if it would have been successful. Given that the actual 20/20 managed to make to only #68 on the Billboard charts indicates that the Beach Boys' career was for the times in the dumper. However, 20/20 surprisingly rose to #3 in Britain, so who knows?

For the album cover, I used a photo from the same photo shoot as the actual 20/20 cover, which I think is far superior.

Here is a YouTube playlist of the album, but it doesn't include the first and last tracks that I used personal edits for.

Sources:

• I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions - A1 [edit], A2, A4, A6, B1, B2, B5, C3, C5, C6, D1, D3, D7, D8 [edit]
• 20/20 - B4, C1, C4, D2, D5, D6
• Made in California - A3
• Mr. J Wilson - A5
• Wake the World: The Friends Sessions - B3
• Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace of a Musical Legacy - C2
• Summer Love Songs - D4
• forjustsomemusicstuff - B6

Add Some Music
SIDE A
1. Susie Cincinnati
2. Good Time
3. Our Sweet Love
4. Tears in the Morning
5. When Girls Get Together
6. Slip on Through

SIDE B
1. Add Some Music to Your Day
2. Take a Load Off Your Feet
3. This Whole World
4. I Just Got My Pay
5. At My Window
6. Fallin' in Love

This album has a heavy Al Jardine influence -- he wrote or co-wrote five of the 12 songs -- which I think is unusual in the band's history.

Overall, I think it's pretty good. Had "Susie Cincinnati" gotten a lot of label promotion I could see it being a moderate hit on AM radio in 1970. But it was relegated to the B-side of "Add Some Music to Your Day" -- and I don't quite understand why the label thought that was going to be the band's big comeback single.

Anyway, other than the schmaltzy "Tears in the Morning," I think all the tracks are good or better.




The Beach Boys sued Capitol Records for back royalties in April 1970, but still owed one album to the label. In mid-1970, The Beach Boys assembled an album that had the working titles Reverberation and The Fading Rock Group Revival that would fulfill the band's contract.

Memories are apparently fuzzy as to whether Capitol rejected the album outright, or whether the band had second thoughts. Either way, the album was never released, although some songs eventually showed up on Sunflower, and Capitol released a live album instead. The band's contract with the record company expired in June.

The track list included not only the songs below but also "When Girls Get Together." But since we already use that track on the previous album, I've omitted it here (it would have been track five on Side A). To replace it, I moved "San Miguel" (originally set for track 2 on Side B) to replace it.

Reverberation
SIDE A
1. Cottonfields
2. Loop de Loop
3. All I Wanna Do
4. Got to Know the Woman
5. San Miguel

SIDE B
1. Break Away
2. Celebrate the News
3. Deirdre
4. The Lord's Prayer
5. Forever

While Add Some Music was dominated by Al Jardine, Reverberation is strongly influenced by Dennis Wilson, who wrote or co-wrote five songs.

But although there are a number of good songs, it's hard to think how this would have competed with other releases. The charts during the summer of 1970 were dominated by The Beatles' Let It Be, the Woodstock soundtrack, Crosby, Stills Nash & Young's Deja Vu, The Who's Live at Leeds, Chicago II, Blood Sweat and Tears 3, The Jackson 5's ABC and Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. In this market, would anyone be clamoring for an aging surf rock band's take on an old Leadbelly tune? Well, Europe loved it with the song topping the charts in several countries, but in the U.S. it peaked at No. 103.

This album cover I got off a Beach Boys fan site. The person who created it (unknown to me) took the cover from a compilation album called Good Vibrations and altered it.