Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

Tag Archives: Beach Boys


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MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS

Live at the Hollywood Bowl – The Beatleslive-at-the-hollywood-bowl-the-beatles
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I had the album version – The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl that was released in 1977. That version was produced by the Beatles’ legendary producer George Martin. This version, including four bonus tracks, has been remixed and mastered from the original three-track tapes by Martin’s son Giles, who worked with his father on the Beatles 2006 Love album. In David Fricke’s liner notes, the reissued album is described as the essential companion to Ron Howard’s acclaimed documentary Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years. 
The album is comprised of songs from the Beatles 1964 and 1965 concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The concerts were the first and last times the Beatles were officially recorded in concert. The album contains recordings from three different concerts, which took place on August 23rd, 1964 and August 29th and 30th, 1965. Giles remixed and mastered the songs at Abbey Road with engineer Sam Okell. He has spoken about how advancements in technology since his father worked on the tapes almost forty years ago has resulted in in improved clarity, so that “the immediacy and visceral excitement can be heard like never before”.
This remains the Beatles only official live album, and shows that despite the constant screaming from teenage girls that they had to contend with, making it difficult for them to hear themselves playing and singing, they were still a really good live band, thanks to the thousands of hours they played in Hamburg, Germany and at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England.
The album features good liner notes and photos, including George Martin’s original notes from the 1977 release, in which he states that he reluctantly worked with engineer Geoff Emerick to bring the performance (the only live recordings of the Beatles in existence, minus inferior bootlegs), back to life.
The bonus tracks included here for the first time are “You Can’t Do That”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, George’s cover of Carl Perkins’ “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” and “Baby’s In Black”.

pet-soundsPet Sounds – Beach Boys (50th Anniversary Edition) (2 CD)
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I recently read Brian Wilson’s excellent new autobiography I Am Brian Wilson, in which he writes extensively about the making of his classic Pet Sounds 50 years ago, widely considered one of the greatest albums ever recorded, with Rolling Stone having it at #2 on their list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. Wilson tells of John Lennon calling him about the album and Beatles producer George Martin saying that Pet Sounds was the chief motivation for the Beatles own classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band album a year later in 1967.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of this classic recording, an anniversary edition including 104 tracks, all but 14 of which had been previously available, has been released. I picked up the two-CD version, which includes the original 13 song, 36 minute version of the album in both mono and remastered stereo, an instrumental version and some previously unavailable live recordings from 1966 – 1993.
Casual fans of the band will recognize much loved songs such as “Wouldn’t it Be Nice”, “Sloop John B”, “God Only Knows” (which Paul McCartney told Wilson was one of his all-time favorite songs), and “Caroline No” (which is Wilson’s favorite song on the album). But the genius of Pet Sounds and Wilson is the entirely of the album, not the hit singles. Listen to what Wilson did in the studio with the session musicians who would become known as the Wrecking Crew, while the Beach Boys were on the road. You can also see this depicted in the 2014 film Love and Mercy.
Even though there have been numerous reissues of Pet Sounds, I previously only had an early CD release, which was not of a very a good sound quality. Listening to the stereo version on this reissue produced by Mark Linett opened up new sounds on the album that I had not previously heard.  To really appreciate Wilson’s songs and the talents of the Wrecking Crew listen to the instrumental versions of the songs.  Wilson is currently on a Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary Tour, playing the album live in its entirety. Continue reading →


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Movie Review ~ Love and Mercy

Love & MercyLove and Mercy, rated PG-13
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This film is based on the life of Brian Wilson, the genius behind the Beach Boys. It is in many ways a difficult film to watch as it portrays the hard life that Wilson has lived, enduring his abusive father Murry (played by Bill Camp) who was actually fired as manager of the band, mental illness, drug abuse and a difficult relationship with cousin and fellow band member Mike Love (played by Jake Abel), which continues to this day.

The film, directed by Bill Pohlad, focuses on two specific periods in Wilson’s life, switching back and forth throughout the film. In the mid-1960’s Wilson is a tormented soul, the victim of his father’s abuse (we see him play an early version of his classic “God Only Knows”, for his father, who dismisses it), and decides to stop touring with the band to focus on writing songs and working in the studio. We see his creativity in taking the music that he hears in his head and taking it to develop the songs that would eventually become the band’s 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds. Paul Dano, who is made to look like a young Wilson, superbly portrays this young Wilson, who we see begin to use LSD on the way to a mental breakdown. Yet even after the success of “Good Vibrations”, the largest selling Beach Boys single, Wilson still craves his father’s affirmation. I believe Dano’s performance is worthy of a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

In the mid-1980’s we see a heavily medicated Wilson played by John Cusack (no effort is made to make him look like Wilson, which is distracting), completely under the control of the evil Dr. Eugene Landy, excellently portrayed by Paul Giamatti. Landy claims to have “saved” Wilson from a life of spending three years in his bed and weighing 300 pounds, but he now controls all aspects of his life, even serving as his legal guardian.  The film does include some adult language, including the abuse of God’s and Jesus’ names several times, especially by Dr. Landy. Followed by his handlers, Wilson goes into a Cadillac car dealer and meets Melinda Ledbetter, portrayed by Elizabeth Banks. This meeting will change his life.

The two hour film was quite slow at times, but the acting performances – Dano, Giamatti, Banks and Cusack – are superb. My favorite part of the film was watching Wilson in the studio working with musicians to create the music for Pet Sounds (which Rolling Stone magazine has named the #2 rock album of all-time, second only to the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was inspired by Pet Sounds), while the band was on the road touring. However, when the band returns, Love (and Wilson’s father) want him only to recreate duplicates of early Beach Boys hits (surfing, cars and girls), rather than this new music.

Incredibly, Wilson, now 72, has survived and continues to be an important artist, recording and touring (including a July 6 date with fellow Beach Boys Al Jardine and David Marks at the Ravinia Festival near Chicago). See my review of Wilson’s 2015 album, No Pier Pressure, originally intended to be a Beach Boys album, which gives us glimpses of his genius. A song from the new album – “One Kind of Love” – plays over the closing credits after a video of him playing “Love and Mercy” in concert.