The Vinyl Dialogues Blog

On Jan. 8, 1973, the Beach Boys released the “Holland” album, which included the hit “Sail On, Sailor,” featuring Blondie Chaplin on lead vocals. Here is an excerpt from a chapter in The Vinyl Dialogues Volume IV: From Studio to Stylus that includes an interview with Blondie Chaplin about the making of the “Holland” album and the back story on how he was chosen to sing lead on “Sail On, Sailor.”

After spending about three months recording in Holland over the summer of 1972, the Beach Boys had returned to the United States thinking they had finished their 19th studio album.

But when they presented the album — called Holland — to Warner Brothers, record company officials rejected it because it didn’t appear to the suits that it had a song that could be marketed as a potential hit single.

Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson had co-written another song — … Read more

In August of 2013, Gordon Glantz had gone to a Steve Earle concert in Sellersville, Pa. During the show, Earle started talking about the kinds of songs he had written for “The Low Highway” record he was touring behind.

Earle related anecdotes about traveling through smaller towns and seeing boarded up factories, which offered him a look at a different side of America. That had an impacton Glantz.

“My interpretation of what Earle said was that there are people out there whose stories aren’t being told,” said Glantz, a veteran journalist in the Philadelphia area. “It comes out of the Springsteen cloth a little bit. All of the songs on ‘The Low Highway’ album were right to the point, no layers, no interpretation of poetry.”

The inspiration provided by Earle redirected Glantz’s longtime passion for songwriting, the end result of which is a collection of 19 songs on the recently … Read more