Tag: Al Jardine

Brian Wilson, left, and Al Jardine, right, perform Saturday, Aug. 28, 2019, at the Tower Theatre in Upper Darby, Pa.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

When I was a kid in the 1970s, listening to WLS out of Chicago, I used to keep a cassette recorder loaded with a blank tape on my nightstand next to the radio. As I lay there trying to fall asleep, I would listen to the music, and when a song came on that I liked, I’d fumble through the darkness and attempt to hit the “record” button.

That’s how we put a setlist together back in those days. And even though I got fairly adept at hitting the “record” button when one of my favorite songs came on (actually you had to hit “play” and “record” at the same time, which increased the degree of difficulty when doing it in the dark), my reaction time was always a tick or two behind. So my setlist of favorite tunes I played on that cassette recorder was inevitably missing the intros to the songs.

I was fascinated in the early to mid-1970s by a group called The Stylistics. Unbeknownst to the young me at the time, The Stylistics were part of what would become The Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP) or “Philly soul.” The songwriting and production team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff had formed Philadelphia International Records in the early 1970s and was creating a new sound, one that they believed would rival Motown. Artists like The Stylistics, The O’Jay’s, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, The Three Degrees, Lou Rawls and Billy Paul were making some great music in Philadelphia in those days.

Russell Thompkins Jr., original lead singer of The Stylistics (upper right), joined Brian Wilson onstage for Saturday night’s show at the Tower Theatre.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

All of which was lost on a kid growing up in central Illinois. I had no idea what was unfolding in the Philadelphia music scene at the time, all I knew was that I liked The Stylistics a lot — particularly their song “I’m Stone in Love With You” — and that I wasn’t quick enough to get the entire song from start to finish on my cassette recorder.

And, of course, I had no way of knowing that I would move to Philadelphia some 30 years later as a writer, become immersed in the Philadelphia music scene and interview many of the artists that developed TSOP and “Philly soul,” including the original lead singer of The Stylistics, Russell Thompkins Jr., for a chapter on the group’s first album for “The Vinyl Dialogues Volume IV, From Studio to Stylus.”

So it was with great excitement that I greeted the news that Thompkins Jr., with that beautiful lead falsetto voice on “I’m Stone in Love With You” and those other great Stylistics hits, would be a special guest at a concert co-billed by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and The Zombies at the Tower Theatre in Upper Darby, suburban Philadelphia, on Sept. 28, 2019.

I was a Beach Boys fan long before I was a fan of The Stylistics. I grew up with my parents’ record collection in the 1960s, and the Beach Boys have always been my favorite band. I love the harmonies and I love Brian Wilson’s sweet falsetto voice from his early years on all those classic Beach Boys tunes.

So I already had my tickets for this show when I got the news that Thompkins Jr. would join the festivities. Having seen Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and their group — Mike Love and Bruce Johnston also have a group that tours under the name “Beach Boys” — many times over the years, I had originally been drawn to this show because of The Zombies. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, I love the band’s hits, including “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No” and “Time of the Season.” I had not seen them live to this point and the ticket price for two R&RHOF bands was quite reasonable.

Colin Blunstone, lead singer of The Zombies.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

The Zombies opened the show and absolutely killed it. Lead vocalist Colin Blunstone and vocalist and keyboardist Rod Argent can still sing. In addition to their hits, they also performed their complete 1968 album “Odessey and Oracle” without interruption, and it was, in a word, brilliant. To add an even more special aspect to the show, they were joined by original members Hugh Grundy and Chris White for the “Odessey and Oracle” portion of the set. The Zombies would have well been worth the price of admission by themselves.

Next up was Brian, Al and the band, which for the past few years has included Blondie Chaplin, a singer and guitarist who joined the Beach Boys in the early 1970s and who would sing the lead on the Beach Boys hit, “Sail on Sailor.” Chaplin, who later would become a vocalist, percussionist and acoustic rhythm guitarist for The Rolling Stones, lends a bit of eccentricity and strutting not normally seen at a Brian Wilson show.

Brian’s band is top-notch and has been for years. Co-founding Beach Boys guitarist Al Jardine is still in great voice, and Jardine’s son, Matt, now handles all the high falsetto parts that Brian used to sing. New to this tour, billed as “Something Great From ’68” to go along with The Zombies’ “Odyssey and Oracle” album, was the addition of some songs from from the Beach Boys’ 1968 album “Friends,” as well as the group’s 1971 album “Surf’s Up.”

Rod Argent, original keyboardist and vocalist for The Zombies.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Brian himself doesn’t do much of the heavy lifting anymore. He still handles some lead vocals on classic Beach Boys songs like “God Only Knows,” (his brother Carl Wilson sang lead on the original song), “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains,” but for the most part, Brian is content to sit at the piano and oversee the proceedings these days, soaking in the love from the audience.

Of course, I was anxious to see how Russell Thompkins Jr. was going to fit into the show and how the surf and sand music was going to intersect with Philly soul. We didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Just a few songs into the set, Thompkins emerged on stage for Wilson’s hit single, “Don’t Worry Baby,” first released in 1964. Matt Jardine took the first falsetto verse, then handed the lead vocals off to Thompkins Jr. for the remainder of the song.

It was both an inspired and perfect choice for the voice of Thompkins Jr. According to Wilson, he had written “Don’t Worry Baby” in an attempt to capture the essence of what he’s said is his all-time favorite song, “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes, with Ronnie Spector on lead vocals, released in 1963.

Everyone gathered around Brian Wilson at the piano for the final song of the evening, “Love and Mercy.”
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Thompkins Jr. nailed “Don’t Worry Baby” in what was literally a chill-inducing version for those of us who are Beach Boys and Stylistics fans. He was rewarded with a standing ovation by the Philly faithful. Although he didn’t take lead vocals on any other songs during the show (a slight disappointment to me), Thompkins Jr. did return to the stage to lend backing vocals for all the songs in the encore, including “Surfin’ U.S.A” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.”

It was the final co-billed appearance on this tour for The Zombies with Wilson and they left it all on the stage. And Wilson is one of the most famous and accomplished artists of our era. The addition of Thompkins Jr. was just icing on the cake for this concert.

It’s gonna be difficult to find a better evening of music than that for me.

Original Beach Boys member Al Jardine on guitar.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

The song that didn’t belong on the ‘Pet Sounds’ album

By Mike Morsch

On May 25, 2018

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Brian Wilson
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Brian Wilson’s masterpiece “Pet Sounds” – arguably one of the best albums ever made – was released 52 years ago this month by the Beach Boys. And as great as that album is, there’s a song on it that just doesn’t fit on the album, according to one of the band members.

The story of “Pet Sounds” is well chronicled. By the mid-1960s, Brian had tired of touring with the Beach Boys and wanted to stay in California, writing and arranging new music for the band. He was growing as a songwriter and producer and wanted to focus more on those aspects of the music industry.

To fill in for Brian on tour, the Beach Boys first hired Glen Campbell, who had been a member of the famous “Wrecking Crew,” a group of brilliant Los Angeles studio musicians who were used by a lot of artists for their studio albums in the 1960s.

Playing bass guitar and singing some of Brian’s high falsetto parts, Campbell toured with the Beach Boys from December 1964 through March 1965 before deciding to leave the band and focus on a solo career. (Campbell was, however, among the Wrecking Crew musicians who played on the “Pet Sounds” recording sessions that started on July 12, 1965 and didn’t finish until April 13, 1966.)

Bruce Johnston
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

The Beach Boys now needed someone to fill in for Campbell on tour. So Mike Love called Bruce Johnston.

Johnston was an on-staff producer at Columbia Records, which was also the Beach Boys’ label, and he had met all of the Beach Boys. At the time, Johnston was working with Terry Melcher – the son of actress Doris Day – producing a song called “Hey Little Cobra” for the Rip Chords, on which Johnston and Melcher also added their own vocals. The song would spend 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1963, peaking at No. 4.

After that song hit, Melcher was assigned to work with a new band called the Byrds, a five-piece group that featured Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke in its original lineup, that had formed in 1964.

So Johnston was looking for his next project when the call came from Love.

Mike Love
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

“I was consulted by Mike, who I knew. He said ‘Glen Campbell was supposed to go on the road with the Beach Boys and he can’t and Brian is in the studio. Who do you know who can fill in for us?’” recalled Johnston during a series of interviews he did for The Vinyl Dialogues book series. “I called 10 people and nobody was available. So I said to Mike, ‘Look, the best I can offer you is me and I can get to airport.’ That’s how I got started with the Beach Boys.”

Johnston joined the touring band in April 1965 and also started appearing in the recording sessions as a vocalist. The first vocal recording Johnston made with the band was “California Girls,” which appeared on the “Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) album, released in July 1965.

“Probably one of the smartest things they ever did was take Brian off the road so he could realize his genius in the studio,” said Johnston. “The first year I was with with Beach Boys we did three albums. Did I think that was unusual? No. I wasn’t the guy who had to struggle like Brian with writing the songs, arranging them and producing them. All I had to do was come in and sing. You can imagine that Brian had to do all that and go on the road. He just couldn’t do it, it was too much for him.”

It was around this time – in the summer of 1965 – that Brian started the preliminary recording sessions for “Pet Sounds.” By the end of that year, Brian had heard the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album and it had added even more inspiration for him during the creation of “Pet Sounds.”

Al Jardine
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Original Beach Boys guitarist and vocalist Al Jardine really liked the song “Wreck of the John B,” which had been a hit for the Kingston Trio. Jardine had a folk music background and persuaded Brian that the song would work with a Beach Boys treatment, with a five-part vocal arrangement. The band finished the vocals for the song, called “Sloop John B.” by December 1965, and then left in January 1966 for a 15-gig tour of Japan, leaving Brian in the studio to continue work on “Pet Sounds.”

Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson kept in touch by phone with Brian while the band was in Japan and Brian would send them acetate recordings of what he and the Wrecking Crew had been doing in the studio for “Pet Sounds.” One of those recordings was of “Sloop John B.” featuring the backing tracks that the band members had previously recorded.

When the Beach Boys returned from Japan and got back into the studio to hear what Brian had been doing with “Pet Sounds,” it was different than any other Beach Boys album to that point. The only thing that sounded like the Beach Boys previous recordings was “Sloop John B.”

And that’s the song that Johnston doesn’t think fits on “Pet Sounds.”

“What does it have to do with that album?” said Johnston. “Nothing.”

The suits at Capitol Records disagreed. They were demanding a single and “Sloop John B.” was the closest thing to a Beach Boys-sounding track that was finished while work continued on “Pet Sounds.” So the record company released the song, but it gave the public no real idea of what was to come on “Pet Sounds.”

“So we had ‘Sloop John B.’ come out in the middle of making ‘Pet Sounds.’ It’s a brilliant record, but it just doesn’t fit on the album,” said Johnston. “Brian was thinking more thematic.”

Interviewing Bruce Johnston before a Beach Boys concert in 1986 in Rockford, Illinois.

History would prove Johnston correct. The inclusion of “Sloop John B.” on the “Pet Sounds” album somewhat contradicts a later interpretation of the record as a “concept” album.

But “Sloop John B.” performed well on the singles charts, peaking at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Another single released from the “Pet Sounds” album to chart was “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” which got to No. 8 on the Billboard chart and No. 7 on the U.S. Cash Box Top 100 chart. The album itself made it to No. 10 on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart.

The B side of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” released two months later, was “God Only Knows” – a song that Paul McCartney called his favorite song of all time – would reach No. 2 on the United Kingdom singles chart, but could only get as high as No. 39 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 songs. The song features Carl Wilson on lead vocals, with both Brian and Bruce on backing vocals and is considered by some as one of the most beautifully composed and arranged songs in the history of pop music.

In the ensuing years, “Pet Sounds” has also been recognized as an ambitious and sophisticated work that advanced the field of music production.

Vinyl memories: A conversation with Al Jardine of the Beach Boys

By Mike Morsch

On September 24, 2014

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Longtime Beach Boys bandmate Al Jardine will be joining Brian Wilson for three upcoming California shows.
(Photo by Randy Straka)

It was 1965 and I was thumbing through my parents’ 45 rpm vinyl collection when I came upon an orange and yellow-labeled record that caught my eye.

I put it on the record player and for the next few minutes was enthralled by the sweet harmonies, sounds that I had never before heard in my young life.

The song was “The Little Girl I Once Knew” by the Beach Boys. I was 6 years old. And I was hooked on that sound for life.

That was nearly 50 years ago. One of the voices coming off that record was that of Al Jardine, who along with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson co-founded the Beach Boys.

The story of the Beach Boys is well documented. So when I heard Al Jardine’s voice on the other end of the phone this week, I wondered what questions I could possibly ask him that he hasn’t already been asked many times over in his career.

Jardine, as he has several times in the past, is joining Brian Wilson for three upcoming shows in California: this Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Vina Robles Ampitheatre in Paso Robles; Oct. 9 at the Mary Stuart Theatre in Modesto; and Oct. 11 at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach. (That show is already sold out but tickets remain for the other two.)

It wasn’t the first time I had talked with Al. As a newspaper reporter and editor for 38 years, I interviewed him first in 2006 to preview a series of shows he was doing with Brian on the 40th anniversary of the release of the “Pet Sounds” album. I actually got to meet Al and Brian after one of those show at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA.

We spoke once again for a story before the the kick off of the Beach Boys 50th anniversary tour in 2012 and then again that same year for a story on Al’s solo album “A Postcard From California.”

For these three California shows, though, it’s going to be mostly a celebration of the Beach Boys.

“We’re going to cover three different eras, I think: the early stuff; the middle era, the 1970s, which is turning out to be my favorite era; and the 1980s material,” said Jardine.

“It will be primarily Beach Boys music. I don’t do my personal stuff and Brian doesn’t do much of his personal stuff either because we’re really celebrating the Beach Boys. Believe it or not, that’s who we are.”

Al deadpanned the “that’s who we are” line and added a little snicker for emphasis. Like there is anybody left on the the planet who doesn’t know that the Beach Boys are the Beach Boys. In other words, they’re not likely to try and be something they’re not.

But they never have.

The rest of the interview was more of a conversation, like two guys sitting around at a backyard barbecue, lifting a few cold ones and shooting the breeze about music, their families and life in general. Two guys in Hawaiian shirts, of course.

I told him I really liked the song “San Simeon” off his solo album. It very Beach Boys-ish. Go figure.

“America (Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley) does such a great job on that song. It has an authenticity to it. My son Adam did a great job on it, too. He’s the one singing that real pretty deep reverb that goes into echo. He doesn’t get much credit because there are such big names on the album (Brian and the rest of the Beach Boys, Glen Campbell, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Steve Miller, among others). But he came up with that part. I have to give him all the credit,” said Jardine.

With no disrespect to The Mystics, who were the first to record it, I told Al that I thought the Beach Boys version of “Hushabye” – covered on their 1964 album “All Summer Long” – was better than the original. And that when Al’s son Matt joined the Beach Boys in the 1990s and took over the high lead on that song, I thought he did a great job with it.

“Yea, Matt can really sing. He nailed that song,” he said. Spoken like a proud father.

The conversation then turned to the 1970s. “That’s my wife’s favorite era of music. She educates me every day to it on Sirius Radio,” said Jardine. And then to the 1972 Beach Boys album, “Carl and the Passions – So Tough,” on which Al shares songwriting credit on two cuts: with Carl and Mike on “All This Is That” and with Brian and Mike on “He Come Down.”

“That is an amazing song. I can’t believe it’s us,” said Al of “He Come Down.” “It was a meditation song, and it turned into some kind of a spiritual. And it’s really good. Somebody ought to cover that thing. I should probably talk to Brian about that.”

We rounded out the conversation transitioning from music to the environment, specifically talking about recycling. Al is a longtime environmental advocate and a big recycling proponent.

“I start preaching on stuff like recycling. I drive everyone crazy with it. I probably should write a song called ‘The Recycle Man,’” he said.

Jardine is working on a couple of solo projects that he’s not ready to detail yet, but he’ still having a lot of fun doing what he’s doing and teaming up with Brian yet again.

“Just to be able to go down to the studio and work up a new song – or even an old song – is fun,” he said. “When it stops being fun is when you should stop doing it. But I’m looking forward to working with Brian on these next three shows. That’s always a gas.”

Just like it’s always a gas to talk to Al Jardine. Nothing heavy, just one Rock and Roll Hall of Famer talking about music with a guy who has been writing about it for years.

For a moment, I considered pulling my Hawaiian shirt out of the closet – the one with the surfboards on it that my wife hates – and throwing it on just to try and extend the summer for another day.

Instead, after I hung up the phone with Al, I went over to my vinyl collection, thumbed through the 45s, and pulled out “The Little Girl I Once Knew,” put it on the turntable and drifted right back to 1965.

It sounds as sweet today as it did nearly 50 years ago.

Stories behind memorable albums of the 1970s as told by the artists

Tag: Al Jardine

Brian Wilson and The Zombies add a touch of ‘Philly soul’ to the show

The song that didn’t belong on the ‘Pet Sounds’ album

Vinyl memories: A conversation with Al Jardine of the Beach Boys