Wednesday, June 20, 8942

Brian Wilson (b. 1942) - The Beach Boys


Brian Douglas Wilson (b. June 20, 1942, Inglewood, CA) is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group. Besides being the primary composer in The Beach Boys, he also functioned as the band's main producer and arranger.

In 1988, Wilson and his bandmates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which refers to Wilson on its website as "One of the few undisputed geniuses in popular music."

He is also an occasional actor and voice actor, having appeared in television shows, films, and other performers' music videos.

Wilson was born June 20, 1942 at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, California.

He was the eldest of three boys; his younger brothers were Dennis and Carl. When Brian was two, the Wilson family moved from Inglewood to 3701 West 119th Street in nearby Hawthorne, California, a town in the greater Los Angeles urban area about five miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. He spent his entire subsequent childhood years in this middle-class family home.

Brian Wilson's father Murry Wilson told of Brian's unusual musical abilities prior to his first birthday, observing that the baby could repeat the melody from "When the Caissons Go Rolling Along" after only a few verses had been sung by the father. Murry stated, "He was very clever and quick. I just fell in love with him."

At about age two, Brian heard George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which had an enormous emotional impact on him.

A few years later Brian was discovered to have extremely diminished hearing in his right ear. The exact cause of this hearing loss is unclear, though theories range from Brian's simply being born partially deaf, to a blow to the head from Brian's father, or a neighborhood bully, being to blame.

While father Murry was ostensibly a reasonable provider, he was abusive and hard to please, liable to dispense harsh punishments for minor or perceived misdeeds. But Murry, a minor musician and songwriter, also encouraged his children in this field in numerous ways. At a young age, Brian was given six weeks of lessons on a "toy accordion," and at seven and eight sang solos in church with a choir behind him.

By most accounts a natural leader by the time he began attending Hawthorne High School, Brian was on the football team as a quarterback, played baseball and was a cross-country runner in his senior year.

However, most of his energy was directed toward music. He sang with various students at school functions and with his family and friends at home. Brian taught his two brothers harmony parts that all three would then practice when they were supposed to be asleep. He also played piano obsessively after school, deconstructing the harmonies of The Four Freshmen by listening to short segments of their songs on a phonograph, then working to recreate the blended sounds note by note on the keyboard.

Brian received a Wollensak tape recorder on his sixteenth birthday, allowing him to experiment with recording songs and early group vocals.

Wilson's surviving home tapes document his initial efforts singing with various buddies and family, including a song that would later be recorded in the studio by The Beach Boys, Sloop John B, as well as Bermuda Shorts, and a hymn titled Good News. In his senior year at Hawthorne High, in addition to his classroom music studies, he would gather at lunchtime to sing with friends like Keith Lent and Bruce Griffin. Brian and Lent worked on a revised version of the tune Hully Gully to support the campaign of a classmate named Carol Hess who was running for senior class president. When performed for a full high school gathering, Brian's revised arrangement received a warm round of applause from the student audience.

Enlisting his cousin and often-time singing partner Mike Love, and Wilson's reluctant youngest brother Carl Wilson, Brian's next public performance featured more ambitious arrangements at a fall arts program at his high school. To entice Carl into the group, Wilson named the newly-formed membership "Carl and the Passions." The performance featured tunes by Dion and the Belmonts and The Four Freshmen (It's a Blue World), the latter of which proved difficult for the ensemble to carry off. However, the event was notable for the impression it made on another musician and classmate of Brian's who was in the audience that night, Al Jardine, later to join the three Wilson brothers and Mike Love in The Beach Boys.

Brian enrolled at El Camino Community College in Los Angeles, majoring in psychology, in September 1960. However, he continued his music studies at the college as well.

At some point in the year 1961 Brian wrote his first all-original melody, loosely based on a Dion and the Belmonts version of When You Wish Upon a Star. Brian's tune would eventually be known as Surfer Girl. Brian has commented that he wrote the melody in his car, then later at home finished the bridge and harmonies. Although an early demo of the song was recorded in Feb. 1962 at World-Pacific Studios, it was not re-recorded and released until 1963, when it became a top ten hit.

Brian and his brothers Carl and Dennis Wilson along with Mike Love and Al Jardine first gelled as a music group in the summer of 1961, initially named the Pendletones. After being prodded by Dennis to write a song about the local water sports craze, Brian and Mike Love together created what would become the first single for the band, Surfin'. Recorded by Hite and Dorinda Morgan and released on the small Candix label, the song became a top local hit in Los Angeles and reached number seventy-five on the national Billboard sales charts.

Dennis later described the first time Brian heard their song on the radio as the three Wilson brothers (and soon-to-be-band member David Marks) drove in Brian's 1957 Ford in the rain: "Nothing will ever top the expression on Brian's face, ever ... THAT was the all-time moment."

However, the Pendletones were no more. Without the band's knowledge or permission, Candix Records had changed their name to The Beach Boys.

Brian Wilson and his bandmates, following a set by Ike and Tina Turner, performed their first major live show at The Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance on New Year's Eve, 1961. Three days previously, Brian's father had bought him an electric bass and amplifier; Brian had learned to play the instrument in that short period of time, with Al Jardine moving to rhythm guitar.

Looking for a followup single for their radio hit, Brian and Mike wrote Surfin' Safari, and attempts were made to record a usable take at World Pacific, including overdubs, on February 8, 1962, along with several other tunes including an early version of Surfer Girl. Only a few days later, discouraged about the band's financial prospects, and objecting to adding some Chubby Checker songs to The Beach Boys live setlist, Al Jardine abruptly left the group.

Murry Wilson had become The Beach Boys manager, and when Candix Records ran into money problems and sold the group's master recordings to another label, Murry terminated the contract. Brian, worried about The Beach Boys' future, asked his father to help his group make more recordings. But Murry and Hite Morgan (who at this point was their music publisher) were turned down by a number of Los Angeles record companies.

As Surfin' faded from the charts, Brian, who had forged a songwriting partnership with Gary Usher, created several new tunes, including a car song, 409, that Usher had helped write. Recruiting Carl and Dennis' friend, thirteen-year-old neighbor David Marks, who had been playing electric guitar (and practicing with Carl) for years, Brian and the revamped Beach Boys cut new tracks on April 19 at Western Recorders including an updated Surfin' Safari and 409. These tunes convinced Capitol Records to release the demos as a single; they became a double-sided national hit.





After signing with Capitol Records in mid-1962, Brian Wilson wrote or co-wrote (most often with Mike Love) a series of hit singles including the aforementioned Surfin' Safari; Surfin' USA; Shut Down; Little Deuce Coupe; Be True to Your School; In My Room;



Fun, Fun, Fun;



I Get Around; Dance, Dance, Dance;



Help Me Rhonda; California Girls
; and Good Vibrations. These songs and their accompanying albums were internationally popular, making The Beach Boys one of the biggest acts of their time.





Recording sessions for the band's first album took place in Capitol's basement studios (in the famous tower building) in August 1962, but early on Brian lobbied for a different place to cut Beach Boy tracks. The large rooms were built to record the big orchestras and ensembles of the 50s, not small rock groups. At Brian's insistence, Capitol agreed to let The Beach Boys pay for their own outside recording sessions, which Capitol would own all the rights to, and in return the band would receive a higher royalty rate on their record sales. Additionally, although it was very rare at the time for rock and roll band members to have a say in the process of making their records, during the taping of their first LP Brian fought for, and won, the right to be totally in charge of the production- though his first acknowledged liner notes production credit did not come until the band's third album Surfer Girl, in 1963.

January 1963 saw the recording of the first top-ten (cresting at #3 in the United States) Beach Boys single, Surfin' USA, which began their long run of highly successful recording efforts at Hollywood's Western Recorders on Sunset Boulevard. It was during the sessions for this single that Brian made the production decision from that point on to use doubletracking on the group's vocals, resulting in a deeper and more resonant sound.

The tune, adapted from (and eventually partially credited to) Chuck Berry, is widely seen as emblematic of the early 60's American rock cultural experience.

The Surfin' USA album was also a big hit in the United States, reaching number two on the national sales charts by early July, 1963. Brian and his group had become a top-rank recording and touring music band.

As previously mentioned, Brian was first credited as The Beach Boys' producer on the Surfer Girl album, recorded in June and July 1963 and released in September 1963. This LP reached #7 on the national charts on the strength of songs like the ballad In My Room, later released as a single; Catch a Wave; and Little Deuce Coupe, which was released as a double-sided single with the album's title track, both top-15 hits.

He also began working with other artists in this period. On July 20, 1963, Surf City, which he had co-written with Jan and Dean, was the first surfing song to reach the pinnacle of the sales charts. While Brian was excited and happy, his father (and still-manager) Murry and Capitol Records were less than thrilled. Indeed, openly enraged by Brian's chart-topping effort for what he saw as a rival band, Murry went so far as to order his oldest son to sever any further efforts with Jan and Dean.

Brian's other non-Beach Boy work in this period included tracks by The Honeys, Sharon Marie, The Timers, and The Survivors. Feeling that surfing songs had become limiting, Brian decided to produce a set of largely car-oriented tunes for The Beach Boys' fourth album Little Deuce Coupe, which was released in October 1963, only three weeks after the Surfer Girl LP. The departure of guitarist David Marks from the band that month meant that Brian was forced to resume touring with The Beach Boys, for a time reducing his availability in the recording studio.

Brian became known for his unique use of vocal harmonies, his trademark style of lyrics and incessant studio perfectionism. Early influences on his music included not only the previously mentioned Four Freshmen and Chuck Berry, but also the work of record producer Phil Spector, the latter of whom obsessed Wilson for years.

He later considered The Beatles to be his chief rivals, and they in turn would cite his work as a major influence. Wilson also produced records for other artists, but to much lesser success, with the exception of Jan and Dean, for whom Wilson co-wrote several hit songs. Following a nervous breakdown onboard a flight from L.A. to Houston in 1964, Wilson stopped performing live with the Beach Boys in an effort to concentrate solely on songwriting and studio production.

Glen Campbell was called in as his temporary stand-in for live performances, before Wilson chose Bruce Johnston as a long-term replacement—a band member who remains with the Beach Boys today.

***



Barbara Ann is a song written by Fred Fassert and performed (as Barbara Anne) by The Regents in 1961. The recording reached a peak position of #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 record chart.

The most famous cover version is by the American rock band The Beach Boys. The song was released as a single on December 20, 1965, with the B-side Girl Don't Tell Me. The song peaked at #2 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 (#1 in Cash Box and Record World) and at #3 in the U.K. It also topped the charts in Germany, Switzerland and Norway. It was The Beach Boys' biggest hit in Italy, reaching #4. The song was also released on the 1965 album Beach Boys' Party! Brian Wilson and Dean Torrence, who had previously recorded the song as one half of Jan and Dean, are featured on lead vocals. Dean is not credited on the album jacket but "Thanks, Dean" is said by Carl at the end of the track.

A version recorded by the Beach Boys without the Beach Boys' Party! effects can be found on the Hawthorne, CA album. The Beach Boys made a false start on the Party! album by singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" instead of "Baa Baa Baa Baa Barbara Ann." The Beach Boys sang this song as an encore on their Live In London album. Brian Wilson has a rendition on his live Roxy CD, and in 2001, performed it himself, with the ensemble, on An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson.

***

In late 1965, Wilson began working on material for a new album after hearing The Beatles' 1965 album, Rubber Soul.

"With the 1966 Pet Sounds album, and then songs like Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains, Wilson had become America's equivalent of The Beatles with his ability to expand the limits of popular taste."

Robin Denselow writing for The Guardian, September 1976

As he began work on the new project, Pet Sounds, Wilson formed a temporary songwriting partnership with lyricist Tony Asher. Wilson, who had recorded the album's instrumentation with The Wrecking Crew, then gathered with The Beach Boys to record vocal overdubs, following their return from a tour of Japan. Upon hearing what Wilson had created for the first time in 1965, the group, particularly Mike Love, was somewhat critical of their leader's music, and expressed their dislike.

At this time, Wilson still had considerable control within the group and, according to Wilson, they eventually overcame their initial negative reaction, as his newly created music began to near completion; "They thought it was too far-out to do, you know?... But then when it was all done, they liked it. They started liking it."

The album was released in July 1966 and, despite modest sales figures at the time, has since become widely critically acclaimed, often being cited among the all-time greatest rock albums.

Although the record was issued under the group's name, Pet Sounds is arguably seen as a Brian Wilson solo album -- Wilson even toyed with the idea by releasing Caroline, No as a solo single in March 1966, reaching no. 32 on the Billboard charts.



During the Pet Sounds sessions, Wilson had been working on another song, which was held back from inclusion on the record as he felt that it was not sufficiently complete. The song, Good Vibrations, set a new standard for musicians, and what could be achieved in the recording studio. Recorded in multiple sessions and in numerous studios, the song eventually cost $50,000 to record within a six month period.

In October 1966, the song was released as a single, giving The Beach Boys their third U.S. number-one hit -- alongside I Get Around and Help Me, Rhonda -- and it sold over a million copies.

With the surprising success of Good Vibrations, Capitol Records had no choice but to back Wilson up for his next project, originally called Dumb Angel but soon re-titled Smile, which he described as a "teenage symphony to God."

The album's approach was similar to Good Vibrations in the style of recording, which, at the time, was called modular music. This was vastly different compared to the standard live performances that were typically done in a studio at the time. After having been introduced to each other at a party, Wilson sought the lyrical assistance of L.A.-based folk singer Van Dyke Parks, who had made a profound impression on Wilson with the "visionary eloquence" of his lyrics.

During the album's songwriting sessions, they collaborated on Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up, Wonderful, Vegetables, and Mrs. O Leary's Cow. However, between December 1966 and May 1967, the Smile sessions fell apart due to conflict within the group and Wilson's own growing personal problems. As a result, Wilson was having problems completing the album towards the end of the recording sessions. Originally slated to be released in January 1967, the date was continually pushed back until its eventual cancellation — even Heroes and Villains and Vegetables were planned as singles within that time, but nothing appeared.

Another source of problems came from The Beach Boys deciding to file a lawsuit against Capitol Records to start their own label, Brother Records. This came at a terrible time when Wilson was trying to finish the album and, right along the way, The Beatles were working on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In April 1967, Wilson -- who was suffering growing mental problems -- was "deeply affected by hearing a tape of the Pepper song "A Day in the Life," which Paul McCartney played to him in Los Angeles.

Soon after, Smile was abandoned, and Wilson would not return to complete it until 2004, when it was released as a Brian Wilson album of the same name. Van Dyke Parks later noted, "...Brian had a nervous collapse. What broke his heart was Sgt. Pepper."

Writing for The Guardian in December 1999, Will Hodgkinson summarized the main reasons for the eventual demise of Wilson's ambitious project;

[A] combination of factors, including litigations against the record company and increasing animosity between Wilson and the rest of the band, meant that in May 1967 Wilson pulled the plug on the record... [Mike] Love had already dismissed Good Vibrations as "avant-garde shit" and objected to the way Wilson, Parks and a group of highly skilled session musicians were creating music way beyond his understanding... By March 1967, the bad feeling got too much for Parks and, having no desire to break up The Beach Boys, he walked out.

Following the cancellation of Smile, The Beach Boys relocated to a recording studio within the confines of Brian Wilson's mansion, where the hastily compiled Smiley Smile album was assembled, along with a number of future Beach Boys records. This marked the end of Wilson's leadership within the band, and has been seen to be "the moment when the Beach Boys first started slipping from the vanguard to nostalgia."

Psychologically overwhelmed by the cancellation of Smile, the release of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the birth of his first child Carnie Wilson in 1968, Wilson began having a diminished creative role with The Beach Boys. Until about 1970 he remained the group's principal songwriter, but increasingly production reins were handed to younger brother Carl. Carl Wilson mostly oversaw the albums Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and Friends, which only performed modestly on the charts. After that, Brian Wilson all but stopped writing songs and was frequently seen partying in the company of songwriter Tandyn Almer and Three Dog Night singer Danny Hutton. It was during this period that he was introduced to cocaine. The 1969 album 20/20 was made mostly without Wilson's participation, although the Wilson/Love-authored Do It Again was a major hit, topping the charts in the UK.

Wilson spent the majority of the following three years in his bedroom sleeping, taking drugs, and overeating. During this time, his voice deteriorated significantly as a result of chain smoking, drug ingestion and neglect. Many of his "new" contributions to Beach Boys albums were remnants of Smile (e.g., Cabinessence, Surf's Up), and those that were genuinely new reflected his depression and growing detachment from the world ('Til I Die, the EP Mount Vernon and Fairway). Reportedly, Warner Bros. Records was so desperate for material from Wilson that the single We Got Love (co-written by Ricky Fataar, Blondie Chaplin, and Love) was scrapped from the Holland album in favor of Sail On, Sailor, a song mostly written by committee (including Chaplin, Almer and Parks) that happened to draw its initial germ from a Wilson chord sequence.

In 1975, Wilson's wife and family enlisted the services of controversial therapist Eugene Landy in a bid to help Wilson, and hopefully help revive the group's ailing profile. Wilson did not stay under Landy's care for long, but during this short period, the doctor managed to help him into a more productive, social frame of mind. The new album 15 Big Ones, consisting of oldies and some new songs was released in 1976 and Wilson began to regularly appear live on stage with the band. A Love-orchestrated publicity campaign announced that "Brian is Back." He was also deemed to be well enough to do a solo performance on Saturday Night Live in November 1976. In 1977, the cult favorite Love You was released, consisting entirely of new material written and performed by Wilson. He continues to say it is his favorite Beach Boys album.

By 1982, Eugene Landy was once more called into action, and a more radical program was undertaken to try to restore Wilson to health. This involved firing him from The Beach Boys, isolating him from his family on Hawaii, and putting him onto a rigorous diet and health regimen. This, coupled with long, extreme counseling sessions, continued to bring Wilson back to reality. He lost a tremendous amount of weight, was certainly healthier and more conversant than previously, but he was also under a strict level of control by Landy. Wilson's recovery continued as he joined the band on stage in Live Aid in 1985, and recorded the album The Beach Boys with the group.

Dr. Landy provided a Svengali-like environment for Wilson, controlling his every movement in his life, including his musical direction. Landy's misconduct would eventually lead to the loss of his psychologist license, as well as a court-ordered removal and restraining order from Wilson.

Some years later, during his second marriage, Wilson was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type which supposedly caused him to hear voices in his head. By 1989 the rumor was that Brian either had a stroke or had abused too many drugs and was permanently "fried."

One biographer reported that the actual problem was that Wilson, who had been prescribed antipsychotic medicine by Landy since 1983, had developed tardive dyskinesia, a neurological condition marked by involuntary, repetitive movements, that develops in about 20% of patients treated with antipsychotic drugs for a long period of time.

Wilson's drug regimen has now been reduced to a mild combination of antidepressants, and he has resumed recording and performing.

The effects of Brian Wilson's mental illness on his parenting skills were discussed by Wilson's daughter Wendy during her appearance in an episode of the British reality television program Supernanny.

Wilson's daughter Carnie and granddaughter Lola also made an appearance on the episode. The effects of Brian Wilson's mental illness are also referenced in the Barenaked Ladies song Brian Wilson.

Wilson launched a career as a solo artist in 1988 with limited success. It is possible that his efforts in this regard were both encouraged and hampered by Landy's influence. Partly due to the control that Landy exercised on his life, Wilson stopped working with The Beach Boys on a regular basis after the release of The Beach Boys in 1985. He had been signed to a solo record deal with Sire Records by label boss Seymour Stein.

Wilson released a solo album, Brian Wilson, in 1988 and a memoir, Wouldn't It Be Nice - My Own Story, in which he spoke for the first time about his troubled relationship with his abusive father Murry and his "lost years" of mental illness. Although it was written following interviews with Brian and others, Landy was largely responsible for the book, in conjunction with People magazine writer Todd Gold. The book describes Landy in terms that could be called messianic.

In a later lawsuit over the book, Wilson testified in court that he hadn't even read the final manuscript. As a result, the book was taken out of press some years later.

A second solo album made for Sire, entitled Sweet Insanity, was never released. Landy's illegal use of psychotropic drugs on Wilson and his influence over Wilson's financial affairs was legally ended by Carl Wilson. In 1995, Wilson married Melinda Ledbetter. The couple adopted two girls, Daria Rose and Delanie Rae, in 1998; a boy, Dylan, in 2004; and a boy, Dash Tristan[39], in 2009. Wilson has two daughters from his first marriage to Marilyn Rovell: Carnie Wilson and Wendy Wilson, who would go on to musical success of their own in the early 1990s as two-thirds of Wilson Phillips.

Also in 1995, he released two albums, albeit neither containing any new original Wilson material, almost simultaneously. The first, the soundtrack to Don Was's documentary I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, consists of re-recorded versions of songs from his Beach Boys and solo catalogue produced by Was, along with a 1976-vintage demo recording. The second, Orange Crate Art, saw Wilson as lead vocalist, multitracked many times over, on an album of songs produced, arranged and (mostly) written by Van Dyke Parks, and was released as a duo album under both men's names.

His final release as part of the group was on the 1996 album Stars and Stripes Vol. 1, a group collaboration with select country music artists singing the lead vocals. After considerable mental recovery, he mended his relationship with his daughters Carnie and Wendy and the three of them released an album in 1997 titled The Wilsons.

In 1996 Wilson did backup singing in the Belinda Carlisle's "California" song.

Wilson released a second solo album of mostly new material, Imagination, in 1998. Following this, he received extensive vocal coaching to improve his voice, and learned to cope with his stage fright and started to play live for the first time in decades, going on to play the whole Pet Sounds album live on his tours of the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe.

A new studio album, Gettin' in Over My Head, was released on June 22, 2004. It featured collaborations with Elton John, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and Wilson's deceased brother Carl. Clapton played on the track "City Blues." The album was almost entirely composed of re-recordings of unreleased material, and received mixed reviews.

With the improvements in his mental health, Wilson found himself able to contemplate returning to the Smile project. Aided by musician and long time fan Darian Sahanaja of The Wondermints, and lyricist Van Dyke Parks, Brian painstakingly worked throughout 2003 to realize the album. In February 2004, 37 years after it was conceived, Wilson debuted the newly completed Smile at the Royal Festival Hall in London and throughout a subsequent UK tour.

The debut performance at the RFH was a defining moment for Brian. The documentary DVD of the event shows Brian preparing for the big day and, right up to show time, expressing doubts over the concept of putting this legendary work before the public. After an opening set of Beach Boys classics, he climbed back on stage for a rousing performance of the album. A 10-minute standing ovation followed the concert; the DVD shows a sprinkling of rock luminaries in the crowd, such as Roger Daltrey, Paul Weller, Sir George Martin and Sir Paul McCartney (although neither Martin nor McCartney attended the opening night, contrary to what the DVD implies).

Smile was then recorded through April to June and released in September, to wide critical acclaim. The release hit #13 on the Billboard chart. The 2004 recording featured his backup/touring band, including Beach Boys guitarist Jeff Foskett, members of the Wondermints and backup singer Taylor Mills. In this version, "Good Vibrations" features Tony Asher's original lyrics in the verses, instead of Mike Love's lyrics from the released 1966 version.

Wilson won his only Grammy Award in 2005 for the track Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (Fire) as Best Rock Instrumental. In 2004 Smile was taken on the road for a thorough tour of Australia, New Zealand and Europe. In December 2005, he also released What I Really Want for Christmas for Arista Records. The release hit #200 on the Billboard chart, though sales were modest. Wilson's remake of the classic Deck The Halls became a surprise Top 10 Adult Contemporary hit.

Though no longer a part of The Beach Boys touring band, Brian Wilson remains a member of the Beach Boys corporation, Brother Records Incorporated.

In February 2005, Wilson had a cameo in the TV series Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century as Daffy Duck's spiritual surfing advisor.

He also appeared in the 2005 holiday episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, performing "Deck the Halls" for a group of children with xeroderma pigmentosum (hypersensitivity to sunlight) at Walt Disney World Resort. On July 2, 2005, Wilson performed for the Live 8 concert in Berlin, Germany.

In September 2005, Wilson arranged a charity drive to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, wherein people who donated $100 or more would receive a personal phone call from Wilson. According to the website, over $250K was raised.

In November 2005, former bandmate Mike Love sued Wilson over "shamelessly misappropriating... Love's songs, likeness, and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the 'Smile' album itself" in the promotion of Smile. The lawsuit was ultimately thrown out of court on grounds that it was meritless.

On November 1, 2006, Wilson kicked off a small but highly anticipated tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds.

He was joined by Al Jardine.

Wilson released a new album That Lucky Old Sun on September 2, 2008. The piece originally debuted in a series of September 2007 concerts at London's Royal Festival Hall, and in January 2008 at Sydney's State Theatre while headlining the Sydney Festival.

Wilson describes the piece as "consisting of five 'rounds,' with interspersed spoken word."

A series of US and UK concerts led up to its release.

On September 30, 2008, Seattle's Light in the Attic Records released A World of Peace Must Come, a collaboration between Wilson and Stephen Kalinich, originally recorded in 1969, but later lost in Kalinich's closet.

In summer 2009, Wilson was approached by the Gershwin estate to record an album of covers of classic Gershwin songs, and to complete two piano pieces left unfinished by Gershwin at his death. The album, Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, was released on August 17, 2010 on Disney's Pearl labe. Wilson signed a two-record deal with Disney; the second album will be a collection of classic Disney movie songs.

***


[The Byrds - David Crosby, Gene Clark, Michael Clarke, Chris Hillman, and Roger McGuinn]

James Roger McGuinn (known professionally as Roger McGuinn, previously as Jim McGuinn, and born James Joseph McGuinn III on July 13, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with The Byrds.

***



The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964.



The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (aka Jim McGuinn) remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973.

Although they only managed to attain the huge commercial success of contemporaries like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Rolling Stones for a short period of time (1965-1966), The Byrds are today considered by critics to be one of the most influential bands of the 1960's.

Initially, they pioneered the musical genre of folk rock, melding the influence of The Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary and traditional folk music.

As the 1960's progressed, the band were also influential in originating psychedelic rock, raga rock, and country rock.

In addition, the band's signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinn's jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar has continued to be influential on popular music up to the present day.

Among the band's most enduring songs are their cover versions of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn!, along with the self-penned originals, I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better, Eight Miles High, So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star, Ballad of Easy Rider, and Chestnut Mare.

The original five-piece line-up of The Byrds consisted of Jim McGuinn (lead guitar, vocals), Gene Clark (tambourine, vocals), David Crosby (rhythm guitar, vocals), Chris Hillman (bass guitar, vocals), and Michael Clarke (drums).

However, this version of the band was relatively short-lived and by early 1966, Clark had left due to problems associated with anxiety and his increasing isolation within the group.

The Byrds continued as a quartet until late 1967, when Crosby and Clarke also departed the band.

McGuinn and Hillman decided to recruit new members, including country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, but by late 1968, Hillman and Parsons had also exited the band.

McGuinn, who by this time had changed his name to Roger after a flirtation with the Subud religion, elected to rebuild the band's membership and between 1968 and 1973, he helmed a new incarnation of The Byrds, featuring guitarist Clarence White among others.

McGuinn disbanded the then current line-up in early 1973, to make way for a reunion of the original quintet.

The Byrds' final album was released in March 1973, with the reunited group disbanding soon afterwards.

Several ex-members of the band went on to have successful careers of their own, either as solo artists or as part of groups, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or The Desert Rose Band.

In the late 1980's, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke both began touring as The Byrds, prompting a legal challenge from McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman over the rights to the band's name.

As a result of this, McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman performed a series of reunion concerts as The Byrds between 1988 and 1990, and also recorded four new Byrds' songs.

On January 16, 1991, The Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an occasion that saw the five original members performing together for the last time.

McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman still remain active but Gene Clark died of a heart attack in 1991, and Michael Clarke died of liver failure in 1993.

[8942 Garcia / 8942 Brian Wilson / 8942 McCartney]

Monday, June 18, 8942

Paul McCartney (b. June 1942)


[The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show -- Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon]

[James] Paul McCartney (b. June 18, 1942, Liverpool, UK) was born in Walton Hospital, where his mother, Mary, had worked as a nurse in the maternity ward.

He has one brother, Michael (b. January 7, 1944).

McCartney was baptised Roman Catholic but was raised non-denominationally: his mother was Roman Catholic, and his father, James "Jim" McCartney, was a Protestant turned agnostic.

In 1947, he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary school. He then attended the Joseph Williams Junior School, and passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of the 90 examinees and thus gained admission to the Liverpool Institute.

In 1954, while riding on the bus to the Institute, he met George Harrison, who lived nearby.

Passing the exam meant that McCartney and Harrison did not have to go to a secondary modern school, which most pupils attended until they were eligible to work. It also meant that Grammar school pupils had to find new friends.



In 1955, when Paul was 14, the McCartney family moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton.

Mary McCartney rode a bicycle to houses where she was needed as a midwife, and an early McCartney memory is of her leaving when it was snowing heavily.

On October 31, 1956, Mary McCartney (who was a heavy smoker) died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer.

The early loss of his mother later connected McCartney with John Lennon, whose mother, Julia, died when Lennon was 17.

McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s. He encouraged his two sons to be musical.

Jim had an upright piano in the front room that he had bought from Harry Epstein's store, and McCartney's grandfather, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba.

Jim McCartney used to point out the different instruments in songs on the radio, and often took McCartney to local brass band concerts.

After the death of his wife, Mary, Jim McCartney gave McCartney a nickel-plated trumpet, but when skiffle music became popular, McCartney swapped the trumpet for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar.

McCartney, being left-handed, found the Zenith impossible to play. He then saw a poster advertising Slim Whitman and realised that Whitman played left-handed, with his guitar strung the opposite way to a right-handed player.

McCartney wrote his first song (I Lost My Little Girl) on the Zenith, and also played his father's Framus Spanish guitar when writing early songs with John Lennon.

He later started playing piano and wrote When I'm Sixty-Four.

Per his father's advice, he took music lessons, but since he preferred to learn by ear, he never applied himself to his studies.

Fifteen-year-old McCartney met Lennon and the Quarrymen (a band formed by John Lennon with several school friends) at the Woolton (St. Peter's church hall) fĂȘte on July 6, 1957.

At the start of their friendship Lennon's Aunt Mimi disapproved of McCartney because he was, she said, "working class," and called McCartney "John's little friend."

McCartney's father told his son that Lennon would get him "into trouble," although he later allowed The Quarrymen to rehearse in the front room at 20 Forthlin Road.

McCartney formed a close working relationship with Lennon and they collaborated on many songs. He convinced Lennon to allow George Harrison to join the Quarrymen after Lennon's initial reluctance (because of Harrison's young age) when Lennon heard Harrison play at a rehearsal in March 1958.

Harrison joined the group as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe, on bass. McCartney would later be at the forefront of the dismissal of Sutcliffe, due to Sutcliffe's uncertain muscianship.

By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including the Silver Beetles (and played a tour with Johnny Gentle, in Scotland). The Beatles changed the name of the group for their performances in Hamburg, in August 1960.

Starting in May 1960 The Beatles were managed by Allan Williams, who booked them into Bruno Koschmider's Indra club in Hamburg. McCartney's father was reluctant to let the teenage McCartney go to Hamburg until McCartney pointed out that he would earn two pounds and ten shillings per day. As this was more than he earned himself, Jim finally agreed.

The Beatles first played at the Indra club, sleeping in small, dirty rooms in the Bambi Kino, and then moved (after the closure of the Indra) to the larger Kaiserkeller.

In October 1960, they left Koschmider's club and worked at the Top Ten Club, which was run by Peter Eckhorn.

When McCartney and Pete Best went back to the Bambi Kino to get their belongings they found it in almost total darkness. As a snub to Koschmider, they found a condom, attached it to a nail on the concrete wall of their room, and set fire to it. There was no real damage, but Koschmider reported them for attempted arson. McCartney and Best spent three hours in a local jail and were deported, as was George Harrison, for working under the legal age limit.

Lennon's work permit was revoked a few days later and he went home by train, but Sutcliffe had a cold and stayed in Hamburg, and then flew home.

The group reunited in December 1960, and on March 21, 1961, played their first of many performances at Liverpool's Cavern club.

McCartney realized that other Liverpool bands were playing the same cover songs, which prompted him and Lennon to write more original material.

The Beatles returned to Hamburg in April 1961, and recorded My Bonnie with Tony Sheridan.

Sutcliffe left the band after the end of their contract, so McCartney reluctantly took over bass.

After borrowing Sutcliffe's HÔfner 500/5 model for a short time, he bought a left-handed 1962 500/1 model Höfner bass.

On October 1, 1961, McCartney went with Lennon (who paid for the trip) to Paris for two weeks.

The Beatles were first seen by Brian Epstein at the Cavern club on November 9, 1961, and he later signed them to a management contract.

The Beatles' road manager, Neil Aspinall, drove them to London on December 31, 1961, where they auditioned the next day, but were rejected by Decca Records.

In April 1962, they went back to Hamburg to play at the Star-Club, and learned of Stuart Sutcliffe's death a few hours before they arrived.

The Beatles were ready to sign a record contract on May 9, 1962, with Parlophone Records -- after having been rejected by many record companies -- but Epstein sacked Pete Best (at the behest of McCartney, Lennon and Harrison) before they signed the contract.

Love Me Do was released on October 5, 1962, featuring McCartney singing solo on the chorus.

***



Love Me Do is an early Lennon/McCartney song, principally written by Paul McCartney in 1958-1959 while playing truant from school aged 16.

John Lennon wrote the middle eight.

The song was The Beatles' first single, backed by P.S. I Love You and released on October 5, 1962. When the single was originally released in the United Kingdom, it peaked at number seventeen; in 1982 it was re-issued and reached number four. In the United States the single was a number one hit in 1964.

Love Me Do is intrinsically a song based around two simple chords: G7 and C, before moving to D for its middle eight. It first profiles Lennon playing a bluesy dry "dockside harmonica" riff, then features Lennon and McCartney on joint lead vocals, including Everly Brothers style harmonising during the beseeching "please" before McCartney sings the unaccompanied vocal line on the song's title phrase. Lennon had previously sung the title sections, but this change in arrangement was made in the studio under the direction of producer George Martin when he realised that the harmonica part encroached on the vocal (Lennon needed to begin playing the harmonica again on the same beat as the "do" of "love me do" although, according to Ian MacDonald, for the earlier 6 June audition the harmonica was overdubbed, allowing Lennon to sing the title phrase unhindered).

This is illustrative of the time constraints on this particular session - their first recording session proper; as for instance, when a similar situation later occurred on the Please Please Me single session, the harmonica was superimposed afterwards using tape-to-tape overdubbing.

Described by MacDonald as "standing out like a bare brick wall in a suburban sitting-room", Love Me Do with its stark "blunt working class northerness" rang "the first faint chime of a revolutionary bell" compared to the standard tin pan alley productions occupying the charts at the time.

Love Me Do was recorded by the Beatles on three different occasions with three different drummers:

The Beatles first recorded it on June 6, 1962 with Pete Best on drums, as part of their audition at EMI Studios at 3 Abbey Road, London. This version (previously thought to be lost) is available on Anthology 1.

By September 4, Best had been replaced with Ringo Starr (producer George Martin did not approve of Best's drumming; the decision to fire Best was not his however), and on that day the Beatles with Starr recorded a version again at EMI Studios.

One week later, on September, the Beatles returned to the same studio and they made a recording of Love Me Do with session drummer Andy White on drums, as Martin was unhappy with Starr's performance on September 4 and he was relegated to playing tambourine. As the tambourine was not included on the September 4 recording, this is the easiest way to distinguish between the Starr and White recordings.

First issues of the single, however, did feature the Ringo Starr version, prompting Mark Lewisohn to later write: "Clearly, the 11 September version was not regarded as having been a significant improvement after all."

It was also later included on the compilation albums Rarities (American version) and Past Masters, Volume One. The Andy White version of the track was included on the Beatles' debut UK album, Please Please Me, The Beatles' Hits EP, and all subsequent album releases on which Love Me Do was included. For the 1976 single re-issue and the 1982 "20th Anniversary" re-issue, the Andy White version was used. The CD single issued on 2 October 1992 contains both versions.

***


All Lennon-McCartney songs on the first pressing of their debut ablum, Please Please Me (recorded in one day on February 11, 1963), as well as the Please Please Me single, From Me to You, and its B-side, Thank You Girl, are credited to "McCartney-Lennon," but this was later changed to "Lennon-McCartney."

They usually needed an hour or two to finish a song, which were written in hotel rooms after a concert, at Wimpole Street, at Cavendish Avenue, or at Kenwood (John Lennon's house).

McCartney also wrote songs for other artists, such as Billy J. Kramer, Cilla Black, Badfinger, and Mary Hopkin -and most notably he wrote two hit songs for the group Peter & Gordon-launching their career. One song, World Without Love, became a #1 hit in the UK & USA (Peter was the brother of Jane Asher, McCartney's girlfriend at the time).

Lennon, Harrison, and Starr lived in large houses in the "Stockbroker Belt" of southern England, but McCartney continued to live in central London: in Jane Asher's parents' house, and then at 7 Cavendish Avenue, St John's Wood, near the Abbey Road Studios.

It was at Cavendish Avenue that McCartney bought his first Old English Sheepdog, Martha, which inspired the song Martha My Dear.

McCartney often went to nightclubs alone, which offered "dining and dancing until 4.00 a.m." and featured cabaret acts.

He would get preferential treatment everywhere he went, which he readily accepted, even once accepting an offer from a policeman to be allowed to park McCartney's car.

McCartney later visited gambling clubs after 4am, such as The Curzon House, and often saw Brian Epstein there.

The Ad Lib club (above the Prince Charles Theatre at 7 Leicester Place) was later opened for the emerging Rock and Roll crowd of musicians, and tolerated their unusual lifestyle.

After the Ad Lib fell out of favor, McCartney moved on to the Scotch of St James, at 13 Masons Yard.

He also frequented The Bag O'Nails club at 8 Kingly Street in Soho, London, where he met Linda Eastman.

***


With The Beatles was the group's the second studio album, released in November 1963 on Parlophone, and was recorded four months after the band's debut Please Please Me. The album features eight original compositions (seven by Lennon/McCartney, as well as George Harrison's first composition) and six covers (of Motown, R&B, and Broadway hits). Most of the songs from the album were released in the United States as Meet The Beatles! on January 20, 1964, and the remaining that were not, featured on their next US album, The Beatles' Second Album.

The album was also released in November 1963 by Capitol Records in Canada, with a slight change to the title Beatlemania! With The Beatles. This release has the distinction of being the first Beatles LP released in North America, pre-dating the Capitol US Meet The Beatles! and the Vee Jay Records Introducing... The Beatles LP's by two months.

The LP had advance orders of a half million and sold another half million by September 1965 -- making it the second album to sell a million copies in the UK. With The Beatles stayed at the top of the charts for 21 weeks, displacing Please Please Me, so that The Beatles occupied the top spot for 51 consecutive weeks. It even reached number eleven in the "singles charts" (because at the time UK charts counted all records sold, regardless of format). EMI Australia did not receive the cover art, and used a caricature of the band in a similar style to the black and white photograph on other releases. The Beatles were unaware of this until fans showed them the cover during their only Australian tour, and informed the EMI publicity people they were not pleased with the substitution.

On February 26, 1987, With The Beatles was officially released on compact disc (in mono only, catalogue number CDP 7 46436 2). Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the album was also issued domestically in the US on LP and cassette on July 21, 1987.

Along with the rest of the Beatles' canon, it was re-released on CD in newly re-mastered stereo and mono versions on September 9, 2009.

With The Beatles.

All songs written and composed by Lennon/McCartney, except where noted.

Side one
No. Title Lead vocals Length

1. "It Won't Be Long" Lennon 2:13
2. "All I've Got to Do" Lennon 2:03



3. "All My Loving" McCartney 2:08
4. "Don't Bother Me" (George Harrison) Harrison 2:28
5. "Little Child" Lennon and McCartney 1:46



6. "Till There Was You" (Meredith Willson from The Music Man) McCartney 2:14
7. "Please Mister Postman" (Georgia Dobbins, William Garrett, Freddie Gorman, Brian Holland, Robert Bateman) Lennon 2:34
Side two
No. Title Lead vocals Length
1. "Roll Over Beethoven" (Chuck Berry) Harrison 2:45
2. "Hold Me Tight" McCartney 2:32
3. "You Really Got a Hold on Me" (Smokey Robinson) Lennon with Harrison 3:01
4. "I Wanna Be Your Man" Starr 2:00
5. "Devil in Her Heart" (Richard Drapkin) Harrison 2:26
6. "Not a Second Time" Lennon 2:07
7. "Money (That's What I Want)" (Janie Bradford, Berry Gordy)

***


A Hard Day's Night was the third studio album by The Beatles, released on July 10, 1964 as the soundtrack to their film A Hard Day's Night. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. It was eventually replaced by the original United Kingdom version with its first release on CD and LP re-release, 26 February 1987.

While showcasing the development of the band's songwriting talents, the album sticks to the basic rock and roll instrumentation and song format. The album contains some of their most famous songs, including the title track and its distinct, instantly recognizable opening chord; and Can't Buy Me Love, both were Transatlantic number one singles for the band. The album and film are said to portray the classic image of the Beatles, as it was released at the height of Beatlemania.

The title of the album was the accidental creation of drummer Ringo Starr.

According to Lennon in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine: "I was going home in the car and Dick Lester [director of the movie] suggested the title, Hard Day's Night from something Ringo had said. I had used it in In His Own Write, but it was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo. You know, one of those malapropisms. A Ringo-ism, where he said it not to be funny... just said it. So Dick Lester said, 'We are going to use that title.'"

Side one of the LP contains the songs from the movie soundtrack. Side two contains songs written for, but not included in, the film, although a 1980's re-release of the movie includes a prologue before the opening credits with I'll Cry Instead on the soundtrack.

A Hard Day's Night is the first Beatles album to feature entirely original compositions, and the only one where all the songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Normally, Paul McCartney and Lennon would contribute a roughly equal number of songs to each album, but A Hard Day's Night is the one Beatles album on which Lennon's dominance as songwriter is by far the greater, being the primary writer of nine of the 13 tracks on the album, and co-writing only one song with McCartney (I'm Happy Just to Dance with You). This is also one of three Beatles albums, along with Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour, in which Starr does not sing lead vocal on any songs. Starr sang the lead vocal on Matchbox, a cover of a Carl Perkins song recorded contemporaneously with the songs on A Hard Day's Night and released in Britain on the Long Tall Sally EP.

This is the first Beatles album to be recorded entirely on four-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes. Despite this, until 2009, the Compact Disc release of this album (catalogue number CDP 7 46437 2) was available only in mono, though many of the tracks appeared in stereo on CD for the first time with the release of the boxset The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 in 2004. Three tracks from the album were issued in stereo on the 1962–1966 compilation.

All tracks credited to Lennon/McCartney.

Side one

No. Title Lead vocals Length
1. "A Hard Day's Night" Lennon with McCartney 2:34
2. "I Should Have Known Better" Lennon 2:43
3. "If I Fell" Lennon and McCartney 2:19
4. "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" Harrison 1:56



5. "And I Love Her" McCartney 2:30
6. "Tell Me Why" Lennon 2:09



7. "Can't Buy Me Love" McCartney 2:12

Side two

No. Title Lead vocals Length
1. "Any Time at All" Lennon 2:11
2. "I'll Cry Instead" Lennon 1:46
3. "Things We Said Today" McCartney 2:35
4. "When I Get Home" Lennon 2:17
5. "You Can't Do That" Lennon 2:35
6. "I'll Be Back" Lennon, with McCartney 2:24

***


Help! is the title of the fifth British and ninth American album by The Beatles, and the soundtrack from their film of the same name. Produced by George Martin for EMI's Parlophone Records, it contains fourteen songs in its original British form, of which seven appeared in the film Help!. These songs took up the first side of the vinyl album and included the singles Help! and Ticket to Ride. The second side contained seven other releases including the most covered song ever written, Yesterday.

The American release was a true soundtrack album, mixing the first seven songs with orchestral material from the film. Of the other seven songs, two were released on the US version of the next Beatles album, Rubber Soul, two were back-to-back on the next US single and then appeared on Yesterday and Today and three had already been on Beatles VI.

The album features Paul McCartney's Yesterday, arranged for guitar and string quartet and recorded without the other group members. John Lennon's You've Got to Hide Your Love Away indicates the influence of Bob Dylan and includes classical flutes. While several compositions on 1964's Beatles for Sale, as well as I'll Cry Instead from A Hard Day's Night, had leaned in a country and western direction, McCartney's I've Just Seen a Face was almost pure country, taken at such a fast tempo that it might have been bluegrass if not for the absence of banjo and fiddle.

Ticket to Ride, also released as a single, was felt by Lennon to be "heavy" in its sound compared to the group's previous output and daring in its reference to a boy and girl living together. McCartney called the arrangement "quite radical."

George Harrison contributed I Need You and You Like Me Too Much, his first compositions to be included on a Beatles album since Don't Bother Me, from 1963's With The Beatles.

The record contained two cover versions and a few tracks more closely related to the group's previous pop output, yet still marked a decisive step forward towards forthcoming achievements. The record sleeve-note shows Lennon and McCartney made more extensive and prominent use of keyboards, previously played unobtrusively by Martin, which would alter the group's future sound and the way they, particularly McCartney, went about the recording process. Four-track overdubbing technology encouraged this. Lennon, for his part, made much greater use of acoustic guitar, forsaking his famous Rickenbacker. All these developments can be traced on the previous Beatles for Sale, but were less obvious as this had been recorded more hastily, lacked chart hits and contained many old favourite cover versions.

The original LP's format of featuring songs from the soundtrack on side one and non-soundtrack songs on side two follows the format of the album A Hard Day's Night.

In later years, Lennon said that the title track of the album was a sincere cry for help, as the pressures of The Beatles' fame and his own unhappiness began to build, and that he regretted turning it from a downbeat song in the style of Roy Orbison's "Only the Lonely" to an upbeat pop song as a result of commercial pressures.

All songs written and composed by Lennon/McCartney, except where noted.

Side one

No. Title Lead Vocals Length

1. "Help!" Lennon 2:18
2. "The Night Before" McCartney 2:33
3. "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" Lennon 2:08
4. "I Need You" (George Harrison) Harrison 2:28
5. "Another Girl" McCartney 2:05
6. "You're Going to Lose That Girl" Lennon 2:17
7. "Ticket to Ride" Lennon 3:10

Side two

No. Title Lead Vocals Length
1. "Act Naturally" (Johnny Russell, Voni Morrison) Starr 2:29
2. "It's Only Love" Lennon 1:54
3. "You Like Me Too Much" (Harrison) Harrison 2:35
4. "Tell Me What You See" McCartney 2:36
5. "I've Just Seen a Face" McCartney 2:04
6. "Yesterday" McCartney 2:03
7. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (Larry Williams) Lennon

***


Yesterday









McCartney composed the entire melody of Yesterday (1965) in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then-girlfriend Jane Asher and her family. Upon waking, he hurried to a piano, turned on a tape recorder, and played the tune.

McCartney's initial concern was that he had subconsciously plagiarized someone else's work (known as cryptomnesia). As he put it, "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it."

Upon being convinced that he had not robbed anybody of his melody, McCartney began writing lyrics to suit it. As Lennon and McCartney were known to do at the time, a substitute working lyric, entitled Scrambled Eggs, was used for the song until something more suitable was written. In his biography, Many Years From Now, McCartney recalled: "So first of all I checked this melody out, and people said to me, 'No, it's lovely, and I'm sure it's all yours.' It took me a little while to allow myself to claim it, but then like a prospector I finally staked my claim; stuck a little sign on it and said, 'Okay, it's mine!' It had no words."

During the shooting of Help!, a piano was placed on one of the stages where filming was being conducted. McCartney would take advantage of this opportunity to perform Scrambled Eggs accompanied by the piano. Richard Lester, the director, was greatly annoyed by this, and eventually lost his temper, telling McCartney to finish writing the song, or he would have the piano removed.

McCartney's original lyrics were, "Scrambled eggs, Oh, baby how I love your legs."

McCartney originally claimed he had written Yesterday during The Beatles' tour of France in 1964; however, the song was not released until the summer of 1965. During the intervening time, The Beatles released two albums, Beatles for Sale and A Hard Day's Night, both of which could have included Yesterday. Although McCartney has never elaborated his claims, it is likely that the reason for such a long delay, if it existed, was a disagreement between McCartney and George Martin regarding the song's arrangement, or, equally likely, the distaste of the other Beatles for the song.

Lennon later indicated that the song had been around for a while before: "The song was around for months and months before we finally completed it. Every time we got together to write songs for a recording session, this one would come up. We almost had it finished. Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn't find the right title. We called it Scrambled Eggs and it became a joke between us. We made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit, we just couldn't find the right one. Then one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed. I was sorry in a way, we'd had so many laughs about it."

McCartney said the breakthrough with the lyrics came during a trip to Portugal in May 1965:
"I remember mulling over the tune Yesterday, and suddenly getting these little one-word openings to the verse. I started to develop the idea ... da-da da, yes-ter-day, sud-den-ly, fun-il-ly, mer-il-ly and Yes-ter-day, that's good. All my troubles seemed so far away. It's easy to rhyme those a's: say, nay, today, away, play, stay, there's a lot of rhymes and those fall in quite easily, so I gradually pieced it together from that journey. Sud-den-ly, and 'b' again, another easy rhyme: e, me, tree, flea, we, and I had the basis of it."

On May 27, 1965, McCartney and Asher flew to Lisbon for a holiday in the Algarve, and he borrowed an acoustic guitar from Bruce Welch -- whose house they were staying in -- and completed the work on Yesterday

The song was offered as a demo to Chris Farlowe prior to The Beatles recording it, but he turned it down as he considered it "too soft."

Two days after returning home, the track was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on the June 14 and June 17, 1965. There are conflicting accounts of how the song was recorded, the most quoted one being that McCartney recorded the song by himself, without bothering to involve the other band members.

Alternative sources, however, state that McCartney and the other Beatles tried a variety of instruments, including drums and an organ, and that George Martin later persuaded them to allow McCartney to play his acoustic guitar, later on editing in a string quartet for backup. If so, none of the other band members was included in the final recording.

However, the song was played with the other members of the band in a 1966 Tokyo concert.

McCartney performed two takes of Yesterday on June 14, 1965.

Take 2 was deemed better and used as the master take with string quartet overdubbed and released.

Take 1, without the string overdub, was later released on the Anthology 2 compilation. On Take 1, McCartney can be heard giving chord changes to George Harrison before starting, but George does not appear to actually play. Take 2 had two lines transposed from the first take: "There's a shadow hanging over me"/"I'm not half the man I used to be," though it seems clear that their order in take 2 was the correct one, because McCartney can be heard, in Take 1, suppressing a laugh at his mistake.

Although McCartney had fallen in love with the song, he had a much harder time convincing the other members of the band that it was worthy of an album place, the main objection being that it did not fit in with their image, especially considering that Yesterday was extremely unlike other Beatles' songs at the time. This feeling was so strong that the other Beatles refused to permit the release of a single in the United Kingdom.

This did not prevent Matt Monro from recording the first of many cover versions of Yesterday to come. His version made it into the top ten in the UK charts soon after its release in the autumn of 1965.

Yesterday has achieved recognition as being the most recorded song in the history of popular music; its entry in the Guinness Book of Records suggests over 3000 different cover versions to date, by an eclectic mix of artists including Joan Baez, Liberace, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Daffy Duck, PlĂĄcido Domingo, and Boyz II Men.

Yesterday, however, has also been criticised for being mundane and mawkish; Bob Dylan had a marked dislike for the song, stating that "If you go into the Library of Congress, you can find a lot better than that. There are millions of songs like Michelle and Yesterday written in Tin Pan Alley." Ironically, Dylan ultimately recorded his own version of Yesterday four years later, but it was never released.

Shortly before his death in 1980, Lennon explained that he thought the lyrics didn't "resolve into any sense... They're good -- but if you read the whole song, it doesn't say anything; you don't know what happened. She left and he wishes it were yesterday -- that much you get -- but it doesn't really resolve. ... Beautiful -- and I never wished I'd written it."

The tonic key of the song is F major (although, since McCartney tuned his guitar down a whole step, he was playing the chords as if it were in G), where the song begins before veering off into the relative minor key of D minor. It is this frequent use of the minor, and the ii-V7 chord progression (Em7 and A7 chords in this case) leading into it, that gives the song its melancholy aura. The A7 chord is an example of a secondary dominant, specifically a V/vi chord. The G7 chord in the bridge is another secondary dominant, in this case a V/V chord, but rather than resolve it to the expected chord, as with the A7 to Dm in the verse, McCartney instead follows it with the IV chord, a Bb. This motion creates a descending chromatic line of C B Bb A to accompany the title lyric.

The string arrangement supplements the song's air of sadness, especially in the groaning cello melody that connects the two halves of the bridge (on the line, "I don't know / she wouldn't say") as well as the descending line by the viola that segues the chorus back into the verses. This simple idea is so striking, McCartney mimics it with his vocal on the second pass of the chorus.

This viola line and the high A sustained by the violin over the final verse are the only elements of the string arrangement attributable to McCartney rather than George Martin.

Thes first phrase is only seven measures instead of the customary eight. The IV-I (plagal or "Amen") cadence at the end of this section results gives the music a quasi-reverential flavor.

When McCartney appeared on The Howard Stern Show, he stated that he owns the original lyrics to Yesterday written on the back of an envelope.



***

On June 12, 1965, The Beatles were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE); they received their insignia from Queen Elizabeth II at an investiture at Buckingham Palace on October 26, 1965.

***


Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul had been recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market. Unlike the five albums that preceded it, Rubber Soul was the first Beatles album recorded during a specific period, the sessions not dashed off in between either tour dates or during filming projects.

After this, every Beatles album would be made without the need to pay attention to other commitments, except for the production of short promotional films or principal photography and editing to Magical Mystery Tour. The album was described as a major artistic achievement, attaining widespread critical and commercial success, with reviewers taking note of The Beatles' developing musical vision.



Side One

1. "Drive My Car" 2:25
2. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" 2:01
3. "You Won't See Me" 3:18
4. "Nowhere Man" 2:40
5. "Think for Yourself" (George Harrison) 2:16
6. "The Word" 2:41



7. "Michelle" 2:40

Side Two

No. Title Length
1. "What Goes On" (Lennon/McCartney/Starkey) 2:47
2. "Girl" 2:30
3. "I'm Looking Through You" 2:23
4. "In My Life" 2:24
5. "Wait" 2:12
6. "If I Needed Someone" (George Harrison) 2:20
7. "Run for Your Life"

***



Paperback Writer is a 1966 song recorded and released by The Beatles. Written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon/McCartney, the song was released as the A-side of their eleventh single. The single went to the number one spot in the United States, United Kingdom, West Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Norway. Written in the form of a letter from an aspiring author to a publisher, Paperback Writer was the first UK Beatles single that was not a love song (though Nowhere Man which was a single in the US, was their first album song released with that distinction). On the US Billboard Hot 100, the song was at number one for two non-consecutive weeks, being interrupted by Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night.

Paperback Writer was the last new song by the Beatles to be featured on their 1966 tour.

***



Eleanor Rigby









Eleanor Rigby was originally released on the 1966 album Revolver. The song was primarily written by Paul McCartney.

It remains one of The Beatles' most recognizable and unique songs, with a string octet orchestration by George Martin, and striking lyrics about loneliness. The song continued the transformation of the group, started in Rubber Soul, from a mainly pop-oriented act to a more serious and experimental studio band.

As is true of many of McCartney's songs, the melody and first line of the song came to him as he was playing around on his piano. The name that came to him, though, was not Eleanor Rigby but Miss Daisy Hawkins. In 1966, McCartney recalled how he got the idea for his song:

“I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it. The first few bars just came to me, and I got this name in my head... "Daisy Hawkins picks up the rice in the church." I don't know why. I couldn't think of much more so I put it away for a day. Then the name Father McCartney came to me, and all the lonely people. But I thought that people would think it was supposed to be about my Dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad's a happy lad. So I went through the telephone book and I got the name McKenzie.

Others believe that Father McKenzie refers to Father Tommy McKenzie, who was the compere at Northwich Memorial Hall.

McCartney originally imagined Daisy as a young girl, but anyone who cleaned up in churches would probably be older. If she were older, she might have missed not only the wedding she cleans up after but also her own.

McCartney said he came up with the name Eleanor from actress Eleanor Bron, who had starred with the Beatles in the film Help!. Rigby came from the name of a store in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers, that he noticed while seeing his then-girlfriend Jane Asher act in The Happiest Days Of Your Life. He recalled in 1984, "I just liked the name. I was looking for a name that sounded natural. Eleanor Rigby sounded natural."

In the 1980s, a grave of an Eleanor Rigby was discovered in the graveyard of St. Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, and a few yards away from that, another tombstone with the last name McKenzie scrawled across it.

During their teenage years, McCartney and Lennon spent time "sunbathing" there; within earshot distance of where the two had met for the first time during a fete in 1957. Many years later McCartney stated that the strange coincidence between reality and lyric could be a product of his subconscious, rather than being a meaningless fluke.

The actual Eleanor Rigby was born in 1895 and lived in Liverpool, possibly in the suburb of Woolton, where she married a man named Thomas Woods. She died on 10 October 1939 at age 44, which, because 1940 was a leap year, was exactly one year to the day before Lennon was born. Whether this Eleanor was the inspiration for the song or not, her tombstone has become a landmark to Beatles fans visiting Liverpool.

A digitized version was added to the 1995 music video for the Beatles' reunion song Free as a Bird.

In June 1990, McCartney decided to donate (from his private collection) a document dating from 1911 which had been signed by the 16-year-old Eleanor Rigby. The recipient charity, Sunbeams Music Trust, instantly attracted significant international interest from collectors because of the significance and provenance of the document.

The nearly 100-year-old document was sold at auction in November 2008 for 115,000 pounds.

U.K. newspaper the Daily Telegraph reports that the uncovered document “is a 97-year-old salary register from Liverpool City Hospital.” The name E. Rigby is printed on the register, and she is identified as a scullery maid.

The Beatles finished off the song in the music room of John Lennon's home at Kenwood. John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and their friend Pete Shotton all listened to McCartney play his song through and contributed ideas. Someone suggested introducing a romance into the story, but this was rejected because it made the story too complicated. Starr contributed the line "writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear " and suggested making "Father McCartney" darn his socks, which McCartney liked, and Harrison came up with the line "Ah, look at all the lonely people."

Shotton then suggested that McCartney change the name of the priest, in case listeners mistook the fictional character in the song for McCartney's own father.

McCartney couldn't decide how to end the song, and Shotton finally suggested that the two lonely people come together too late as Father McKenzie conducts Eleanor Rigby's funeral. At the time, Lennon rejected the idea out of hand, but McCartney said nothing and used the idea to finish off the song, later acknowledging Shotton's help.



The "Eleanor Rigby"/"Yellow Submarine" single issued by Parlophone in the UK. "Eleanor Rigby" stayed at #1 for four weeks on the British pop charts.

"Eleanor Rigby" does not have a standard pop backing; none of the Beatles played instruments on it, though John Lennon and George Harrison did contribute harmony and backing vocals.

Instead, McCartney used a string octet of studio musicians, all performing a score composed by producer George Martin. For the most part, the instruments "double up" -- that is, they serve as two string quartets with two instruments on a part. Microphones were placed close to the instruments to produce a more vivid and raw sound. George Martin asked musicians to play without vibrato and recorded two versions, one with and one without, the latter of which was used. McCartney's choice of a string backing may have been influenced by his interest in Antonio Vivaldi. Lennon recalled in 1980 that Eleanor Rigby was "Paul's baby, and I helped with the education of the child ... The violin backing was Paul's idea. Jane Asher had turned him on to Vivaldi, and it was very good."

The octet was recorded on April 28, 1966, in Studio 2 at Abbey Road Studios and completed in Studio 3 on April 29, and June 6. Take 15 was selected as the master.

George Martin, in his autobiography All You Need Is Ears, takes credit for combining two of the vocal parts, having noticed that they would work together contrapuntally.

The original stereo mix had Paul's voice only in the right channel during the verses, with the string octet mixed to one channel, while the mono single and mono LP featured a more balanced mix. On the Yellow Submarine Songtrack and Love versions, McCartney's voice is centered and the string octet appears in stereo in an attempt to create a more "modern" sounding mix.

Eleanor Rigby was released simultaneously on August 5, 1966 on both the album Revolver and on an A-side single with Yellow Submarine on Parlophone in the United Kingdom and Capitol in the United States.

It spent four weeks at number one on the British charts, but in America it only reached the eleventh spot.

It is the second song to appear in the Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. The first is Yellow Submarine, and these two the only songs in the film in which the animated Beatles are not seen to be singing. Eleanor Rigby is introduced just before the Liverpool sequence of the film, and its poignancy ties in quite well with Ringo Starr (the first member of the group to encounter the submarine) who is represented as quietly bored and depressed.

***


They stopped touring after their last concert at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, on 29 August 1966. The other three Beatles had often talked about stopping touring, but after the Candlestick Park concert, and after having played so many concerts where they could not be heard, McCartney finally agreed that they should stop playing live concerts.

McCartney was the first to be involved in a musical project outside of the group, when he composed the score for the film The Family Way in 1966.

McCartney later attempted to persuade Lennon and Harrison to return to the stage, and when they had a meeting to sign a new contract with Capitol Records, McCartney suggested "going back to our roots," to which Lennon replied, "I think you're mad!"

***

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Side One



1. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" 2:00
2. "With a Little Help from My Friends" 2:43
3. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" 3:26



4. "Getting Better" 2:47



5. "Fixing a Hole" 2:35



6. "She's Leaving Home" 3:33
7. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" 2:35

Side Two

1. "Within You Without You" (George Harrison) 5:05



2. "When I'm Sixty-Four" 2:37



3. "Lovely Rita" 2:41
4. "Good Morning Good Morning" 2:42
5. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" 1:19
6. "A Day in the Life"

***

The Beatles (The White Album)



1. "Back in the U.S.S.R." McCartney 2:43
2. "Dear Prudence" Lennon 3:56
3. "Glass Onion" Lennon 2:17
4. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" McCartney 3:08



5. "Wild Honey Pie" McCartney 1:01
6. "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" Lennon 3:05
7. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (George Harrison) Harrison 4:45
8. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" Lennon 2:43
Side two
No. Title Lead vocal Length



1. "Martha My Dear" McCartney 2:28
2. "I'm So Tired" Lennon 2:03



3. "Blackbird" McCartney 2:18
4. "Piggies" (Harrison) Harrison 2:04



5. "Rocky Raccoon" McCartney 3:41
6. "Don't Pass Me By" (Richard Starkey) Starr 3:42



7. "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" McCartney 1:41
8. "I Will" McCartney 1:46
9. "Julia" Lennon 2:54
Side three
No. Title Lead vocals Length



1. "Birthday" McCartney with Lennon 2:42
2. "Yer Blues" Lennon 4:01
3. "Mother Nature's Son" McCartney 2:48
4. "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" Lennon 2:24
5. "Sexy Sadie" Lennon 3:15



6. "Helter Skelter" McCartney 4:29
7. "Long, Long, Long" (Harrison) Harrison 3:04
Side four
No. Title Lead vocal Length
1. "Revolution 1" Lennon 4:15



2. "Honey Pie" McCartney 2:41
3. "Savoy Truffle" (Harrison) Harrison 2:54
4. "Cry Baby Cry" Lennon, with McCartney 3:11
5. "Revolution 9" Speaking from Lennon, Harrison & Yoko Ono 8:13
6. "Good Night" Starr 3:11
[edit]

***

Although Lennon had quit the group in September 1969, and Harrison and Starr had temporarily left the group at various times, McCartney was the one who publicly announced The Beatles' breakup on April 10, 1970 -- one week before releasing his first solo album, McCartney.

The album included a press release inside with a self-written interview stating McCartney's hopes about the future. The Beatles' partnership was legally dissolved after McCartney filed a lawsuit on December 31, 1970.

Although McCartney's relationship with John Lennon was troubled, they reconciled during the 1970s.

McCartney would often call Lennon, but was never sure of what sort of reception he would get, such as when McCartney once called Lennon and was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!"

McCartney understood that he could not just phone Lennon and only talk about business, so they often talked about cats, baking bread, or babies.

On the morning of December 9, 1980, McCartney awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered outside his home in the Dakota building in New York.

Lennon's death created a media frenzy around the surviving members of The Beatles.

On the evening of 9 December, as McCartney was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for his reaction to Lennon's death. He replied, "I was very shocked, you know -- this is terrible news," and said that he had spent the day in the studio listening to some material because he "just didn't want to sit at home."

When asked why, he replied, "I didn't feel like it," and added, "drag, isn't it?"

When published, his "drag" remark was criticised, and McCartney later regretted it. He furthermore stated that he had intended no disrespect but had just been at a loss for words, after the shock and sadness he felt over his friend's murder.

In a Playboy interview in 1984, McCartney said that he went home that night and watched the news on television—whilst sitting with all his children—and cried all evening. His last telephone call to John, which was just before Lennon and Yoko released Double Fantasy, was friendly. During the call, Lennon said (laughing) to McCartney, "This housewife wants a career!" which referred to Lennon's "house-husband" years, while he was looking after Sean Lennon.

McCartney carried on recording after the death of Lennon but did not play any live concerts for some time. He explained that this was because he was nervous that he would be "the next" to be murdered.

In 1981, six months after Lennon's death, McCartney sang backup on George Harrison's tribute to Lennon, All Those Years Ago, along with Ringo Starr.

The 1990s saw McCartney venture into classical music. In 1991 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by McCartney to celebrate its sesquicentennial.

McCartney collaborated with Carl Davis to release Liverpool Oratorio.

EMI Classics recorded the premiere of the oratorio and released it on a 2-CD album.

In the early 1990s (after another world tour), McCartney reunited with Harrison and Starr to work on Apple's The Beatles Anthology documentary series. It included three double albums of alternative takes, live recordings, and previously unreleased Beatles songs, as well as a ten-hour video boxed set.

In late 2001, McCartney was informed that ex-Beatles' lead guitarist, George Harrison, was losing his battle with cancer. Upon Harrison's death on November 29, McCartney told Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra, Good Morning America, The Early Show, MTV, VH-1, and Today that George was like his "baby brother". Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney.

On November 29, 2002 -- on the first anniversary of George Harrison's death --McCartney played Harrison’s Something on a ukulele at the Concert for George.


[Voice-Leading Considerations,
with an example from a piano transcription of Paul McCarney's Yesterday]

***



Tony Andreason (b. c. 1942) / The Trashmen

The Trashmen is a rock and roll band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1962. The group's lineup was Tony Andreason on lead guitar and vocals, Dal Winslow on guitar and vocals, Steve Wahrer on drums and vocals, and Bob Reed on bass guitar. The group played surf rock which included many elements from garage rock.



The Trashmen's major notable hit was 1963's "Surfin' Bird", which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the later part of that year. The song was a combination of two R&B hits by The Rivingtons, "The Bird's the Word" and "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow". The earliest pressings of the single credit the Trashmen as composers, but following a threat from The Rivingtons' legal counsel, that group was subsequently credited as composers. The song was later recorded by many artists, including the Ramones, The Cramps, Silverchair, Pee-Wee Herman, Equipe 84, and even the thrash metal band Sodom. It has been used in several movies and television shows (such as well-known scenes in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket and John Waters' Pink Flamingos). It is featured in the soundtrack in the video game Battlefield Vietnam. More recently it has been the subject of a 2008 episode of the animated series Family Guy, launching the song to #8 on the iTunes Top 10 Rock songs chart and #50 on the UK Singles Chart in 2009.

The Trashmen went on to have other hit singles on the charts. In 1964, "Bird Dance Beat" hit #30 on the Billboard in the United States, as well as becoming a top 10 hit in Canada, and a mega hit in Brazil. Five other Trashmen singles charted, and overall they released 14 albums. They were prolific enough for a four CD box set of their work to be released later.

The group disbanded in 1967 but reunited in the 1980s, they played together until the death of Steve Wahrer, who died of cancer in 1989[2]. Tony Andreason's brother, Mark, filled Steve's shoes as drummer. In 1999, The Trashmen played in Las Vegas, Nevada at The Las Vegas Grind to a full house. Since then, they have reunited to play select gigs including Chicago (July 2007), Spain (September 2007), Chicago (November 2007), Wisconsin, and Cleveland (March 2008).

The Trashmen played for the first time in over a decade in their homestate of Minnesota, when they played the birthday bash for KOZY (AM) Radio at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The Trashmen returned to Grand Rapids, where they played in 1964.
They have since been touring Europe and the US with successful 2009 gigs in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, and Austria, with many more playdates on the calendar.

The Trashmen's song "Surfin' Bird" was featured prominently in the 2008 Family Guy episode "I Dream of Jesus," in which Peter becomes obsessed with the song, singing and dancing along to it at the slightest provocation. It was referenced once again in the 2010 episode "Big Man on Hippocampus", in which Peter loses his memory and discovers the song again.

Played during a segment in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.

'Weird Al' Yankovic has credited The Trashmen with influencing his songwriting.

[8942 B. Wilson / 8942 McCartney / 8942 A. Franklin]