The Soft Sound

I think of it as the World Soft Championships, to steal a phrase from Warner Brothers ' legendary liner notes writer Stan Cornyn. That's how he described the brand new album "Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim" in 1967. The same phrase comes to mind with the release of Paul McCartney's new album "Kisses on the Bottom."

Both Sinatra and McCartney are singing without a safety net, unless you count the airtight backing ensembles they have setting the mood. Neither man was ever more vulnerable in the recording studio. This is the real Let It Be Naked.

The albums are impeccably performed and recorded, with Jobim and, in McCartney's case, Diana Krall as co-conspirators throughout. The singers are nuanced and right on the note. Even the packaging works.

Highlights? Sinatra's bossa take on Cole Porter's "I Concentrate On You" is inspired, and he's positively poetic on Jobim's "Quiet Night of Quiet Stars." McCartney delivers a heartbreaking take on Irving Berlin's "Always," then turns around to lightly groove on Fats Waller's "My Very Good Friend The Milkman." But both albums are seamless.

Let the Soft Championships begin.

Battle of the bands

The '60s reunion shootout of all time -- The (Young) Rascals vs. Buffalo Springfield.

42 Years Ago Today

Last year, actually. On October 23, 2010, the three front men of Buffalo Springfield - Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young - reunited for the first time since 1968. I can think of few 1960s reunions more historic unless John and Paul could magically walk on stage one more time.

OK, we're talking three men in their late 60s singing songs loaded with harmonies. But how sweet it is. Go listen for yourself. It'll take a few years off your soul.

Wanted: New Drummer for the Beatles

It's not often these days that a new piece of Beatles history emerges. But according to a BBC news report, an August 12, 1960 letter handwritten by Paul McCartney offering an audition to an unknown drummer has now turned up. The letter was "discovered inside a book by an anonymous collector at a car boot sale in Bootle, Liverpool."

Pete Best was the band's drummer at the time, and he wasn't officially sacked and replaced by Ringo Starr until two years later. History records that Best was fired at the demand of George Martin, the Parlophone producer who proved to be the Beatles' entry into the

bigtime. This is the first indication that the band was looking to replace Best much earlier. The drummer in question has not been identified. The letter has been authenticated, and Christie's expects it to sell for as much as $14,000 in an auction next month.

The Kinks' Missing Chapter

Most Kinks fans consider the period from "Face to Face" through "Something Else," "The Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire" (1966-'69) as the band's peak creative moment. Yet, coincidentally, because of a spat with the American Federation of Musicians, the Kinks were effectively banned from playing live in the United States during that same period. So unlike the Beatles - and XTC further down the road - who pulled themselves off the road at their creative peak, the Kinks were forced off the road by a union dispute in the United States.

In October/November 1969, they returned to these shores with a vengeance, playing a four-city tour of the Fillmore East in New York City, the Kinetic Playground in Chicago, the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in LA and the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Thanks to the first-rate music blogsite BB Chronicles, I was recently able to

download a recording of the Kinks' November 27, 1969 performance at the Fillmore West. What a revelation.

These guys were ready to challenge the Rolling Stones and the Who on their own turf. I have never heard Dave Davies play such incendiary guitar. "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" and "Love Me Till The Sun Shines" are guitar tours-de-force. How about quick dirty versions of "Mr. Churchill Says" and "Big Sky"? Or the medleys - "Milk Cow Blues/See My Friends/Tired of Waiting for You/Brainwashed" and "A Well-Respected Man/Death of a Clown/Dandy"? The hits, too, of course. But "Louie, Louie"?

Ray is totally in control and sounds so young. Most importantly, this recording illustrates that the Kinks in 1969 really weren't just Ray's band; they were the Davies brothers' band.

The group that was toning it down and turning up the IQ level in the studio was still a down-and-dirty Muswell Hill pub band at heart. Hearing this performance brought me a lot closer to the point where "You Really Got Me" became "Sunny Afternoon." God save the Kinks.

The Party of No

Remember, in the last Congress, when Republicans were demonized by the White House, congressional Democrats and friendly media as the Party of No for rejecting the stimulus, the bailouts and nationalized health care. Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama warn that the House Republicans' debt ceiling plan - heavy on spending cuts and driven by the dreaded Tea Party - is dead on arrival. Who's saying "no" now?

When Are the Beach Boys Not the Beach Boys?

I've started reading Domenic Priore's book, "Smile, The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece," and have already come across two surprising (to me) claims that really downplay the contributions of the other guys in the band.

First, Priore, a recognized authority on the group, notes that the

"Surfer Girl" album was the first one where Brian resorted to the services of studio musicians, but then he adds this gem: "One of the hidden tricks of this hit-laden disc is the presence of The Survivors on many of the vocal parts that would have been sung by the Beach Boys, had they not been on the road." That was news to me: The Beach Boys didn't actually sing "many of the vocal parts" on the "Surfer Girl" album? They were sung instead by the Survivors, a Brian side group that included himself, his buddy Bob Norberg and two other guys named Rich Arlarian and Dave Nowlen.

Second, and more compelling, was his explanation of why "Pet Sounds" really is a Brian Wilson solo album. Other than the group performance on "Sloop John B," which was actually recorded during the "Summer Days (and Summer Nights)" sessions and is viewed by many as the odd song out on "Pet Sounds," Priore says only eight individual vocal parts by Carl, Mike, Al and Bruce appear on the Beach Boys' most famous release. Dennis, he adds, "is inaudible, if there at all."

Those individual contributions? "Carl sings lead on "God Only Knows" while Bruce sings a backing part; Al and Mike each take a line on "I Know There's An Answer," and although Brian lays down the strong guide vocal that carries each tune, he overdubbed a lead part by Mike over his own voice on both "Here Today" and "That's Not Me." ... Love also contributes the middle-eight bars of "Wouldn't It Be Nice," with Carl a backing voice, and that adds up to eight vocal bits that weren't sung by Brian."

Admittedly, that's three lead vocals not done by Brian, but still one has to wonder: When is a Beach Boys album not really a Beach Boys album? When it's "Pet Sounds" apparently.