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.

In Praise of an Older Technology

Shaving Patsy Cline's 45 single "Cry" down to a thread to put on a spool. A turntable activated to start as you approach it with a full-sized bird putting its beak down to play the spinning vinyl. A series of album covers done over a 25-year period by an African-American amateur artist who never recorded a second of actual music.

If any or all of this sounds totally off-the-wall - and bizarrely intriguing, welcome to a new exhibit called "The Record - Contemporary Art and Vinyl" at Boston's waterside Institute of Contemporary Arts. A dazzling exhibit and a beautiful exhibit space, don't miss either of them.

As a sideshow, the museum had five turntables set up, with headphones. Next to each was a collection of 20 or so albums chosen by the artists on display in the exhibit. A very nice mix of sounds. I listened to the first couple songs on the Beach Boys' original mono Little Deuce Couple album, looking out on a gray sea. When I asked the young museum guide in the room if the turntables were playable, he said, "Absolutely. We have them here because a lot of the young people who come here have never seen an actual record, much less played one."

This exhibit is traveling nationally, so catch it if you can.

The Name's Barry ... John Barry

They're laying a giant to rest. British composer John Barry died on January 30. He was 77. Known primarily for creating the James Bond musical sound ("Goldfinger," anyone?), he went on to write the steamy soundtrack for "Body Heat" and beautiful, elegiac (and Oscar-winning) scores for "Out of Africa" and "Dances With Wolves." Along the way, he wrote three musicals, including one with the immortal Alan Jay Lerner based on Nabokov's "Lolita."

A U.K. contemporary of Burt Bacharach's, Barry exploited the possibilties of the studio from the day he walked in one. The trumpet-playing leader of his own jazz-pop-rock combo The John Barry Seven from 1957 on, he was writing and recording regularly, and the cinematic bent of his work was evident early on. His 1961 LP, "Stringbeat," is highly recommended. Barry also teamed up with teen idol Adam Faith and others like him for a series of British Top 40 hits in the years just before the Beatles changed the landscape. Barry's trademark sound was pizzicato strings (that's what they sound like) and the twangy guitar of Vic Flick, Britain's answer to Duane Eddy. It was Flick who drove Barry's arrangement of the James Bond Theme into music history.

Barry had suffered health problems in recent years and hadn't written a film score since "Enigma" in 2001. He worked sporadically on a musical version of Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock." There's no doubt that his work evolved from the electic fare of the '60s - the Bond films, "The Knack," "The Ipcress File" and "The Wrong Box" - to majestic and much simpler scores from the '80s on. But then this is the man who won Oscars in a three-year period for scores as different as "Born Free" and "The Lion in Winter." And then did "Midnight Cowboy" next.

If you're interested, dip into this list: "Beat Girl" (1959), "From Russia With Love" (1963), "The Knack" (1965), "The Wrong Box" (1966), "You Only Live Twice" (1967), "Robin and Marian" (1976), "Body Heat" (1981), "Hammett" (1982), "Out of Africa" (1985) and "Playing by Heart" (1998).

Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

One of the great musical fantasies is to wonder what kind of music Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis would have produced if those legendary sessions had ever come to pass. But for many Davis fans (and probably a lot of Hendrix fans) those sessions did happen - when Pete Cosey played lead guitar with Miles.

Their greatest triumph, of course, is the released-only-in-Japan live set, "Agharta," in 1975. Miles is at his Bitches Brew-best, and Cosey is incendiary. The opening track, "Prelude," has the most out of control guitar solo I have ever heard in my life, and I mean that in the most positive way. It's the kind of playing that immortalizes you forever. Like Page's break on "Stairway to Heaven" or Hendrix on Side Three of "Electric Ladyland."

Then, for sheer elegance, check Cosey on "He Loved Him Madly," Miles' 30-minute-plus tribute to Duke Ellington from 1974. A real electric Satin Doll. Insistent, gorgeous, Cosey's got it under control - but just barely.

Some surely think that Miles' greatest electric work was with John McLaughlin, but for my money Pete Cosey is the man. He's one of the great unsung heroes of rock 'n' roll. Like one of those guys who really did it, but other guys got credit for it.

Celebrating Tin Pan Alley

With Brian Wilson prompting a Gershwin renaissance in my listening habits of late, I reread Wilfred Sheed's delightful book, "The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole and a Crew of About Fifty." Just like the first time, I found the introduction tedious and overwrought and (again) felt like putting the book down. Thank goodness I didn't, for the riches beyond are immeasurable.

Once the reader adjusts to Sheed's breezy, smart-alecky style, the book is chock-full of insights about Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Kern, Rodgers and the other great pre-rock American songwriters of the last century. Especially delightful to this reader is the chapter on James Van Heusen, as critical an element as arranger Nelson Riddle to Frank Sinatra's '50s masterworks, and how the microphone and radio influenced their sound.

Sheed's done a lot of thinking while he's been listening over the years, and it shows. Also, as Keith Richards notes in his newly released autobiography, "Good records just get better with age."

Mike Love, Part 2

Lest you need more convincing, Mike Love was at Rishikesh with the Beatles, Donovan and Mia Farrow. Brian wasn't.

And how many other musicians of the time had the Beatles write and perform a song about them? "Happy Birthday, Michael Love."

All you need is Love, indeed. J'ai guru dev.

It's All Right, Jack

I've never considered myself a Jack Kerouac fan. I've read "On The Road" and "The Dharma Bums" (the latter while hitchhiking through Mexico, of course), but that's almost required reading for anyone who claims to be an American. A recent trip to Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts (and his final resting place) gave me a little greater appreciation of the man, however.

Kudos first of all to Lowell, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the National Park Service for preserving Kerouac's legacy and providing a helpful map of historic points connected with his life.

Despite the unusually hot weather, it was a fascinating experience chasing Jack's ghost around town in the shadows of the enormous mills that were Lowell's lifeblood for a hundred years. Of course, this was the time in Kerouac's life when he was the local high school hero who scored the winning touchdown on Thanksgiving Day against a local rival. He returned to Lowell in his later years when he was drinking his life away and was buried here after he died in Florida. In between, he ran with Ginsberg, Burroughs and company and wrote himself into history.

But Kerouac's first major book, "The Town and the City," published in 1950, was largely autobiographical and is generally derided by critics as not up to the standards of his later, better-known works. Caught up as I was in all things Lowell, I searched it out. What a tremendous read. The story of the Martin (AKA Kerouac) family from the mid-1930s to just after World War II, it's beautifully written and an absolutely haunting study of one family struggling, often unsuccessfully, to survive the pressures of the modern world. Sure, it's overwritten at times, but it's also wonderfully unselfconscious in the way only a first-time writer can be. He wasn't writing for the ages - yet. This is a powerful, heartfelt narrative, not stream-of-consciousness rambling up from the bottom of a bottle. The book's closing pages, with the family gathered for a funeral, is powerful stuff indeed.

Give it a read. You won't regret it, even if "On The Road" isn't your cup of tea. "The Town and the City" - by an author still known then as John Kerouac - is a literary classic from a time when America was still capable of producing one.