Pray For Surf

50th Deserves a New Single

2012-02-07T17:18:00.001-06:00

Beach Boys 50th Anniversary deserves a new single. Do It Again, again? Or friends singing Friends? Heroes & Villains, Part 2?

Hey guys, we Can't Wait Too Long!

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Two Heavyweights ~ Paul Simon meets John Stott

2012-01-09T12:10:00.001-06:00

Paul Simon: 'God Comes Up a Lot in My Songs'

The legend on spirituality in his music, on evangelicals, and a memorable conversation with John Stott.

Kim Lawton | posted 1/09/2012

Paul Simon's latest album, So Beautiful or So What, made a bunch of Best Albums of 2011 lists, including CT's own. That Simon is acclaimed for his music is hardly news, but the fact that So Beautiful so deeply explores spiritual themes is fascinating.

"For somebody who's not a religious person, God comes up a lot in my songs," Simon said in press materials accompanying the album's release.

Simon elaborated on his spiritual interests >>>

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My Top Ten List for the Beach Boys' 50th Anniversary Tour

2011-12-30T08:03:00.000-06:00

Forgotten Hits: THE BEACH BOYS:

Every day we're getting more and more reports about the upcoming Beach Boys Reunion Tour ... there really is QUITE a buzz going on!

Here's another "Set Suggestion" by one of our readers, Phil Miglioratti, who also runs the Pray For Surf website. (A few surprises here, to be sure ... and personally, I can probably think of about 500 songs I'd put ahead of "Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson" ... but hey, to each his own!!!) Be sure to check out the link at the end of this piece and vote for your own "Heroes and Villains" of Beach Boys lore! (kk) @ Forgotten Hits

Beach Boys 50th Celebration Concert Tour - My Top Ten List

By Phil Miglioratti

None of the Beach Boys have asked me, but if they did, here are a few suggestions for the upcoming tour celebrating their 50 year anniversary as a band:

1) Open with "Meant For You"

It is a perfect way to set the stage (pun intended) to send out the core message of the Beach Boys: peace and love. They can play "California Girls" later in the show.

2) Followed by "Friends"

A reunion for the fans but more importantly may this tour be a measure of reconciliation for the group that started with brothers, a cousin, a neighbor and a friend. All the lawsuits, power struggles, tarmac fist fights, stolen royalties and more than we fans will never know of, may each be forgiven. Maybe not forgotten but no longer standing in the way of giving the world joy of a live concert by a band of friends.

3) Then rock on with "Do It Again"

This was the perfect tune to re-record. The lyrics beg for a reunion. The texture of the song straddles the surf & street era and the progressive stage of the Beach Boys career.

4) Reprise the band intro from the Beach Boys' Concert album.

"And now, from Hawthorne, California, to entertain you tonight, with a gala concert and a recording session, the fabulous Beach Boys!" Fred Vail, back then a teenager brash enough to promote a concert and bold to couple it to a recording that became the first live concert album of a rock group to hit #1 on the charts, is the perfect choice to bring them onstage.

5) Honor David Marks

Give him a guitar solo on "Break Away" so we can hear what the original 6 would have sounded like had he not been dismissed from the band. The guitar solo inserted for the single version of this song sounded forced and unrelated to the feeling and flow of this great Brian Wilson song. Maybe David can fill that break with a Beach Boys inspired sound. Murry Wilson may have been greedy (when he engineered David's departure) and David may have been immature in his too-quick reaction to Murry's taunts but it is not too late to make the song a more complete Beach Boy tunes.

6) Keep the break in "Little Girl I Once Knew"

No general managers worrying someone may change from their station when you go into that glorious break - Give us the full song, silence and all! Every second of it! Just like Brian imagined it.

7) "'Cassius' Love vs 'Sonny' Wilson"

Few listeners realize this album-filler, though not an example of a Beach Boys classic, is a grand example of Brian Wilson's understanding of humor and how it can augment the rock ethos. And now, almost a lifetime later, our naivete when first listening to "Our Favorite Recording Sessions,'' and "I'm Bugged at My Old Man" has given way to the realization of how revealing the Love vs Wilson banter was and how painfully accurate was the "I'm Bugged" story-line. I'm not suggesting they perform this cut onstage .. I'm hoping Mike, who has identified his humor as sarcastic, will stay away from anything that sounds sarcastic or causes Brian to feel fear or hurt. I'm not picking sides, just hoping everyone stays with the positivity that Mike preaches in his interviews.

8) Dennis and Carl, please

Bring more than their memory by reminding us of how "Do You Wanna Dance" was a great Dennis lead and how Carl's voice on "God Only Knows" is considered one of the best in rock and roll history. Let their recorded voice take the lead while they are shown bigger than life on a video screen and as the band plays and sings live. They did it for Elvis; why not the most energizing rock band of our time?

9) The Alan Jardine Album

Most of the night will be Brian Wilson - Mike Love tunes (Amen!) but how about a set of songs on which Al sang lead or pushed to the forefront? "Help Me Rhonda" (a #1 hit), "Sloop John B" (Brian took his good idea and turned it into greatness), "The Times They Are A-Changin" (...yet, here are the Beach Boys on world tour!), "Cotton Fields" (Alan's version, please), "Then I Kissed Her" (his lead helped Brian out Spector, Spector), and "Susie Cincinnati" or "Come Go With Me" or Heroes & Villains, or ...

10) "Love & Mercy"

What would it be like to end the concert with the Beach Boys semi-circled behind Brian at the piano singing "Love & Mercy" as the closing hymn, I mean song. A fitting benediction to what will be an amazing live experience and what was an unparalleled career bringing joy to millions across the globe and generations.

P.S. I need your help identifying the 50 heroes & villains who shared the lives and shaped the careers of the Beach Boys - Cast your vote and share your comment >>>

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The Heroes & Villains of Christmas

2011-12-21T22:20:00.002-06:00

Heroes & Villains of Christmas

I confess, I’m a huge Beach Boys fan. Love their surf, sand, andstreets songs. But alongside Little Deuce Coupe, Little Saint Nick has become aChristmastime favorite.

One of their more experimental songs also reminds me of Christmas; thereal Christmas. Though Heroes and Villains tells the story of the westwardexpansion of the 1800’s, the song’s title is a perfect statement of Christmas.

Too often our experience of Christmas is engulfed by the commercializationof our Lord’s birth into holiday festivals void of spiritual truth and giftgiving that maxes out our credit cards. And possibly even more concerning, manyChrist followers have not grown beyond a sentimental understanding of a sweet-smelling,no-crying, halo-glowing baby in the arms of loving mother who gives no evidenceof a grueling donkey ride and a dark, damp cave for a delivery room.

Christmas, glorious in all that it brings to us (the ultimaterevelation of God, the declaration of his transforming love and so much more),was on Satan’s mind since he was tossed from heaven (Revelation 12:7-9). Thatset in motion a cosmic conspiracy to steal, kill, and destroy our salvation. So,as the song says, heroes and villains, look, see what you’ve done . . .

Villains

Satan(also referred to as Lucifer, the Devil) – the one who is God’s adversary andour accuser. As the serpent in the garden, he deceived the woman as his first attemptto steal the truth from Adam and Eve, kill their trust in the Lord, and destroyGod’s plan to bring a savior to the world. Some scholars would claim Satan wasinvolved in the wickedness that caused God to flood the earth (Genesis 6:1-8:for example: “The Nephilimwere on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went tothe daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old,men of renown.”). Is it possible that the serpent was once again striving to pollutethe line of descendants from which the savior would be born? Certainly this onewho now “leads the whole world astray” had fallen from his privileged place ofwhat may have been leading worship in the very throne room of heaven (Isaiah14:11-15). Villain for sure.

Herod,in Matthew 2, proves himself another Christmas villain. When he learns of theMagi’s arrival and their quest to see the baby born to be king, he isterrified, not realizing that the kingship of Jesus is the Kingdom of God, nota political position to be used to control and exploit. So threatened was Herod,he ordered the vicious murder of babies in the region, ending their lives andbringing untold pain to the mothers and father who were forced to witness suchan horrific act, probably in their own home. Like Lucifer who was mostcertainly possessing and deceiving him, Herod succumbed to the threat heperceived in the Christmas birth of Jesus. Villain for sure.

Heroes

Joseph,the most unappreciated, underrated character in this celestial play. We don’teven know what to identify him as; father (yes, but not birth-father); step-daddoesn’t work. Like Mary, he is an amazing human being assigned a one-of-a-kindrole in the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God. A doubter, you say,ready to abandon the young woman who claimed the impossible for herincreasingly embarrassing pregnancy, who needed a special angelic visit inorder to not divorce her … or, a man of integrity who eventually exercised ameasure of faith that only a few men and women of renown before him hadexhibited. How many birth-fathers would have risked all (home, career, safety)by taking leave at 3am with not much more than a backpack to journey uncertain roadsthrough desolate wilderness to escape with the peace child to Egypt. His firstchild was born homeless then Joseph made him a refugee to save his life.Nothing less than Hero!

Mary.Thirteen, or so, they say. The older (and maybe somewhat wiser) I get, the moreI am convinced the Lord selected a qualified young woman but, I also wonder howmany other older women (teenagers and beyond) he had to pass by because theylacked her simple faith, sincere heart and capacity to believe the unbelievable.Her greatest act of obedience was to do nothing. Noting but surrender to amonumental mystery that would radically alert her life forever. Sounds like a discipleof Jesus. A+ hero.

Shepherds.No names. Their Facebook profile would have that standard gray matted photooutline. Their job, low on the pay and respect scales. But their wondrouscuriosity earned them the privilege of being the first humans to proclaim thearrival of the mighty God who would become suffering savior. Everyone isinvited to become part of the family of Christ regardless of status. And inthat family, nobody (even lowly shepherds) is a nobody. Blue collar heroes.

Magi.Just the opposite. Educated. Intelligent. Men of means. Yet humble worshippers.Adventurous. Generous. The first gentiles to worship Jesus. The firstmissionaries to the nations. The line in heaven to hear their eyewitnessaccount of their marathon trip and then their life-threatening encounter withHerod will stretch long on one of those gold laden streets. I wonder what thePharisees and Sadducees were doing while these wise men were studying andsearching for the child of God? Outsiders who trumped the religiousestablishment. Slam dunk. Heroes.

Simeonand Anna. Senior saints who may have worn out their welcome in their homechurch or maybe were ignored as relics of the past, no longer on the cuttingedge of the emerging temple movement. Or, is it possible they were consideredbothersome, not unlike the flaky intercessors or self-appointed prophets we’veall run into? If the latter, haven’t we seen how well the Church functions withouta wholly dedicated woman of prayer or a never-give-up-on-God’s-promises oldman? Sadly, we have. Oh for these kinds of heroes.

I’d be interested in knowing the lessons you think of from these menand women (and broken angel). For me, it is being reminded to continue arelentless pursuit of the character traits displayed in theseGod-made-extraordinary heroes. And warned that the spiritual disease thatdemonized Herod and felled Satan is present in me. I thank God that he hassaved this villain-potential person has been grace-gifted with hero capacity bythat incarnated infant who became THE hero who won freedom for every villainwho ever lived.

Heroes and villains, look see what HE’s done!

Brian Wilson's Other Productions

2011-12-20T11:39:00.003-06:00

Top 10 Songs Produced By Brian Wilson (That Weren’t By The Beach Boys)

by cbssyndication

Brian Wilson was not only the genius behind the Beach Boys, he produced a number of other acts, as well (with varying degrees of success). Here are ten non-Beach Boys productions that came from Murray's boy Brian.

Cliff Richard bigger than Jesus?

2011-10-16T21:38:00.000-05:00

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Sir Cliff Richard Reveals Pressures of Being In The Spotlight

By Michael Ireland, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News ServiceLONDON, UK (ANS) -- British Christian pop singer Sir Cliff Richard revealed the pressure he feels of being a Christian in the spotlight, on London's Premier Christian Radio last week.
He also laughed off a poll that asked people what came to mind when they thought of Christianity.

Sir Cliff Richard

Sir Cliff Richard spoke exclusively to Premier Inspirational Breakfast Show host, Lizzie Crow last week on the pressure he feels on being a Christian in the music industry.He said, "I felt a pressure when I first became a Christian. You don't realize for a while just how many people know who you are.
"With Christianity we're supposed to be ambassadors for our faith. It's too big a mantle, too heavy a mantle for an individual to wear. I keep saying to people that I will never be perfect. All we can ever do is see perfection in a character called Jesus and say, 'if only I can be like that.'"
Commenting on attempting faultlessness he continued, "Perfection is not something [God] expects from us. So I started to look at it that way. And that was where the pressure was. I know that people were looking at me and trying to find faults. I'm filled with flaws. Filled with them! I'm just not going to share them with everybody! I only want to share the triumphs. They are the only things that can influence people to any goodness."
Sir Cliff laughed off a recent poll that asked people what came to mind when they thought of Christianity. "They all said Cliff Richard! I mean -- how could they not say Jesus? I beat Jesus and the Pope?!"
Sir Cliff puts this thinking down to the fact that we are living in a much more secular society. "A 'Rock n' Roll singer who comes out and says he's a Christians is likely to impress somebody."
He continued, "I didn't like that poll very much. And I made a joke of it by saying, 'Oh, the Pope hasn't made a record recently...'"
According to www.topnews.in , Sir Cliff recently beat Canadian singer Justin Bieber in the calendar charts, taking the top spot by outselling the teen star.
New figures from www.Amazon.co.uk show Richard, 70, has been the all-time biggest seller for calendar maker Danilo with more than 1.5 million sold over the years.
Sir Cliff released a new album October 10 on EMI Records
Log onto www.premier.org.uk for more details.
Log on to www.premierradio.org.uk/ib for audio on demand.
For more information on Premier Christian Media please contact: Sharon Molloy sharon.molloy@Premier.org.uk or Tel: +44 (0)20 7316 1335

** Michael Ireland is Senior Correspondent for ANS. He is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB UK, a British Christian radio station. While in the UK, Michael traveled to Canada and the United States, Albania,Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany,and Czechoslovakia. He has reported for ANS from Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan, China,and Russia. Michael's volunteer involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department -- 'Michael Ireland Media Missionary' (MIMM) -- of A.C.T. International of P.O.Box 1649, Brentwood, TN 37024-1649, at: Artists in Christian Testimony (A.C.T.) International where you can make a donation online under 'Donate' tab, then look for 'Michael Ireland Media Missionary' under 'Donation Category' to support his stated mission of 'Truth Through Christian Journalism.' Michael is a member in good standing of the National Writers Union, Society of Professional Journalists, Religion Newswriters Association, Evangelical Press Association and International Press Association. If you have a news or feature story idea for Michael, please contact him at: ANS Senior Reporter

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Send this story to a friend.

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Barry McGuire on California Dreamin'

2011-09-06T10:12:00.002-05:00

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

NOTE: Phil's podcast with Barry >>>

Barry: McGuire - Back from the Eve of Destruction

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST MinistriesIRVINE, CA (ANS) -- The first time I met Barry McGuire was in London, England, sometime in the late seventies when he was performing at a concert and, as always, he brought the house down with his incredible gravelly voice renditions of a mixture of his new Gospel songs and hits from the past like the huge folk hit by The New Christy Minstrels, "Green, Green" (which he co-wrote with Randy Sparks) and then, his solo success with the 1965 epic anti-war protest song, "Eve of Destruction," written by P.F. Sloan.

Barry McGuire performing

But then he shocked all of us in the concert hall when he produced a skate board and proceeded to skate around the room, a huge grin on his well-honed bearded face.That was typical of this incredible survivor of the Sixties - born on October 15, 1935 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma -- who just loved life and, even today, now in his seventies and with a Pacemaker, he still exhibits that joyful persona wherever he goes.
I have met with Barry many times since then and caught up with him again on Saturday, August 27, 2011, at a unique Jesus Freaks Reunion in Irvine, California, put on by the Upper Room Ministry, where he joined with other artist like Chuck Girard, from Love Song, Karen Lafferty who wrote Seek Ye First.., the powerful worship song, and the one and only Andrae Crouch, who performed with his wonderful backing group, and he agreed to talk about his long and rather amazing career in which he even played the male lead in the Broadway hit musical HAIR opposite Diane Keaton.

Dan Wooding interview Barry McGuire

Not wanting to waste this occasion to dig into his career, I asked Barry McGuire how he came to record Eve of Destruction, and he explained that he was on the dance floor in 1965 with about a thousand more people, when legendary record producer, Lou Adler, spotted him and invited him over to his table.Barry told me, "Lou then said, 'McGuire, are you recording?' I said, 'No, but I would like to be. He then introduced me to Phil Sloan who'd written a whole notebook full of songs and he said, 'Why don't you take these and give them a look and listen to.' So I took them home with me and loved Eve of Destruction. Three weeks later. Lou had a recording studio date and I was in there and there and then we recorded 'Eve Of Destruction' in one take."

Lou Adler and Jack Nicholson pictured at a Laker's game

By the way, if you are a LA Laker's fan, you can see the bearded Lou Adler sitting next to Jack Nicholson at most of the home games at the Staples Center. Adler, himself, has quite an amazing career. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in East Los Angeles. In 1964, Adler founded and co-owned Dunhill Records. He was President of the label as well as the chief record producer from 1964 to 1967. That summer he sold Dunhill for three million dollars to ABC Records. Later in 1967, he founded Ode Records.. In June 1967, Adler helped to produce the Monterey International Pop Festival, as well as the film version, Monterey Pop.He formerly managed Jan & Dean and produced Sam Cooke, The Mamas & the Papas, Johnny Rivers, Barry McGuire, Scott McKenzie, The Grass Roots, Spirit, Carole King, The Weaver Temptations (which he signed in 1968) and Cheech and Chong.
So then, we got talking about the Mamas & the Papa's who once featured Barry and his close friend, Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, on Creeque Alley in which they sang, "McGuinn and McGuire's still a-getting' higher, In L.A., you know where that's at."
At the time, Barry was not only known for his music, but also for his heavy drug taking during those heady years.
So I asked him if he was true that he played a role in helping to launch the Mamas & the Papas by introducing them to Lou Adler.
"Yes, it's true," he said. "I was working on my second album with Dunhill and [Mama] Cass Elliot called me and said, 'McGuire, I'm out here watching my friends from New York and we're singing this music. It'll knock your socks off. You've got to hear this stuff.' So I went over to her house and they're all sitting on the floor and flat broke. I said, 'What's this music then?' and John [Phillips] picked up his guitar and started to play and I had never heard anything like that before.
"Right there, I went to the telephone and called Lou Adler and said, 'Lou, I've got some friends here from New York and they've got some music that will blow you away. He said, 'Well, bring them down to the studio tomorrow, as the next day I had a recording session there.

Barry McGuire in the studios recording with The Mamas & The Papas

"So we set it up and they came down and Lou's jaw hit his chest and he goes 'whoa' and he signed them up and his first thought was 'Can you believe your eyes and ears?' So the album was called, 'If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears,' which was the 1966 debut album by The Mamas & the Papas.'"So how did California Dreamin' come about?
"Well California Dreamin' was a song that John Phillips had written and I was looking for some material and I liked the song so I recorded it," said Barry. "The group were broke and when Lou signed them, he said, 'Why don't we let them do your background vocals so they can make some money to live on until they can get their own album out there.' I agreed and so they did the background vocals several of the songs including California Dreamin', Hang On Sloopy and Do You Believe In Magic?
"After we heard the playback on California Dreamin', John Phillips took me out in the hallway and said that they would like to do this as their first single release.
"I said, 'That's cool man. It's your song. You wrote it.' What was so strange was that they took most of my voice off the recording. If you listen to California Dreamin' right now and you pay attention to the left track only you'll hear my voice singing 'All the leaves.' and then it's gone. I didn't know that for twenty-five years and my son one time called me into his bedroom and said, 'Dad, listen to this.' His stereo wasn't working properly at the time and so he could only hear the left side and he heard 'All the leaves.' and said, 'Dad, that sounds like you.' I said, 'That is me. They used they used my track.'"
Barry paused for a moment and then said, with a huge smile on his face, "So my trivia question is, what is the first karaoke song to ever become a hit record? It's California Dreamin' because they sang karaoke to my track."
I was then intrigued to discover how the group came up with the name of The Mamas & the Papas?

Barry with his wife Mari

"Well the story I got from them was that they were all sitting on the floor watching TV one night as they didn't have any furniture, just the TV," Barry began. "And Cass was sitting there and, there was a documentary on the Hell's Angels that they were watching. So Cass heard the guys calling the women 'their Mamas' and she flipped over on her back and started thumping the floor with her elbows and kicking her heals in the air and said, 'I want to be a Mama. I want to be a Mama.' So John's siting there and he said, 'Well, I guess then we'll have to be the Papas. So they called themselves The Mamas & the Papas."Over the years, Barry admits that his life was in turning into quite a mess and, in a previous interview, he told me how he finally found Christ through reading Good News for Modern Man, a modern translation of the New Testament with newspaper headlines on the cover.
"One day, I was lying on the floor and was wrestling with myself and I realized I couldn't go back and undo all that I had done," he recalled. "It was right at that time I remembered the story of the Prodigal Son that I had just read about and it was almost as if God was saying to me, 'Well, that's you Barry. You've squandered your inheritance in a foreign land, and now you are living like a pig and you're just living in filth. But I you give your life to me, if you come home and make this decision." I cut in and said to the Lord that I couldn't do this."
He said that for some time, he wrestled with God and he said he finally remembered screaming out to the Lord, "If you are really are there, I want to know." Then he "kind of whispered" in his head, "Are you really there?"
Barry said, "And right at that moment, I believe I received the Holy Spirit into my life. I was overcome with tears when I heard that still small voice say, 'Yes, I am here.' It was if I died at that moment to my old life and I was re-born.
"I even began attending church in Fresno and made new friends who began praying for me and at one of their services, I publically gave my life to Christ. As a group laid hands on me, I felt a bolt of lightning go through me.
"Afterwards, I went to see my mother, and when I told her what had happened, she began to weep because although she wasn't a Christian, she felt a joy surge through her that, at last, something positive had happened in the life of her son."
By now, Barry had begun meeting with other men who had also found Jesus and they would study the Bible together.
"I then met a man called Tony Salerno who was the director of a group called Agape Force, who were a team of young kids who were out to win the world for Christ. The group had an outreach and I was one of 52 people, mainly youngsters, who were baptized at the end of the meetings.
"The day I was baptized and went down into the water, to be washed of my sins, buried with Christ and come out a new creation, I thought, 'How perfect. This is Father's Day.' And the name of the river was the Kings River. I said to myself, 'When God does it, he doesn't miss a lick. I mean everything is where it is supposed to be.'
"I was so blessed by the Agape Force team that I ask if I could join them and I would study the a manual written by a New Zealander called Winkie Pratney called 'Youth Aflame.' I had never met anyone like Winkie before who was funny and yet deadly serious about his relationship with God. I would go out on the streets witnessing and singing in the local parks."
How he met his wife, Mari
"Then a beautiful young lady called Mari arrived to join the team with some 15 others from New Zealand," said Barry. "Mari went through the eight-week course and it just happened that the day the New Zealanders had arrived in LA, I was sent in one of the three vans to pick them up.
"Mari told me later that she nearly flipped when she first saw me - a huge figure with a Santa Claus beard and cut-of Levis and hair hanging all over the place. She had never been out of the country before and was quite overwhelmed with California.
"I fell for her immediately, but also felt the Lord telling me not to tell her. It was like a volcano inside of me, because she was so lovely and I wanted immediately to ask her to marry me. I really prayed about it and eventually believed that I had received a confirmation from the Lord that she was to be my wife. But the Lord had told me not to tell her. It took six to eight months for this to unfold and back home, Mari's mother wrote to tell her that she had received Christ.
"I finally proposed to Mari by letter, and we were married in my home town of San Pedro, and my best man was one of my sons. The guy who conducted the marriage ceremony was the man who had baptized me in the King's River."
Now, more than 36 years later, they are still together and have two children and also grandkids.

Trippin' the Sixties logo

I thanked Barry McGuire for sharing his story with me and then discovered that besides singing at Jesus Freak reunions and on PBS nostalgia shows, he is also now doing a tour, even though he now has a Pacemaker, called Trippin' The Sixties with John York from The Byrds."It is a show that's just my journey through that decade; who I knew, met, partied, performed with recorded with, and wrote songs," he said. "I tell the story behind the scenes what happened in our personal lives some of the things that went down. And we do the songs that everybody knows like California Dreamin' that John Phillips wrote and we do Tambourine Man that Roger McGuinn got to before I could. I wanted to sing Bob Dylan tunes but Roger beat me to them."
Note: I am now working on a book with Barry McGuire about his incredible life with the working title of From HAIR to Eternity.
I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing much of the above.
For more information on Barry's work today, please go to:www.barrymcguire.com

Dan Wooding, 70, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 48 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He now hosts the weekly "Front Page Radio" show on KWVE in Southern California which is also carried throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK and also in Belize and South Africa. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 200 countries. You can follow Dan on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. He is the author of some 44 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel "Red Dagger" which is available this link.

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Eve of Destruction for Barry McGuire

2011-08-31T16:06:00.000-05:00

The Day Barry McGuire Thought He Was On the ‘Eve of Destruction’

I was doing a tour for UNICEF to help vaccinate Third World children and I got a call from my wife telling me that (our son) was being treated with Thorazine [which is used to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia] and strapped to a gurney at the psychiatric hospital. He was in the States I was in Ireland.”

Barry said that this caused him great confusion and he began lashing out at God in his hotel room over the dire situation.

He said, “It may work for other people, but the very boy that I wrote Bullfrogs and Butterflies for is right now locked up, strapped down to a gurney and with his brain shut down on Thorazine drooling from his mouth.

“I said, ‘Where’s your healing power. It either works or it doesn’t work. There’s no two ways about it. You throw the switch and the light is on and you can then throw it off and it turns off.’ That night I said, ‘Forget it. I’m out of here. I’m gonna walk away for all of this.”
Barry said that this occurred about fourteen years ago, and after he calmed down, he told me, “Then I thought, ‘well where would I go? Would I go back to live like I used to and dive back into that septic tank of filth and immorality and debauchery that God pulled me out of? I thought, ‘Man, I can’t do that.’

“Then I thought about my years in Christ and what God had done in my life and the transformation that has taken place within me. I realized what Peter said which in essence was ‘Where would I go? You’re the only one. There’s no life outside of Christ.”

“And I thought, ‘I know that to be true through my own experience. This other stuff that I’ve been taught doesn’t work. So I must have been taught wrong because something’s missing and is not right.

“So I began to think about when Jesus first started his ministry and he said, ‘Follow me.’ And when he finished, he said, ‘Abide in me.’ And that was my moment that I knew that if I was going to follow him, I had also to abide in him. And to ‘abide’ in him means to live in him and for him to live in me. [Read the entire article >>>]

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Beach Boys' SMiLE - Rock's Legendary Unfinished Masterpiece To Be released

2011-08-30T15:10:00.002-05:00

Santana. Woodstock. #1 Record. Suicide. God.

2011-08-27T21:26:00.000-05:00

Cover Story
Mexican-American rock guitarist Carlos Santana has won many awards and is
considered to be one of the greatest guitar legends of all time. His turbulent search
for God nearly ended in suicide—seven times. It was only through the acceptance
of God's grace that his life was spared and his spiritual hunger was finally satiated.

Dan Peek of America

2011-07-28T10:34:00.000-05:00

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Christian singer-songwriter Dan Peek, founding member of band ‘America,’ Dies Aged 60
Writer of ‘Horse with No Name’ dies at home in Missouri

By Michael Ireland, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

FARMINGTON, MO (ANS) -- Few details are known at this point about the death on Sunday (July 24) of Dan Peek, co-founder of the band America, who left the group in 1977 and then continued as a Christian pop artist.

According to a news article by Gary Graff, writing from Detroit for

Dan Peek (Photo from Getty Images)

www.Billboard.com , the home page of Peek's official web site includes a simple note saying that "Dan went to Heaven on July 24," along with a video of Peek performing the 1974 America hit "Lonely People." No other information was offered.

Peek was 60 years old and, by all accounts, living with his wife Catherine in the Cayman Islands and was "semi-retired," according to America bandmate Dewey Bunnell.

Billboad.com says Bunnell and Gerry Beckley have both paid tribute to him with notes on the duo's own web site. Bunnell writes that, "I am so sorry to learn of Dan's passing. Dan, along with Gerry (Beckley) & myself, formed the band America as teenagers after being great friends in high school during the late 60's. It was a joyous time for the three of us, full of excitement and laughter. We created lasting music together and experienced a life that we could never have imagined. Dan was an equal and integral part of that early history, and I have never forgotten the good times we spent making that music and learning about life together."

Bunnell goes on to say that, "Although we eventually went our separate ways, his contributions to the music of America have always been present and will last forever. This news brings great sadness. My sincere condolences go out to his wife, Catherine, and the entire Peek family. May Dan rest in peace, and his memory be cherished forever."

Beckley's note reads, "I am deeply saddened to hear the news of Dan's passing. He was a dear friend for many years. Dan & his music will live on in the great songs he shared with us all. My sincere condolences go out to Catherine and the entire Peek family. May he rest in peace ..."
Shortly before Peek's death, Bunnell told Billboard.com that Peek's departure from the band was "an organic split" and that he and Beckley felt no acrimony towards their former band mate.
"Dan wrote some songs, Dan played lead guitar and Dan sang the high harmonies -- so at the end of the day his contributions have never been questions," Bunnell explains. "We still do 'Lonely People' and 'Don't Cross the River' every night on stage. We'll always acknowledge Dan's contribution, and those years that we were together as America were really special times."

From left: Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley of America(Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images)

Bunnell added that there was some thought about asking Peek to join him and Beckley when America receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next year to mark the group's career achievements as well as the 40th anniversary of the band winning the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Billboard.com says Peek was born in Panama City, Florida, to a U.S. Air Force officer father. He moved to England in 1963 when his father was assigned to a base there, meeting Bunnell and Beckley at London Central High School. Peek and Beckley played in a band called The Days, and after Peek left to attend Old Dominion University in Virginia, Bunnell took his place. Returning to England after just a year away, the three musicians regrouped and formed America, hitting big with their first single, "A Horse With No Name."

America scored three platinum and three gold albums as well as eight Top 40 hits between 1971-75. But Peek, who became a born-gain Christian after becoming disenchanted with travel and recreational drug use and sex, decided to leave the band. "I...was trying to walk the walk and was just unable to do it" in the band, Peek said in an interview after the publication of his memoir, "An American Band: The America Story."

Peek launched his solo career wtih "All Things Are Possible" in 1979; the title track hit No. 1 on the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award, while Beckley and Bunnell sang harmonies on the track "Love Was Just Another Word," marking the last time the three recorded together -- although they did occasionally reunite on stage. Peek recorded and performed sporadically after that, putting a revised version of "Lonely People," which was a No. 2 CCM hit, on his 1986 album "Electro Voice." His other CCM hits included "Divine Lady," "Doer of the World," "Cross Over" and the title track from "Electro Voice."

Matthew Perpetua, writing for Rolling Stone (www.RollingStone.com ) says that according to his Peek’s wife, Peek died in his sleep at their home in Farmington, Missouri. The specific cause of death is not yet known.

Peek became a born-again Christian in 1977 and renounced drugs and alcohol, which led to him leaving America the same year. In 1979, he began a career in Christian pop with his first solo album All Things Are Possible, which was recorded for Pat Boone's Lamb and Lion Records. In recent years, Peek went into semi-retirement while remaining active as a songwriter.
Maridee Lawson, Daily Journal Staff Writer at www.dailyjournalonline.com , says Peek died early Monday morning at his home.

Peek went to school in Doe Run at one time. His father was in the military, so the family soon moved, but Peek moved back to the Farmington area with his wife in 1978.

The newspaper states that according to www.imdb.com , Peek was born on Nov. 1, 1950 in Panama City, Florida. He attended London Central High School in England, where he met his future band mates of “America.”

While stationed in England in the late 1960s, Peek attended a school with many other American children. Which is how he met Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley, whose fathers also were in the military.

The three eventually formed the band "America." Among their popular songs were "A Horse With No Name," "Ventura Highway," "Tin Man" and "I Need You."

Through the years, Peek hobnobbed with other rock stars including the Beatles, The Beach Boys, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles, James Taylor, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Rod Stewart, Sir George Martin, Elton John, Cat Stevens and Jackson Browne.

Peek was a member of the band from 1970 to 1977.

Peek’s father, Milton “Colonel” Peek, said the boys were playing one night and a talent scout from Warner Brothers heard them play and signed them. They went on to have eight gold and several platinum albums.

Peek left the band he started to perform on his own, but wasn’t as successful. In 1978 he and his wife Catherine lost their belongings in a house fire and moved back to Farmington where they have stayed since.

“The song ‘Horse with No Name’ was the group’s biggest hit and Dan had a couple of solo hits,” said his dad.

Bunnell and Beckley both posted their condolences on the “America” websitewww.venturahighway.com .

After leaving “America” in Februrary, 1977 Dan signed with Pat Boone's Lions & Lambs Records and established himself as an artist in the then-burgeoning Christian pop music genre. He released his debut album "All Things Are Possible" in 1979. The same-titled single was not only a No. 1 one hit on the contemporary Christian music radio stations, but also was a crossover success on both the Billboard and adult contemporary radio charts.

“He was a pretty prolific songwriter and pretty good guitar player. His mother’s family was very musical and they got their musical talents from her family,” said his dad.

Dan Peek signs copies of his book 'AN AMERICAN BAND, The America Story,' in preparation for his book signing at the Oasis Christian Bookstore in Farmington in 2005. (Photo from The Daily Journal, Farmington, MO)

Dan released his second album "Doer of the Word" in 1984 and had a few additional hit songs on the contemporary Christian music charts. He spent much of the ‘90s in semi-retirement occasionally recording music at his home in the Cayman Islands. Peek has collaborated with musicians Ken Marvin and Brian Gentry as the group “Peace” on a handful of albums.
Peek wrote an autobiography called "An American Band: The America Story," which specifically focused on his years as a member of “America” and his personal spiritual journey.
Peek's autobiography chronicles the group's formation, its rise to stardom and life in the fast lane of the 1960s and 1970s. Oasis Christian Book Store's owner, Jane Cook agreed to carry the book and asked him to do a signing in 2005.
It was announced in June “America” will receive their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.
Funeral arrangements are pending at Cozean Memorial Chapel in Farmington, Missouri.

** Michael Ireland is Senior Correspondent for ANS. He is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB UK, a British Christian radio station. While in the UK, Michael traveled to Canada and the United States, Albania,Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany,and Czechoslovakia. He has reported for ANS from Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan, China,and Russia. Michael's volunteer involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department -- 'Michael Ireland Media Missionary' (MIMM) -- of A.C.T. International of P.O.Box 1649, Brentwood, TN 37024-1649, at: Artists in Christian Testimony (A.C.T.) International where you can donate online to support his stated mission of 'Truth Through Christian Journalism.' Michael is a member in good standing of the National Writers Union, Society of Professional Journalists, Religion Newswriters Association, Evangelical Press Association and International Press Association. If you have a news or feature story idea for Michael, please contact him at: ANS Senior Reporter

** You may republish this story with proper attribution.
Send this story to a friend. Share

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Dylan: Prophet? Poet? Preacher?

2011-05-25T23:16:00.003-05:00

Dylan at the Foot of the Cross

Longtime disciple? Converted soldier? Secular prophet? The questions linger as the troubadour turns 70.

Additional Views

The Gospel according to Bob Dylan: The Old, Old Story of Modern Times

By: Michael J. Gilmour

Westminster John Knox Press / 2011 / Paperback

$11.99 (CBD Price) / Retail: ~~$15.00 /~~ Save: $3.01 (20%)

Whether interested in religion or not, listeners will agree that Dylan's perspective as a poet-singer often involves a grasping after and striving toward an indefinable Something, and he turns to the language of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures to help articulate this search. He sees a shadow and chases it. If and how we interpret that Other, that Something, is our business. Bob Dylan merely forces the issue on us, leaving us to reach our own conclusions >>>

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New Beach Boys DVD

2011-05-22T22:51:00.001-05:00

Billy Hinsche: Carl Wilson -

Here and Now DVDwww.billyhinsche.comCarl Wilson —

Here and Now is a highly personal documentary film about the professional and private life of Carl Wilson, the man who had “the voice of an angel,” as well as being the lead guitarist and founding member of The Beach Boys.

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A Surfer with Soul (Warning ~ Spiritual Content)

2011-03-24T15:55:00.000-05:00

One-Armed Surfing Star Bethany Hamilton on Trusting God
Bethany Hamilton, one of the top female surfers in the world despite having only one arm, proclaims in a new video that God can change tragic events into opportunities to glorify Himself.

>>>Click headline . . .

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50th Anniversary ~ 50 Beach Boys' Heroes & Villains

2011-02-06T00:29:00.008-06:00

50th Anniversary ~ 50 Beach Boys' Heroes & Villains

... the people who shared their lives and shaped their careers

Help Pray For Surf construct a list of 50 heroes and villains

Scroll down this in-process list
Click on Post a Comment (at the bottom) and
Cast your vote!
You can . . .

Nominate a hero or a villain (and explain why)
Agree/Disagree with names already listed
Comment below . . .
Vote early! Vote often!

Fred Vail – Hero
Teenage impresario without whom, we may not have Beach Boys Concert, the first live album to reach to top of the charts

Murry Wilson – Hero & Villain
Instrumental (no pun intended) in securing their first recording contract with Capitol Records and tirelessly promoted the band in their early years of recording and touring…but listen to the Help Me Rhonda studio recording of his advice to Alan on the lead vocal) … he sold Sea of Tunes Publishing rights without son Brian's consent …

Van Dyke Parks
Hero to Brian and millions of Beach Boys fans who saw their writing partnership as a huge step forward, solidifying the band's transition into the new ear of rock music ... Villain to several members of the band that saw Van Dyke (through his seemingly unintelligible lyrics) as a support to Brian's increasingly dysfunctional lifestyle

Charles Manson

Billy Hinsche

Glen Campbell

Jan Berry

Dean Torrence

Roger Christian

Chuck Berry

Chuck Britz

Derek Taylor - Hero

Mike Vosse

James Guercio

Eugene Landy

Gary Usher

Marilyn Rovell

Nick Venet

Hal Blaine

Steve Korthoff – Hero
Definitely a hero for me (provided me and my buddies a set of Beach Boys shirts they wore during early 60’s concerts) - You'll hear his name on the Friends album.

Stan Love

Russ Regan

Hite Morgan

Danny Hutton

Mo Ostin

Dick Reynolds

John Phillips

Carol Kaye

Jack Rieley -

James Watt – Villain
Banned the Beach Boys from performing on the DC Mall in 1983) who turned out to be a hero (the President himself endorsed the boys and brought them tons of positive publicity

Ed Carter

Jeffrey Foskett

David Beard

David Leaf – Hero
His Pet Sounds newspaper, begun in 1977, was just the beginning of his documenting the story of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys

Phil Spector - Villain

Paul McCartney

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - Hero & Villain
Initially a messiah-figure to the band, so much so that they included a lecture from the Maharishi on what turned out to be a very unsuccessful and unprofitable tour.

Ricky Fataar

Blondie Chaplin

Tony Asher

Chuck Girard – Hero
Lead vocal on Hondells’ version of Little Honda rivaled the Beach Boys

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New Poll ~ God Only Knows #1

2011-01-12T12:03:00.000-06:00

Noted on the Pet SOunds Mailing List -

1. The Beach Boys: "God Only Knows"

(Tony Asher/Brian Wilson)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (#39), UK (#2)
Available on Pet Sounds

I'm sure you've read these: "the world's greatest song," "Brian Wilson's masterpiece," "the most beautiful piece of music ever recorded." Yes, the initiation into the Museum of Western Popular Music is always rough, as credible historians rush to summarize our collective experiences in short phrases. But for better or worse, "God Only Knows" is the kind of song that's almost impossible for me to talk about divorced from the way it makes me feel: sad, in love, honestly grateful, but also a little hopeless. Even in mono, it's like being swept up by a wave of compassion but still getting bruised.

The first words Carl Wilson sings, "I may not always love you," are already uncertain, so if you need a tie into the legacy of 1960s youth culture, glance no further than the naïve but strained optimism locked inside this song. Yet, Carl made this uncertainty sound gorgeous. The voices that sail behind his might just as well be a quartet of violas and cellos playing counterpoint that'd already been obsessed over a few times before they got it. "God Only Knows" is so ideally conceptualized and realized, critics can't help but support it. Somehow, even that can't turn it into an art exhibit; its humanity resists the attempt. To me, this song is a goodbye to being a kid, and hoping that love actually is the answer. And almost nobody knows if it is. --Dominique Leone

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Heavenly Christmas Harmony by the Beach Boys (@ 4:30)

2010-12-26T21:36:00.000-06:00

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The First Christmas as told by Facebook

2010-12-20T11:52:00.000-06:00

Put on the Beach Boys' "We Three Kings" and check out the first Christmas as it unfolds on Facebook!

A Social Network Christmas

4 min - Uploaded by IgniterMedia
Downloads and DVDs are available at www.ignitermedia.com.

This video is an artistic take on how the story of the nativity might ...

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Beach Boys-styled Christmas Carol Debuts on New EP

2010-12-04T16:40:00.012-06:00

Listen > > >

{yes, this is one of your favorite Christmas Carols sung to the Beach Boys' "I Do!"}

Sled Full of Goodies EP

Merry Christmas everyone!

The "Sled Full Of Goodies" EP is done and ready to ship -
with three new songs plus a bonus track;

* A re-imagining of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" in an
obtuse mash-up with the Beach Boys "I Do"

* "Please Come Home For Christmas" done in sort of a
Nilsson-meets-Randy-Newman style, with a slight nod to
"In The Back Of My Mind" at the end (see if you can spot it?).

* "Santa's On His Way" original Seasonal song done in HotRod genre

**bonus track - "What Christmas Is About", A song written
by a friend who asked me to sing it for him. My vocal
arrangement, his Instrumental and mix.

With cool original artwork from the talented Randy Sappo!

You can find a preview track here;
http://prayforsurfblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-beach-boys-styled-christmas-carol.html

Hate to be selling something this close to the release of
"Malibu Jukebox"? but Christmas is here already. I'm selling
the EP directly myself for $5.00 (includes CD and shipping) via
Paypal. Or e-mail me if you have other ideas.

Thanks to all who have stuck with me through all this
Malibus/Tyson music! And especially those who have already
bought "Malibu Jukebox" - I really appreciate it!!

Let's try some Peace and Joy for a while

matt

Order @ woodshedstudio@hotmail.com.

http://www.soundclick.com/matttyson

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Beach Boys' Child of Winter

2010-12-03T15:01:00.002-06:00

Enjoy!

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Say a little prayer for Aretha ... UPDATED Again

2010-12-02T12:18:00.004-06:00

.
Aretha Franklin has cancer, according to Detroit’s FOX affiliate, WJBK.
Though WJBK can confirm only that Aretha has some form of cancer, the Detroit News is confirming a report in the National Enquirer saying it’s pancreatic cancer, which has a survival rate of less than 10 percent.
The family says she’s doing “OK” but asks for fans to continue praying for her.
Read More Here>>>

Prayer Vigil Held For Aretha Franklin In Detroit

(Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images)

Organizers held a prayer vigil for Aretha Franklin yesterday in Detroit. Aretha is scheduled to undergo a medical procedure tomorrow.

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson joined the organizers and got together in downtown Detroit on Wednesday and prayed for Aretha Franklin. Aretha Franklin was not present at the vigil, but in a statement she thanked the City Council, saying “all prayers are good.”

You may remember last month when Aretha Franklin announced that she was canceling all concert and appearances through May 2011 based on advice from her doctors.

UPDATE - -

Aretha Franklin is “recovering and her spirits are high,” according to the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

The civil rights leader visited Lady Soul at the undisclosed hospital where she is recovering from surgery. Jackson also tells The Detroit News, “She’s doing very well. She’s very prayerful. She’s a woman full of deep religious faith.” There’s still no word from Franklin’s representatives as to the nature of her surgery or where it took place.

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BeachBoys.com interview with Matt Tyson

2010-11-26T12:43:00.000-06:00

NOTE: For regular visitors to BeachBoys.com, the name Matt Tyson should be familiar to many - his prolific output, first under the moniker The Malibus, and currently recording under his own name, Matt is one of those rare artists who is a triple-threat: writing, arranging and performing almost everything on his albums. Besides his obvious talents, he is also a huge Beach Boys fan, and his albums are often canny homages to both The Beach Boys sound, and to Phil Spector's wall-of-sound productions. He also happens to be a genuinely nice guy, and when I asked him if he'd consent to an interview for this site, he graciously accepted, and went above and beyond in his responses to my questions. You can find Matt's music at both CDBaby andSoundClick.

Tell about your newest album, Malibu Jukebox - what was your experience in writing and recording it?
Well, I’m always writing (already have a handful of songs started for the next release) and I still have a backlog of songs started over the years so it’s a kick to get a batch of songs recorded. I’m pretty psyched about this CD.

13 new songs; probably 5-6 that would be categorized as strictly “fun-in-the-sun”. Uptempo and definitely Beach Boys inspired.

There’s four songs that I wrote over the last couple years for the FiBERGLASS project that was started with a few friends. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten off the ground so I decided to record them on my own because I really wanted people to hear them! Of those, “Angela” and “Talk of the Town” are a bit bizarre in a SMiLE sort of way. “Cars, Surfboards and Girls” is pure BW-homage, kind of an uptempo little brother to “My Car, My Board and You” from the first CD. It was written in response to one of the guys commenting on “Angela” and “Talk…” saying, tongue-in-cheek, to cut the weird stuff and write about cars, surfboards and girls… seemed like a great song title to me and the lyrics just jumped out. “A Quiet Place” is a bit more introspective, speaking about the noisy world around us and wishing to find a little peace ( a friend said it sounded like a “prayer to God“ and I like that description).

A few of the songs are more in the modular vein. A little like “Tidal Wave” from California Myth but not as long. “Details” is sort of Beatles meets Beach Boys 1967, though the lyrics are more topical about the media culture that we live in. “I’ll be True To You” is a satiric love song about growing old with each other. “That Kind of Girl” is more straight forward with a few weird bridges/codas thrown in. “Angela” and “Talk…” are also in this modular style.

“I Wanna” is a 70’s era BB-type song. It has some of the same lyrics from the California Myth version but is really a totally different song in tempo, melody, chords, style… It was actually written this way first, but sat around for a year until I realized that I really liked this version too.

“Belief” was the last song written for the CD. Basic straight forward power pop with spectorian production and BB backing vocals. A Christian-themed lyric about keeping the faith in the face of adversity.

You're quite obviously a big Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fan, when did you discover their music? What are your favorite Beach Boys songs/albums?

I can remember distinctly, hearing “Fun,Fun,Fun” while riding in the car with my father. I wasn’t even into music at all back then (had to be maybe 7-8 years old at the time) but I recall thinking that sounds kinda cool. Then around 1967 I finally got into the fact there was all this music being played that was intriguing me. Backtracking as the Djs played “golden oldies” I fell in love with doowop and then the Beach Boys. Buying their old 45’s when I could find them. I think the first album I bought after The Monkees (which I still love their first three albums) was “Best of the Beach Boys vol 2” - what a great collection of songs! I was smitten. I quickly spent any money I had on their other albums when I could find them.>>>

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Fun, Fresh. Faithful ...(to the Brain Wilson/Beach Boys sound

2010-11-11T18:01:00.004-06:00

Malibu Jukebox finally available!

The new CD is finally ready. Please check here;
http://cdbaby.com/cd/tysonm4

or at amazon.

It has thirteen new songs;

Four were written for the (ill-fated-so-far)
Fiberglass project so aren't entirely new,
but are new recordings/mixes... plus I wanted to have people hear
these songs!

Two happen to have similar names to songs from the last CD but
are totally new songs. "I Wanna" was actually the original version
(before the Cali Myth version) and is more 70's pop, with some of
the same lyrics but totally different music and melody. "That Kind
Of Girl" is entirely different from "My Kind Of Girl"... just couldn't
think of a name (only other lyrical sense would have been "California
Girl" and that is too similar to some other band's song.

The rest are entirely new with a mix of surf/hotrod types along
with some that have a more modular (SMiLE-ish) feel.

Hope you check it out. And as always would love to hear from you!

Cheers
matt
http://soundclick.com/matttyson

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New release noted on Cabin Essence Blog

2010-11-06T09:06:00.000-05:00

First The Flames, Now The Arrows

There is little argument that Cape Town, my hometown, is the most beautiful city in South Africa. But the surf city, Durban, has something of a reputation for musica talent, and Beach Boys fans should know that Flames hail from there. Now, a new musical force has emerged from Durban and is ready to take on the world by releasing their first full-length album, Make Believe.
The Arrows are a duo consisting of singer and songwriter Pamela De Menezes and drummer and manager Christie Desfontaine. They play a brand of pop music that contains elements of classical, jazz, dance and indie-pop. However, the key features of the music are Pamela’s strong vehicles and a driving creativity which makes the music hard to categorise but easy to listen to.

This is also a group of deep convictions – the group is open about their Christian faith and the reason for making the music. However, this shouldn’t put off non-believers -it gives their music a sense of purpose and passion. The lyrics are anything but cliched -focussing on corruption in the world and the challenges of faith in the 21st century.

Standout tracks include the beautiful title track and Lovesick, which is getting extensive airplay on most South African radio stations and manages to be a dance-floor stomper, pop classic and intelligent indie track at the same time. South Africans would do well to head to their nearest record store while those overseas can download from Amazon. It’s great to have this musical creativity from South Africa and highly recommend it to all readers.

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Still Believing

2010-10-27T00:41:00.004-05:00

Phew... Finally got the new CD back from the replicator and it should be available within a couple weeks now!

In the meantime I thought I'd upload one of the songs for anybody itchin' to hear some music.

"Belief" is a Christian themed pop song with a (hopefully) sing-along chorus.

As always I'd love to hear from you on any music related topics (...or anything else for that matter) and look for the "Malibu Jukebox" CD within weeks.

matt
http://soundclick.com/matttyson

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Gershwin Demos Brian Used to Reimagine

2010-08-26T12:37:00.001-05:00

Sure to draw passionate interest from music scholars and
fans alike are the songs "The Like in I Love You" and "Nothing But Love."

The former is drawn from “Will You Remember Me?,” a song Gershwin
composed in 1924 for the musical “Lady, Be Good!,” which never made
it into the show. The latter is based on “Say My Say,” a 1929 song
fragment the Gershwin brothers never fully completed.

Have fun listening to these piano demos that Brian worked with to
complete these two new great songs. Click the buttons below to start
and stop music.>>>

"The Like In I Love You"
Piano Demo:		Completed Track:


"Nothing But Love"
Piano Demo:		Completed Track:

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ESQ's David Beard interviews Jan & Dean's Dean Torrence on the Batman Album

2010-08-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

Why did the two of you decide to record “Batman”?

Dean: As I remember, we were kind of privy to that Screen Gems had Batman in the works. We found out what the show was going to be like. We were told that the concept was slapstick.

We recognized — even without seeing it — that it would be right up our alley. It’s something that we would have done, had Jan and I been television producers. Since we were just musicians, we thought we could at least do the musical entity of Batman since we had the feeling that no one else would do it. Knowing the music industry, they would put a soundtrack out with just the different instrumental themes.
It was — more or less — something that we were pretty sure that we were going to appreciate. It’s obviously comedy, slapstick, and it’s obviously pop-art. We could see that whole pop-art thing coming and we figured, let’s be a part of that. >>>

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Beach Boy David Marks: :Albums that changed my life"

2010-08-22T21:52:00.000-05:00

Dick Dale: Surfer’s Choice

Dick Dale influenced our sound. We wanted to sound big like him. We didn’t sound like him musically, although we tried, but we got our Fender equipment based on what he used to try to emulate that Dick Dale wall of sound. In the early days of The Beach Boys, we didn’t have that many original songs so we filled our sets with covers and we did just about all the songs on “Surfer’s Choice.” We even recorded a few on the “Surfin’ USA” album. >>>

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BBC broadcasts The Beach Boys Story

2010-08-15T21:28:00.006-05:00

Note >>> The interviews with Dean Torrence, Fred Vail Nick Venet, Bruce Johnston, Audrey WIlson (and other family members and business associates) have some new-to-me backstories . . . three one hour shows . . .

The Beach Boys Story

-1. Beach Boards and Buggies

The Beach Boys Story. Bob Harris looks at the history of the Beach Boys in the 1st of a 6 part series. Part 1 looks at the influence of surfing on the band and how they started out from California to become global superstars. We even hear from the man who first booked them for their first headline set.

Broadcast on:

BBC 6 Music, 3:00am Friday 13th August 2010

Duration:

60 minutes

Available until:

4:02am Friday 20th August 2010

Categories:

Go to The Beach Boys Story site

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The Gospel According to ... Metalilica??

2010-08-15T15:06:00.000-05:00

The Day Metallica Came to Church

By Jeremy Reynalds, Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

CALGARY (ANS) -- The concept of the Lord speaking through heavy metal is a hard one for many Christians to swallow.

But that's the contention of a Canadian preacher whose book tying popular culture to the will of God is reportedly drawing attention from Christians worldwide.

According to a story by Bill Kaufmann of the Calgary Sun, John Van Sloten admits, however, the preaching that eventually led to his book, "The Day Metallica Came to Church," cut his Calgary flock's numbers in half.

"They thought I was going too far, throwing out the Bible completely," said Van Sloten, 49, pastor of New Hope Church, to the Calgary Sun.

He added, "In most other denominations, I'd be defrocked."

His congregation fell from 400 to 200 but Van Sloten kept to his sermons that linked the divine to the most unlikely of human experience.

"One of them dealt with God's gift of drink - in a lot of Christian circles that'd never fly," the Calgary Sun reported he said.

In 2004, the Calgary Sun said, Van Sloten told his flock how the heavy metal band Metallica's music embodied God's message of conquering injustice.
The band was playing a concert in Calgary at the time and, fascinated when told of the sermon but unable to attend, had a video crew record it.

Since then, the Calgary Sun said, Van Sloten has compiled his thoughts on pop culture ranging from the Calgary Flames to films like Crash. He has aligned them with Biblical passages into a book that he says has been widely praised.

Clerics from Australia to the UK have been inspired by his insights, the Calgary Sun reported Van Sloten said, which have also resulted in mention on CNN's Belief Blog.

"I've got church leaders from all over North America saying 'this is resonating' - they never really had the theology to back it up," the Calgary Sun reported he said.

Profits from the book, he says, won't go to him but towards the activities of his church, which holds Sunday services at West Hillhurst Community hall, 1940 6 Ave. N.W.

Even so, the former real estate developer said he knows skepticism over his intentions will abound.
"Time will tell if this is a fad or if I'm another huckster," the Calgary Sun reported Van Sloten said.

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Peter Ames Carlin Reflects on Listening Party Debut of Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin

2010-08-02T09:23:00.000-05:00

20th Century Boys: Brian Wilson and George Gershwin

By Peter Ames Carlin - Posted on 29 July 2010

I'm on a brief sojourn to L.A. just now, checking back into the Brian Wilson scene in pursuit of some up-close-n-personal journalism for the Times of the UK, the hometown paper and the good ol' blog. Also some book work tossed into the cracks, but that's every day these days. Most days, no matter where, feel long and frantic and panic-inducing. So power through and keep an ear on the horizon. Most days, nothing. But just now something's in the wind. Here comes "Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin," which on the face of it sounds unexpected and, you might think, impossible.

But listen, listen, listen.

There's a whole other sphere, a whole other web of influence and connection. You've already heard it from Brian, in fact -- consider the textural leaps and bounds in 'Good Vibrations,' the way "Surfin' USA," blends St. Louis r&b with jazz harmony, surf guitar, straight-up rock 'n' roll and more, and you get the idea. Or how about "The Girls on the Beach"? A whole song about social connection, about the easy mix of cultures, styles, ideas. The girls on the beach are all within reach, if you know what to do.

Brian Wilson knows what to do.

At the debut/listening party Brian & friends held at the Pacific Design place last night they spun the new record on vinyl (a few pops on the play-in and play-out grooves; sounded oddly beautiful) and the crowd of 100-plus (including mc/liner notes author David Wild, whose work speaks for itself, and whose boyish enthusiasm says even more for said work's depth of feeling) sat quietly from the unadorned harmonies in the "Rhapsody in Blue" intro through the amazing GG/BW collaobration "The Like in I Love You" and on and on, through the cornpone riverboat "I Got Plenty of Nothin" through the eerily cool surfin' noir of "Summertime," and beyond, beyond.

I sat near David Leaf, my old hero ("The Beach Boys and the California Myth") and for the last 10 years or so a friend and rabbinical figure, and got a charge absorbing it all alongside him. Some moments so surprising and lovely all you could do was look up, shake your head and laugh.

I do think it's that good.

Earlier, catching up with the band a few minutes before they trooped out to intro the album with a live performance of the "Rhapsody" opening, Brian perched on a sofa and looked, well, wonderful. His hair shaggy, his eyes full of sparks. Remember when he'd seem like the world's least happy zombie when he had to stand (let alone perform) in front of audiences? Last night he was raring to go, and delighted to be there. He walked up to Leaf at one point and said, 'This guy is magic! You walk into the room and I just feel great!"

Brian's music, the good stuff, anyway, makes me feel the same way. Everyone has peaks and valleys, and some BW releases are mixed bags - some tunes feel inspired, others feel a little more laboredt. But here's a great and unexpected twist: "BWRG" is the real thing, end to end. It's the heart of BW, interpreted by Himself, and seemingly unfiltered. It works on levels I can't even describe yet. Too soon, I need another ten or 20 spins to really get the hang of the songs, to grasp the connections, to trace the journey between young BW's primal bond to "Rhapsody in Blue" through the length of his own life and work, to this masterpiece of cultural/musical synthesis/imagination/artistry.

A small, beautiful thing. It's sitting here next to the computer in my hotel room. And really, s'wonderful.

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Al Jardine Live on WCBS FM

2010-07-23T16:19:00.003-05:00

Click headline to access ...

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ESQ Reviews New Album from Beach Boys' Al Jardine

2010-07-23T11:43:00.000-05:00

Al Jardine — A Postcard From California

Review by David M. Beard

Anyone can tell you that taking a road trip from Los Angeles to Big Sur on the California coastline is an experience full of majesty and beauty. The music of The Beach Boys — in its own unique way — represents that long stretch of road as much as it encompasses the sandy shores of Manhattan Beach, Venice Beach and beyond. Al Jardine's musical beginnings were in the homespun folk roots of The Kingston Trio.>>>

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Tom (It's Not Unusual) Jones Releases Unusual New Album

2010-07-11T14:43:00.003-05:00

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA  Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Sir Tom Jones goes Gospel
The singer from the South Wales Valleys Has Proved that ‘It is not unusual’ to sing praises to the Lord

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST Ministries
LOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) -- Back in the late 1970’s, Bob Dylan shocked his fans when he began to take a serious interest in Christianity, which led to the 1979 release of his first gospel album, “Slow Train Coming.” He followed it up with “Saved, in which Dylan was awarded a Grammy for Best Male Vocalist for "Gotta Serve Somebody." His third and last Gospel album came out in 1981 as “Shot of Love.”

Now another icon of the music world, Sir Tom Jones, the lad from Welsh town of Pontypridd, who is best known for his wild stage performances that sends the ladies wild, promises to shock his millions of fans around the world.

For weeks after his 70th birthday, the legendary singer is adding another page to his resume with his gospel-flavored album "Praise & Blame."

“Interpreting songs by the likes of John Lee Hooker, the Staple Singers and Mahalia Jackson, he adopts a rootsy style that's clearly close to his heart as well as his R&B roots,” writes By Paul Sexton for Billboard (www.billboard.com).

Sexton added, “The new album, whose tracks include Bob Dylan's ‘What Good Am I?,’ the Hooker cover ‘Burning Hell’ and ‘You Don't Knock,’ previously recorded by country star Don Gibson, is set for release July 27 in North America on Lost Highway, and a day earlier internationally on Island. The record launches Jones' new worldwide deal with Universal Music.”

Sexton then talked about Jones' friendship with Elvis Presley in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when both frequently headlined in rival "Sin City" (Las Vegas) casino ballrooms.

Tom Jones with Priscilla and Elvis Presley

He said that the two singers would often get together after their respective shows, not to carouse, but to sing. And what they sang may come as a surprise to fans of both performers.

“Elvis was more into gospel music than anything else,” Jones said. “We used to hang in his suite at the Hilton and sing songs like ‘The Old Rugged Cross.’ Elvis loved it.”

Sexton added that gospel vocal legend Mahalia Jackson, who I once interviewed in London, as an early inspiration.

“I remember singing ‘The Lord's Prayer’ in school, and the teacher said: ‘Why are you singing this like a Negro spiritual?' Jones recalled. “And I said: ‘I don't even know what that is.’

“I was very young, but they got the whole school together and I sang ‘The Lord's Prayer.’”
In another story, Laura Barton of The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk) spoke of her recent interview with Jones in London.

“Jones has made a career out of the unexpected,” she said. “In the 1960s, when the charts were filled with group singers, pop bands and Beatles wannabes with bright, sweet voices, he sang solo, belting out hits such as ‘Delilah’ and ‘What's New Pussycat?’ He conquered America and recast himself as a country singer before he succeeded in reviving his chart career in the late 1980s with a cover of the Prince song 'Kiss.' Later came duets with Cerys Matthews, Mousse T and Robbie Williams, albums recorded with Wyclef Jean and Jools Holland, Brit awards and charity singles with Rob Brydon.

“This year, he performs another volte-face, returning with what may well prove the finest recording of his career. 'Praise & Blame' is a collection of blues numbers and spirituals, Bob Dylan and John Lee Hooker songs, material that showcase Jones's remarkable voice; pared back and unadorned, it carries the weight and the ruminative quality of late Johnny Cash's final recordings.”

Laura Barton said that it began as a Christmas album. Island Records asked Jones to record “some carols, or something religious for Christmas.”

Jones told her that he was not “averse to the idea,” but was in “no rush to hurry it through in time to be placed under the tree.”

The singer told her, “We said, ‘If we're going to do this, why don't we take a bit of time and get it done right?’” he explained. “And it was suggested, thank God, that we approach the producer Ethan Johns.”
Barton said that Johns is famed for his "raw, organic approach to recording," and for being the son of an even more famous producer, Glyn Johns.

“I'd heard of him,” Jones says. “I knew who his father was. And he said, ‘I like it to be real, we pick the songs, get in the studio, get in there with a rhythm section and try them out.’ And I said, 'Well, that sounds good to me.'”

Barton went on to say that they started with two songs, “Did Trouble Me” and the gospel number “Run On.” It was, she added, while recording the latter that the direction revealed itself.

“Suddenly it happened,” Jones says, “it caught fire.” After that, the path seemed obvious. “We thought, 'Let's look for some spiritual things, uplifting things, things that mean something.’ He says it almost tenderly.

“And they have to be strong when you've only got a rhythm section, they have to speak for themselves, really. And so we got to the recording studio and said, “Well, how do we treat this?’ Song by song.”

For Jones, Baron continued, it was in many ways a return to the beginning. He grew up the son of a miner in Pontypridd, in south Wales, “where music was a very big thing, especially singing. I don't know whether it was because you didn't have to have an instrument – because you've already got it, it's built in. And it's expressive – I think the voice is more expressive than anything else. So coming from that area, I was encouraged to sing as a child.”

Mahalia Jackson in London with Dan Wooding in the background. Shortly after this was taken, Wooding did the last-ever interview with the famed Gospel singer before she died.

They sang everywhere, Sir Tom said, at birthday parties, at weddings and at funerals.
“There's one in Wales that we do called ‘The Old Rugged Cross,’” he says a little mistily. “It's sung at all funerals. And I wanted to get it on here, on this album, an a cappella version, but it didn't fit.” At school, they tried to make him sing in the choir. “But I used to shy away from it,” he says.

“I didn't like to be restricted, because when you're in a choir, you have a part to sing and you sing it. I always liked singing on my own. Even when I was carol singing door-to-door, I would go by myself. If I went with the boys, they would always mess it up because we're all loud; in Wales, we do sing loud, even if they're out of tune.”

Barton said that by his own estimation, he “didn't shine much” in music class. “Because they wanted you to sing in a certain way,” he explains. “But then on a Friday afternoon in the junior school, we had little concerts. So I'd get up and sing – just songs of the day ... ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ was a big song when I was a kid, Vaughn Monroe did it, and Frankie Laine, a bunch of people did it. But again it was one of those songs – cowboy, country, gospelly.”
He sang in church, too, of course, a Presbyterian chapel where he was always late for the service and the heavy sound of the organ put the fear of God into him.

“So these spiritual songs, the gospel songs on this album, that's very natural to me," he said. "It's not like stepping into an area that I haven't tried yet. I know what these songs are; it's my cup of tea if you like. This is stuff that I listen to, that I've always liked.”

Even in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Barton said, when Jones began his music career in earnest, singing in the clubs and pubs with a cover band, he sang with just a rhythm section and drew on the old songs, the songs that stirred him.

“It was a cover band, you know?” he says. “And they were doing pop songs when I met them, they wanted to do more sort of Beatles songs and things that were happening then. But what I did was get them to do more 1950s rock’n’roll, which I loved. And I was reverting to gospelly stuff. I used to do ballads like ‘I Believe,’ which is a religious song.”

Barton said that on “Praise & Blame” his voice has “never sounded so sultry or so rich – but the themes are more autumnal, issues of choice and responsibility.”

She said that even the title, he's quick to explain, is a reference to the life he has lived. “I've been praised throughout my career, and I've been blamed for things, too,” he says neatly.

She concluded by saying that “you sense that Jones himself is more than ready to move on: he's more contemplative than one might expect, and there is a faint sadness to him too.

He talks of his wife's emphysema, of realizing he himself is not invincible, of how singing a particular line in ‘Did Trouble Me’ catches him: “If I let things stand that shouldn't be,” he sings it softly.

“I suppose the older I've got, the more I've thought it, about the fact that if you do an album, you've got to think, ‘Now, what is this album?’ Not just do a mish-mash of songs, like I used to do,” he said.

Sir Tom concluded the interview by referring to the hymns of his childhood, saying, “When I heard it, I thought, ‘This is me,'” he says softly, “‘This is my meat, this is where I come from.’”

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Bono: "The story of Christ makes sense to me."

2010-07-07T22:19:00.000-05:00

Bono interview with Jann S. Wenner of Rolling Stone (November 3, 2005)

What is your religious belief today? What is your concept of God?
    I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in "straw poverty"' i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me.

How does it make sense?
    As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It's so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess tat would make m e a Christian. ALthough I don't use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I'm   the worst example of it...

Do you pray...?
    I try to take time out every day in prayer and meditation. I feel as at home in a Catholic cathedral as in a revival tent...

How big an influence is the Bible on your songwriting? How much do you draw on its imagery, its ideas?
    It sustains me.

As a belief or as a literary thing?
    I'm the sort of character who's got to have an anchor. I want to be around immovable objects. U want to build my house on a rock, because even if the waters are not high around the house, I'm going to bring back a storm. I have that in me. So it's sort of underpinning for me.
    ...I let it speak to me ... They call it rhema. It's a hard word to translate from Greek, but it sort of means it changes in the moment you're in. It seems to do that for me.

You're saying it's a living thing?
    It's a plumb line for me. In the Scriptures, it is self-described as a clear pool that you cna see yourself in, to see where you're at, if you're still enough.

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New Podcast with Eve of Destruction's Barry McGuire

2010-07-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

Click the headline for a wide-ranging interview exploring this 60's legend's journey through:

"'Hair' on Broadway, drugs, rock & roll"
From apocalypse to transcendence (and the paperback book in Mamas and Papas' Denny Doherty's house that turned him on to a new spirituality)
LSD. Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra

Is Eve of Destruction more prayer than protest? and why the year 2012?

Is McGuire a Performer? Politically incorrect? Prophetic? A Preacher ... you decide! Click Here

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45 Year Old Song Still Relevant

2010-07-07T15:23:00.000-05:00

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Pet Sounds - #6 Top Concept Album / #7 Groundbreaking on Songfacts

2010-07-06T14:35:00.002-05:00

6. CONCEPT ALBUM - Pet Sounds - Beach Boys

Pet Sounds is a 1966 album recorded by American pop group The Beach Boys. The group's ninth studio album, it has been widely ranked as one of the most influential records ever released in Western pop music and has been ranked at No. 1 in several music magazines' lists of greatest albums of all time, including New Musical Express, The Times, Mojo Magazine, and Pure Pop's lists. It was No. 2 in Rolling Stone Magazine's list. According to Acclaimedmusic.net, Pet Sounds is the most acclaimed album of all time by music journalists.

~ Cyberjudge

= = = =

7. GROUNDBREAKING - Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys

In researching what I was going to write here, I've discovered several things. First, that this album is almost totally Brian Wilson, from conception to execution, with Tony Asher collaborating on the writing. That the idea for it stemmed from Wilson's introduction to and use of LSD, and that it is most certainly his response to The Beatles, both Revolver and Rubber Soul (depending on the source). I've learned that although at the time of its release it wasn't commercially successful, it has become the most acclaimed album of all time by critics and journalists, and is #2 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Elton John, and Bob Dylan have all gone on record calling it a major influence, and one of the best albums of all time. George Martin has said that Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band would never have existed without Pet Sounds. All this acclaim is almost entirely due to Brian Wilson, his conception, his songs, his production. Wilson's production and his use of the studio as an instrument (a la Phil Spector) was the final piece of the puzzle. I can't discover any one thing that caused this to be such an influential and groundbreaking album, other than the fact that it is a testament to the genius that is Brian Wilson. ~ cyberjudge/Lucky
Buy the album on Amazon

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Eve of Destruction - 2010 Version by Barry McGuire

2010-07-03T20:48:00.001-05:00

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Endless Summer Quarterly Celebrates Summer With A New CD

2010-06-28T22:14:00.001-05:00

THE WORLD’S LEADING BEACH BOYS PUBLICATION

ENDLESS SUMMER QUARTERLY, INC.
CELEBRATES THE BOYS OF SUMMER

Endless Summer Quarterly Celebrates Summer With A New CD

With The Beach Boys 50th Anniversary over six months away, Endless Summer Quarterly (now celebrating its 23rd year) is pleased to be bringing subscribers of the fanzine a brand new 14-track compilation featuring music from Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks, and Dean Torrence, as well as material from the late Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Jan Berry. The complimentary disc is included in the Summer 2010 issue available exclusively to subscribers until October 1, when the edition will be available for individual purchase.

ESQ editor David Beard is also the featured writer in Goldmine Magazine’s “Summer Surf Issue” in which Beard has contributed three feature articles: an interview with Al Jardine on the 45th anniversary of the Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!!) album, vintage q&a with Jan & Dean and “The 10 Albums that changed my life” by David Marks; he has also contributed a two-page spread on compiling the complimentary CD titled, “Behind the scenes: The making of the ‘Boys of Summer’ CD.” The July 16 edition [Issue #782] is available now.

The rest of 2010 looks great for subscribers of ESQ, with an upcoming special edition on the 40th Anniversary of Sunflower… and interviews with Brian Wilson and Al Jardine on their respective album releases. Subscribers of ESQ have come to expect accuracy, quality and fun, and that’s what each edition delivers for the fans in celebration of The Beach Boys’ amazing legacy.

Endless Summer Quarterly was established in 1987 by editors emeritus Rick Edgil and Phil Mast in San Diego. Editor emeritus Lee Dempsey and current editor David Beard began publishing in Charlotte, NC with just over 200 subscribers in the summer of 1993. Within a few years the East Coast team had established a new following of readers with an incredible increase of over 1,000 readers. With the passing of Carl Wilson in February of 1998, ESQ refocused on the individuals and their musical contributions both to the band’s history as well as their individual output. Considered to be the world’s leading Brian Wilson/Beach Boys/Jan & Dean publication by the group members, their associates and historians worldwide, ESQ continues to create historically memorable editions with David Beard’s positive vision and desire to celebrate the band’s legacy.

ESQuarterly.com now includes a complete back issue order form (dating back to 1993) with a breakdown of every edition as a downloadable PDF file.

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Original Beach Boy Releases First Solo Album

2010-06-24T21:08:00.000-05:00

Big Sur, CA — Al Jardine's "A Postcard From California" will be
released exclusively on iTunes, Tuesday, June 29, 2010.

Jardine, a founding member of the legendary Beach Boys, has been
working on the new album over the last few years. He will
be joined by some very special guests on this disc including his
former band-mates Brian Wilson, Mike Love, David Marks, Bruce Johnston,
his his two sons Matt and Adam Jardine, as well as Steve Miller,
Gerry Beckley & Dewey Bunnell of America, David Crosby, Neil Young,
Glen Campbell, Flea, Scott Mathews, Norton Buffalo Alec Baldwin
and more...

Jardine has said that the album will touch upon California's history,
climate and energy problems as well as various ecological topics. It also
revisits his #1 hit with the Beach Boys, "Help Me Rhonda" with guest
vocals by Steve Miller and Matt Jardine. A video of the song is posted on
his web site, www.AlJardine.com.

One of the songs, "Don't Fight The Sea" was recorded in the late 70s/80 for
a proposed environmentally themed solo album between Jardine and Mike Love,
but was never completed. Though the song was not intended for the Beach Boys,
the guys were, nevertheless, happy to lend their voices to it.
It is a timely theme in this year of the Gulf oil spill, and global warming.

Throughout the years, Jardine has written and produced most of the
ecological and social-themed songs for Beach Boys albums, including
the "California Saga" suite from the group's 1973 Holland album,
"Don't Go Near the Water" and "Lookin' At Tomorrow."

Also appearing as a special guest in an impromptu video is actor Alec Baldwin,
who currently stars as Jack Donaghy on the hit NBC sitcom 30 Rock. On the track,
“Tidepool Interlude,” Baldwin is seen reading a moving tribute to California and its
natural beauty written by Stephen John Kalinich as Jardine produces the session.
The video will also be released on Jardine's web site and YouTube Tuesday, June 29.

For more information on the new album visit his official website www.AlJardine.com.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

JARDINE TO SUPPORT ALBUM WITH TOUR.
Big Sur, CA — Al Jardine, a founding member of the legendary Beach Boys,
new album "A Postcard From California" will be
release exclusively on iTunes, Tuesday, June 29, 2010.

The most anticipated solo album from a founding member of the band,
Jardine will be supporting the release with a mini-solo tour this summer with
"Endless Summer" touring band featuring the original
Beach Boys' rhythm section, and sons Matt and Adam Jardine.

"The songs on this album have a timely theme, especially in this year of the Gulf oil spill,
and global warming," said Jardine. "However, my live show will have plenty of hit songs
for all audineces to enjoy."

The "Postcard From California album will touch upon California's history, climate and energy problemsas well as various ecological topics. It also revisits his #1 hit with the Beach Boys,
"Help Me Rhonda" with additional vocals by Steve Miller and Matt Jardine.
An exclusive video of the recording session is posted on his official web site,
www.AlJardine.com. Vist the web site for album music samples, tour dates reviews
and more exclusive content.

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60's Eve of Duestrucvtion Song Revisited

2010-06-24T17:19:00.001-05:00

Barry McGuire revises Eve of Destruction

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Endless Summer Quarterly - should be a great summer listen!

2010-06-18T23:12:00.000-05:00

Looks like the current (hot-off-the-press) issue of ESQ is a great read and a great listen for Beach Boys fans!

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"The Beach Boys' best songs aren't about the beach ..."

2010-06-06T15:18:00.000-05:00

Beach Boys: Friends/Smiley Smile

[I] got this record on vinyl for free, and [it] finally confirmed that The Beach Boys’ best songs aren’t about the beach or summer.

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Jeffrey Foskett Produces New Dolenz Album

2010-06-04T08:39:00.000-05:00

FOSKETT PRODUCES "KING FOR A DAY"

BEACH BOYS BAND VETERAN JEFFREY FOSKETT PRODUCES "KING FOR A DAY"

A new album by former Monkee Micky Dolenz entitled "King For A Day"
will be released on August 24. The album was produced by Jeffrey Foskett,
the former Beach Boys band member and current bandleader for Brian Wilson's band.

"Micky is an incredible vocalist and musician," said Foskett. "Working with an accomplished
artist of his caliber made it easy to produce this record. I'm proud to be part of this project."

"King For A Day" is an homage to singer/songwriter Carol King. A prominent songwriter for The Monkees,
Carol King penned a number of the group's most memorable hits, such as "Pleasant Valley Sunday,"
and "Sometime In The Morning." The album includes 15 classic songs from the Carole King catalog.

The first single from the album is a duet with teen-star Emily Osment from TV's Hannah Montana
on the King classic "I Feel The Earth Move."

The single is NOW available at iTunes EUROPE.

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CNN: Bob Greene on Beach Boys Nearing 50 Good Vibration Summers

2010-05-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

The Beach Boys in 1964. From left, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Bob Greene says it's been nearly 50 years since Beach Boys started singing and touring
He says their songs are American classics and still have resonance
Greene: "They are America's enduring soundtrack of summer"

RELATED TOPICS

Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose most recent books are "Late Edition: A Love Story" and "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams."

(CNN) -- The dirty and tattered piece of paper, with remnants of thick black industrial-strength tape still stuck to its edges, would not necessarily seem to be a harbinger of summer.
But those capitalized words running down the page ...
CATCH. SAFARI. CAL GIRLS. BE TRUE. GET AROUND ...
I pulled the piece of paper from the surface of the stage right after the show had ended.>>>

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Bruce Johnston:"Music comes only from God"

2010-04-22T11:54:00.001-05:00

I Write The Songs

sung by Barry Manilow ... composed by Bruce Johnston

Album: Tryin' To Get The Feeling Released: 1975

US Chart: 1

View Lyrics

Songfacts: You can leave comments about the song at the bottom of the page.

This was written by Bruce Johnston, who was a member of The Beach Boys. The song is sometimes erroneously rumored to be about Brian Wilson. Johnston cleared this up when he told us: "The Captain & Tennille were the first artists to record my song 'I Write The Songs.' I never wrote 'I Write The Songs' about Brian Wilson. I wrote it about 'where music comes from' (for me, music comes only from God). My song has nothing to do with Brian! I admire Brian Wilson's great melodies and, as a member of the Beach Boys, I'm singing these fantastic songs in concert year after year."

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Endless Summer Quarterly - 2010 Coming Attractions

2010-04-06T14:09:00.003-05:00

THE WORLD’S LEADING BEACH BOYS PUBLICATION

ENDLESS SUMMER QUARTERLY, INC.

ANNOUNCES EXCITING NEWS FOR 2010

Endless Summer Quarterly Sets Their Sights On An Informative and Exciting 2010

It may not be The Beach Boys 50^th Anniversary, but that isn’t slowing down Endless Summer Quarterly (now celebrating its 23rd year), ESQ editor and publisher David Beard reveals that 2010 is going to be an exciting year for fans of the Beach Boys, and subscribers of ESQ.

      The magazine’s first announcement – the teaming with Goldmine Magazine’s parent company F&W Media as its printing source – comes at the same time as the welcoming of new editorial contributor Andrew G. Doe, as fulltime contributor to The Beach Boys fan publication. Additionally, Doe has moved his Bellagio website to ESQ’s online presence (ESQuarterly.com/Bellagio). The addition of Doe as a full-time contributor, along with current scribes Craig Slowinski and Ian Rusten, make ESQ an invaluable source of information for the well-informed fans of The Beach Boys, as well as an authentic digest on America’s Band.
      What do The Beach Boys think of ESQ? “ESQ goes deep into the history of the Beach Boys music, and is the most definitive word on our history,” says lead singer Mike Love. Al Jardinestates, “ESQ is an inspirational read for anyone interested in learning about the Beach Boys.” “I think ESQ is the best institution that keeps the Beach Boys legacy alive,” said David Marks. What’s Brian Wilson think? He offers, “I love ESQ!”
      The current Spring edition – available now – features the history of Mike & Dean and their highly successful collaborative efforts. One of the newer aspects of the ESQ experience is the ESQ Juke Box, located at ESQuarterly.com. “This time around, the reader gets the Spring issue and can visit the site and actually listen to the Mike & Dean era material, including the rare ‘Be True To Your Bud’ promotional single,” says Beard.
      What’s the rest of 2010 look like for subscribers of ESQ? An upcoming complimentary CD, special editions on the 40^th Anniversary of Sunflower… “More, lots more,” says Beard, “And that’s what subscribers of ESQ have come to expect; the magazine exists for the fans and the celebration of an amazing legacy.
      Endless Summer Quarterly was established in 1987 by editors emeritus Rick Edgil and Phil Mast in San Diego, in 1993 editor emeritus Lee Dempsey and current editor David Beard began publishing in Charlotte, NC with just over 200 subscribers in the summer of 1993. Within a few years the East Coast team had established a new following of readers with an incredible increase of over 1,000 readers. With the passing of Carl Wilson in February of 1998 and The Beach Boys pursuit of individual musical interests ESQ refocused on the individuals and their musical contributions both to the band’s history as well as their individual output. Considered to be the world’s leading Brian Wilson/Beach Boys/Jan & Dean publication by the group members, their associates and historians worldwide ESQ continues to create historically memorable editions with David Beard’s positive vision and desire to celebrate the band’s legacy.
      ESQuarterly.com now includes a complete back issue order form (dating 15 years back to 1993) with a breakdown of every edition as a downloadable PDF file. The new “user-friendly” site is only the beginning. Watch for more ESQ announcements that will provide subscribers and online viewers with a better product and more enticing elements including an unheralded new staff of Beach Boys historians in the coming months.

For further information on ENDLESS SUMMER QUARTERLY,

ENDLESS SKY and ESQUARTERLY.COM contact:

Editor@esquarterly.com

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Little Honda Lead Singer on Reunion Tour with Love Song

2010-04-02T10:53:00.000-05:00

TENTATIVE REUNION TOUR DATES

April 14 CC Morningstar, Jack Abeelen
April 15 CCCM KWVE 25th Anniversary Concert
April 16 CCCM KWVE 25th Anniversary Concert
April 18 (Tentative) CC Montebello, Pancho Juarez
April 21 CC Packing House, Ed Ray
April 22 (Tentative) CC South Bay, Steve Mays
April 28 CC Golden Springs, Raul Ries

May 1 CC Refuge, Bill Welsh
May 2 CC Refuge, Bill Welsh
May 12 CC Chino Valley, David Rosales
May 5 CC Joshua Springs, Gerald Hagerman
May 15 Maranatha Chapel, Ray Bentley
May 19 CC Downey, Jeff Johnson
May 23 Anaheim Convention Center

June 2 CC Horizon No. County, Bob Botsford
June 5 CC East Anaheim, Bob Kopeny
June 7 CCCM Pastor’s Conference
June 16 Horizon, Mike MacIntosh
June 23 CC Vista, Rob Salvato
June 30 CC Chino Hills, Jack Hibbs

For updated information on the services and concerts, please go to Chuck's itinerary page at: http://www.chuck.org/itin.html

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Happy Easter

2010-04-01T09:21:00.001-05:00

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Remebering Carl WIlson ...

2010-03-22T20:10:00.002-05:00

I am writing to you on a personal note.

Ten years ago I lost my 23 year old son to cancer. We lost Carl Wilson too for the same reason. Since then I have spent my time helping others. I walk in September for the American Cancer Socitety and I am also team captain for Relay For Life in Lake Elsinore, Cal. My slogan is "Help me to fight back and stop losing loved ones". I am asking for donations help the doctors find a cure. You can donate and say "in the memory of" or in honor of whoever you may have lost or now has cancer. Please help me with this. Go to the site www.elsinorerelay.com my team is United for a Cure.

Thank you, Steve Hawkins

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Billy Hinsche: On the Road with the Beach Boys

2010-03-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

Billy Hinsche: From Dino, Desi & Billy to the Beach Boys

By Charles Bermant

(Originally Published: 03/12/2010, Sonic Boomers)

The Beach Boys were at a turning point in 1974. They had spent the previous six years in the commercial wilderness cranking out arty, clever albums, but there emerged a renewed interest in the surf/car sounds that first built their reputation. So this particular tour, presented in an often ragged video directed by band member Billy Hinsche as part of a film school project, is basically the last gasp of the more cerebral version of the Beach Boys.

Hinsche has spent his postgraduate days providing backup for the Beach Boys--an occasional member of the regular band followed by a spot as musical director for Al Jardine's Beach Boys offshoot. He's now pulled together 1974--On the Road With the Beach Boys from the raw tape, much of which features the Beach Boys and their backing band fooling around offstage. He's blended this with current interviews with some of the participants, shot in black&white in order to match the original footage.  Hinsche, 58, has been onstage since he was 13, when he was the one member of Dino, Desi & Billy without a famous relative. That changed when his sister married Carl Wilson, and he has been a member of the Beach Boys' extended family since. In the meantime, he's had a front row to all the band's highs and lows, legal squabbles and musical triumphs.

He spoke to us from his home in Nevada, where he teaches music in between calls to play with one old friend or another.  

Sonic Boomers: How did this project happen?

Billy Hinsche: In 1974 I was working toward a degree at UCLA and it was a class project. I got a lot of film, put it away and forgot about it. Recently, I was looking through my garage and found the video reels and turned them into this movie. I tightened up a lot of the scenes that dragged on a bit, and edited it into the final product. In a lot of it I was just getting the feel of the camera, so it's pretty loose.

For my next project I'd like to do something about Carl. I have a lot of home movies, Super 8 stuff that doesn't have any sound, but it's in color. I'd like to pull that all together. I'd really like to share this; I think it would be a great project.

SB: How did people feel about being filmed back then?

BH: They loved it. The camera was like a magnet. People would run up and want to be filmed. It was a novelty. People in the midwest would see these guys from Hollywood, come up and say "hey, we want to be in your movie." It was all very innocent, not like some of the malicious stuff that goes on today.

SB: What was it like being in the Beach Boys in 1974?

BH: It was a great time. Rolling Stone had just named us band of the year. There was a lot of room to stretch out and take prolonged solos. It was a really interesting configuration, a very tight unit. It was different every night, depending on where we were playing. We had our "meat and potatoes" set, where we would do the surfing songs, or the longer set that had more of the later stuff.

SB: How was it different from how the band is today?

BH: I did see the band recently, and they sounded pretty good. I enjoyed the show. It has more to do with the songs themselves than who is in the band. The audience loved it, they don't care about the band's history or the politics. The music is still strong. I'm still friendly with most of the guys. And I've known (Mike Love's son and current band member) Christian Love all his life. He's a good kid, and has as much right to be onstage as anyone. He's family.

SB: If Al Jardine were to sing with the new band would it necessarily improve the sound?

BH: I think so. It would mean a lot for the fans because Al was was one of the main voices, and his voice is still in excellent shape. I can actually see both sides here. I understand why Al feels what he does, and I understand Mike too. But the good news is that everyone is talking to each other; they are more friendly and there has been a rapprochement. It may be time to make peace, considering that the 50th anniversary of when the band started is coming up. I'm not trying to tease you here, I don't have any inside information. I'm just saying that something could happen.

SB: What do you think when you listen to the Dino, Desi & Billy records?

BH: I don't listen to them very often. When I do, they sound good, they were a lot of fun. We had a good time recording them. We had a great band, the whole Wrecking Crew. Although we were shocked at first when we arrived at the studio we were surprised that we weren't going to be playing our own instruments. We didn't understand how this could happen. We had these teenage dreams that we could play our own instruments competently. We were wrong.

SB: But it's pretty raw, and sounds like you could be playing.

BH: They played like a trio, with three pieces. There were not a lot of keyboard fills in there, which would have suggested that it wasn't us. There was a lot of percussion, and drum fills everywhere. You would listen to the record and think "Hey, that Desi really can play the drums." It wasn't Desi. But the thing was, he really could play the drums. Dino, Desi & Billy aren't in the Rock Hall of Fame, and we never sold a million records. But we were on the Ed Sullivan Show, which was a big deal. There were some people who said we only were a success because of who our families were, that we had an instant success. But our first record, which we played on the Dean Martin Show, went nowhere. "I'm a Fool" sold a lot because it was a good record, You can't make people buy something they don't like.

We are like a lot of groups from that time that cannot reunite, since one of our members has died. But he didn't die of a drug overdose or in some other embarrassing way, he died defending his country. That was pretty strong, a good way to go.

SB: Your first album had three Dylan songs. How did that happen?

BH: The way we picked out the songs is that producer Lee Hazlewood would come in and give us all copies of Billboard and Cash Box charts. He'd tell us to pick out the songs we liked and we would learn to play them. It wasn't so much picking Dylan, it was picking the Byrds. We loved the Byrds. It was all connected. We'd go to Dino's house, and Terry Melcher was over there because he was seeing one of the Martin girls, and he'd bring Roger McGuinn, who was called 'Jim' back then. Roger and I have stayed in touch. He just sent me an e-mail, to join his Linkedin network.

SB: Did you ever meet Dylan?

BH: A couple of times, in passing. He was very quiet. One time I was walking into a club with Rodney Bingenheimer and Dylan was walking out. There's a picture of that.

SB: A picture of you and Dylan?

BH: No, I took the picture of Dylan and Rodney.

SB: Do you see a lot of the people you knew in the 1960s?

BH: I see a lot of people when they come to Las Vegas. There are a lot of survivors. Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from the Turtles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Peter Noone. We are all survivors, like if we were all in the same class together. We all had some great moments.

SB: You are one of the few people in your "class" to have gone to college, much less get a degree. What has that meant to you?

BH: It has really helped me in life. I know how to get a project done, which is something you learn from writing a term paper. I learned a lot about history, language, art and a lot of other subjects. Even though I never had an office job it made me a better person.

I had gotten an offer to join the Beach Boys as a full-time member in the late 1960s, which I accepted. But the manager of the band and my parents got together and decided that it would be better if I went to college. It was a shaky time for the Beach Boys, and the future of that job was uncertain. As it turned out I played with the band while I was in college, in the summertime.

But I was living at home, under my parents' roof. My parents had not attended college. My sister had married young, to Carl, and had not gotten her college degree. So it fell to me to bring one home for the family.

SB: How did people treat you, when you were in school?

BH: No one knew who I was. I hadn't been on TV for a few years and wasn't really recognizable. There were 20,000 kids there, and it was a big campus.

SB: What does it mean to have played in the Beach Boys?

BH: That you are pretty darn good at what you do, and that you must be doing something right to get an opportunity to play in one of the greatest bands ever. It's a credit to you that you were invited to participate, and that you made the cut. It also means that you can get the call to come back any time. I joke about this, but unless you've been fired and rehired, and fired and rehired, you really haven't been in the Beach Boys.

Hinsche is selling the DVD of from his http://www.billyhinsche.com website.

— Republished: 03/12/2010

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Tommy James Reveals Secret to Crystal Blue Persuasion

2010-03-10T21:13:00.004-06:00

re: TOMMY JAMES:

Still LOTS of buzz going on about Tommy James' new book "Me, The Mob And The Music". Artie Wayne was kind enough to share some of his recent website postings with our readers:

TOMMY JAMES’ SHOCKING NEW BOOK! “ME,THE MOB AND THE MUSIC”

When Tommy James and the Shondells released “Hanky Panky” in 1964, Tommy was still going to High School. He heard a local band, The Spinners (no relation to hit band), play the song at a local bar to an enthusiastic response from the crowd. The next day Tommy checked the record guide at the Spin-It record shop, where he worked, and found it listed as the B-side to a 1963 Raindrops single, “That Boy John.” by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Tommy and his group recorded it, put it out, and it bombed!

Two years later a local Pittsburgh deejay started spinning it at record hops, which prompted radio airplay and a bootleg, which sold 80,000 records!

That’s when Tommy took “Hanky Panky” to New York to show it to all the major labels, who loved and wanted to release it. Although Roulette Records, a company known more for their forty fives than for their singles, was at the bottom of the list, they got the master. It seems Roulette’s owner, the infamous but charming, Morris Levy, called each record company head, and told them, “It’s my fuckin’ record … back off!”

Although I thought “Hanky Panky” was good, I never would have guessed that it was just first of an incredible string of hits that would eventually give Tommy James and the Shondells combined sales of over a 100 million records!

I became friendly with Tommy in 1968, when Morris Levy gave me and my partner Kelli Ross our own label distributed by Roulette and sent me on a tour promoting my album as “Shadow” Mann with Tommy, at the Height of his popularity (“Crimson and Clover”, “Crystal Blue Persuasion”, “Mirage”) .

It was during this time that Morris sent me to promote "Come and Live With Me", and my protege Sissy Spacek a / k / a “Rainbo”) who was promoting her single "John, You Went Too Far This Time", to Cleveland to do the “Upbeat” TV show. We all hung out and had a great time until Tommy made us miss our flight back to New York because he had to go back to his hotel where he had forgotten his stash of hundreds of diet pills.

When I heard Tommy had written a book, “Me, the Mob, and the Music”, I wanted to read it and interview him before he was forced to hide out or go into the Witness Protection Program. I wanted to know more about his music and the stories behind the songs. I also wanted to hear how he finally won his battle with drug addiction.

Of course, I wondered what he would say about Morris Levy, a man who up until now has only been whispered about … usually by people who really didn’t know him.

Although I was apprehensive about having a label with Morris and being an artist for the notorious Roulette records as “Shadow” Mann, I felt somewhat safe because my silent partner in my publishing company was Irving Green (who owned Mercury and Smash Records), who was not only my partner and Kelli Ross’ father, but also Morris Levy’s best friend.

I always considered Tommy James, Roulette’s top artist, and his records to be ahead of their time, but I wonder how many people know that he was a major creative influence on the Beatles. How many people are aware that George Harrison even wrote a few songs for him (which were eventually passed on because they too much in the vein of “Mony, Mony”).

Now I had a chance not only to see how the infamous but charming Morris Levy and Roulette promoted records, but also how Tommy James made them! One day I was up at the label walking past Morris’ office and I heard some great music coming out. I couldn’t help but stop and put my ear a little closer to the door. SUDDENLY … the door swings open and I’m a bit scared to see a startled, serious looking Morris less than a foot away from me!

Then a smile sweeps across his face as he grabs my arm and says, “Shadow … I want you to meet somebody.” Then he introduces me to Tommy James, who brought by a test pressing of his next single, “Crimson and Clover”. From the beginning it sounds like a hit, but when it reaches the end and goes into an electronic chant “Crimson and Clover … over and over”, it sounds like a classic!

(Here's the original clip of "CRIMSON AND CLOVER" 1969) http://www.faniq.com/video/Tommy-James--the-Shondells-Crimson-in-Clover-YouTube-38590

When my pals at Spectropop and Forgotten Hits, the ‘60s and ‘70s music forums, heard I was interviewing Tommy, they submitted six pages of questions. Two of those pages were filled with questions that basically asked, “How did you get that sound on “Crimson and Clover”?

Tommy said, “We had done the record with tremolo on the guitar. It's just a built-in sound on guitar amplifiers. When I played the guitar, we recorded it with tremolo pretty much in synch with the music. In other words, we tried to make it so that it was vibrating at the same speed that the drums were playing. So we made the whole record that way. And then at the end, it was like one of those whimsical ideas, we said, "Why don't we put it on the voice?" So that's what we did ... we ran the vocal mike through an Ampeg guitar amp, turned on the tremolo and miked it, and ran it back through the board. It was just that simple. What was so amazing back then, if you wanted to make a sound wiggle, you had to basically do it yourself. There was no button you could push on a synthesizer, you basically had to build the circuits yourself and everything else. So that's what we did, we just ran the vocal mike through the guitar amp, and then miked the amp and ran it back through the board."

“Crimson and Clover” was not only a major point in their career turning them overnight from AM singles artists into FM album artists; it was also the first of the hits that Tommy James and the Shondells created themselves. After working with producers Ritchie Cordell and Bo Gentry on his earlier records, “I Think We’re Alone Now”, and “Mony, Mony”. ” Tommy says, “Those guys were the best and we learned a lot about producing and getting new sounds from them!”

I then I told him that Forgotten Hit’s Kent Kotal, wanted to know if there are any stories about “Crystal Blue Persuasion”. Tommy said, “That’s from the Crimson and Cover” album. At that point we had drastically changed our style. It was a difficult record to make. We completely over produced it, so gradually we started pulling instruments out, guitars, congas, percussion, etc. until it became as you know it.”

Artie – “So basically you let it breathe”

Tommy – “Yeah, we let it breathe … and it came to life!”

Artie - “There has been a lot of speculation about the meaning of “Crystal Blue Persuasion”. I always thought you were writing about Crystal Meth.”

Tommy – (smiles) “No. It’s about my conversion to Christianity … just listen to the lyric.” =http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN38vED24Eg

The more time I spent up at Roulette I started to believe more and more of the stories I’d heard about Morris. One day I saw him and Nate McCalla, his friend and partner in Calla Records, getting off the back elevator with a dozen hot TV sets, giving me the pick of the litter!

Although I was honored to sit in on some of Morris’ meetings there were times when I’d leave the room for fear of hearing too much … especially when the conversation would turn to Morris’ favorite forms of promotion … payola and intimidation.

Tommy told me about his first day up at Roulette, when he overheard Morris and some of his pals, talking about beating up some guy for bootlegging his records, then resumed the conversation as if nothing happened.

Tommy actually tells dozens of compelling stories in his book, “Me, the Mob, and the Music”, which made my hair stand on end … or laugh, sometimes both at the same time!

I told him how my producer Ron Haffkine and I would sit in Morris’ office while he was on the phone “encouraging” disc jockeys to play my records. “You play the Shadow’s records … or I’ll break your legs!”

Then Tommy told me something that made my mouth drop open!

(Don'tcha just love a great cliff-hanger ending?!?!? Want more of Artie's interview with Tommy James??? Then just click on the link below for "the rest of the story"!!!) kk

http://artiewayne.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/part-3-tommy-james-interview-me-the-mob-and-the-music/

YOU CAN BUY TOMMY JAMES’ “ME, THE MOB, AND THE MUSIC” ON HIS WEBSITE http://www.tommyjames.com/

Thanks to members of Forgotten hits, Alan O’Day, “Country” Paul Payton, Brooks Arthur, Ed Salamon, Alan Karr, Jim Cassidy, Kent Kotal, Dee Trane, Patti Dahlstrom, Ayrton Mugnaini, Robby Leff, Art Munson, AJC, and Matthew David, for the questions this article is based on..

Regards,

Artie Wayne

http://artiewayne.wordpress.com/about-artie-wayne/

You'll find a GREAT interview with Tommy James on the Songfacts website, too ... here's a link for that one:

Click here: Tommy James: Songwriter Interviews

And here's an AMAZING video of Tommy performing one of his biggest hits, "Crystal Blue Persuasion" at The Bitter End a few years ago:

Click here: YouTube - Tommy James & The Shondells - Crystal Blue Persuasion (LIVE)

And be sure to visit Tommy's website for all the latest info regarding upcoming performances and new releases:

http://www.tommyjames.com/

Here Comes Summer ~ Covered by Dave Clark Five!

2010-03-06T11:55:00.000-06:00

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Lost Beach Boys footage included in new release of T.A.M.I. SHow

2010-03-05T23:27:00.007-06:00

The T.A.M.I. Show Collector's Edition (1964)
Starring: The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys Director: Steve Binder Rating: NR (Not Rated) Format:

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Beatle Ringo Starr's Search For God

2010-02-04T05:48:00.002-06:00

Why I've turned to God at nearly 70, by reformed Ringo Starr... that's 44 years after John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus

Lennon, however, also announced in 1977 that he had become a 'born-again' Christian

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST Ministries

LOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) -- Britain's Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk) is reporting that former Beatles drummer, Ringo Starr has found God at nearly 70 years of age.

Ringo Starr today

This was revealed in a story written by Ben Todd who said, "John Lennon caused a worldwide storm by claiming that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

"Now, more than four decades on, it seems his former bandmate Ringo Starr has acknowledged a humbler place in the grand scheme of things.

"The drummer says he has found God - after taking a long and winding road to enlightenment."

Todd said that Liverpool-born Starr admitted he lost his way when he was younger, both as a Beatle experimenting with marijuana and LSD and afterwards when he suffered alcohol and cocaine problems in the late 1970s.

"But the musician, who has since become teetotal and quit his 60-a-day cigarette habit, says that religion now plays an important role in his life," said Todd.

He reported that Starr, who turns 70 later this year, said: "I feel the older I get, the more I'm learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it's all about finding yourself.

"For me, God is in my life. I don't hide from that. I think the search has been on since the 1960s.

"I stepped off the path there for many years and found my way back onto

The Beatles

it, thank God."

Starr was speaking at an event at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

Todd went on to say that it was in 1966 that his late bandmate John Lennon announced that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ.

In an interview with the London Evening Standard, Lennon - who was murdered in 1980 - said: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that. I'm right and I will be proved right.

"We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity-Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Todd said that when a U.S. magazine reprinted some of the interview, protests broke out in the States and Beatles records were publicly burned. The protests then spread to other countries, including Mexico, South Africa and Spain.

In his latest interview Starr - a vegetarian who is married to former Bond girl Barbara Bach and now splits his time between homes in Los Angeles, London and Monaco - also told how he finds it far easier to deal with life now he is approaching his 70th birthday in July.

But what about John Lennon? Did he ever find Christ in his life?

Cover of Steve Turner's book

The answer is yes, according to British writer Steve Turner who revealed in an excerpt from The Gospel According to the Beatles published in Christianity Today that John Lennon actually became a Christian for a period while living in New York. Turner revealed that it was in the spring of 1977 that Lennon suddenly announced to close friends that he'd become a born-again Christian.===>PrayForSurf Interview with Turner

"He had been particularly moved by the U.S. television premiere of Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, starring Robert Powell as Jesus, which NBC showed in two three-hour segments on Palm Sunday, April 3, 1977," said Turner. "A week later, on Easter day, he took Yoko and Sean to a local church service.

"Over the following months he baffled those close to him by constantly praising 'the Lord,' writing Christian songs with titles like 'Talking with Jesus' and 'Amen' (the Lord's Prayer set to music), and trying to convert nonbelievers. He also called the prayer line of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson's program. The change in his life perturbed Yoko, who tried to talk him out of it. She reminded him of what he'd said about his vulnerability to strong religious leaders because of his emotionally deprived background. She knew that if the press found out about it they would have a field day with another John and Jesus story. John became antagonistic toward her, blaming her for practicing the dark arts and telling her that she couldn't see the truth because her eyes had been blinded by Satan.

John Lennon

"Those close to the couple sensed that the real reason she was concerned was that it threatened her control over John's life. If he became a follower of Jesus he would no longer depend on her and the occultists. During long, passionate arguments she attacked the key points of his fledgling faith. They met with a couple of Norwegian missionaries whom Yoko questioned fiercely about the divinity of Christ, knowing that this was the teaching that John had always found the most difficult to accept. Their answers didn't satisfy her, and John began to waver in his commitment.

"In an unpublished song, 'You Saved My Soul,' he spoke about 'nearly falling' for a TV preacher' while feeling 'lonely and scared' in a Tokyo hotel. This must have referred to a trip to Japan at the end of May when he stayed at the Okura Hotel for over two months while Yoko visited relatives. Feeling isolated because of the language barrier, he locked himself away in his room for long stretches of time. At night he suffered terrifying nightmares. According to John Green, who makes no mention of the born-again period in his book, John told him, 'I'd lie in bed all day [in Tokyo], not talk, not eat, and just withdraw. And a funny thing happened. I began to see all these different parts of me. I felt like a hollow temple filled with many spirits, each one passing through me, each inhabiting me for a little time and then leaving to be replaced by another.'

"The image was remarkably like one suggested by Jesus and recorded in Luke 11. It's hard to imagine that John was unfamiliar with the passage. Jesus was warning of the danger of merely ridding oneself of evil spirits without taking in the good. He says that an unclean or evil spirit, finding nowhere to rest, will return. 'And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.'

"Whatever happened in Tokyo, it marked the end of his personal interest in Jesus."

Starr and Lennon were not the only Sixties music icons to embrace religion.

In 1978, Bob Dylan became a born again Christian, but by 1983 this period appeared to end and the singer reportedly reverted to his roots in Judaism. Those close to Dylan, however, say that he has never publically renounced his faith in Christ and they point to his recent Christmas album as proof that he is still fascinated with Christianity.

Dan Wooding, 69, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 46 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC., and now hosts the weekly "Front Page Radio" show on KWVE in Southern California and which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Wooding is the author of some 43 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, also recently released "God's Ambassadors in Japan" which is available at amazon.com.

** You may republish this story with proper attribution.

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Some Love & Mercy to Haiti from Brian WIlson in All-Star Remake

2010-02-02T12:38:00.005-06:00

The charity anthem "We Are the World" has been rerecorded by 80 artists who came together in the same Hollywood studio where the original was cut 25 years ago.

A new cluster of talent records a version of the classic song for Haiti.

Pink, Natalie Cole, Kanye West, Jennifer Hudson, Celine Dion, Brian Wilson and others stood shoulder-to-shoulder on risers at Henson Recording studios Monday night to raise money for Haiti earthquake relief.

"This one, the enthusiasm, I've never seen anything like it," said Lionel Richie, who wrote the original with Michael Jackson and oversaw the new version with music mogul Quincy Jones, 76.

>>>>Note: For those who pray ... take a moment and ask God to turn that which brought destruction into a renewed and real faith that brings and shares hope and helps people encounter God's amazing love ...

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New Review of "When We Get To Surf City"

2010-01-28T12:16:00.002-06:00

Wanted to share a related surf link with you; my review of Bob Greene’s excellent book, When We Get to Surf City in the Jan/Feb 2010 edition of Keep Rockin’ Magazine (http://keeprockinmag.com/preview_now.php) on news stands beginning this week, and through the mail by subscription.

Also featured in this issue are never-before printed photos of the Beatles, taken by Ian Wright along with the story behind the photos, a great feature on Dave White, of Danny and the Juniors, and Dale Hawkins (of Susie-Q) fame. More surf stories are expected to be coming soon to Keep Rockin’ and I’ll keep you posted as they appear. Meantime, thanks for your friendship and ongoing reminder through your column to keep the faith, follow the sun, and keep dreaming of the best waves of your life.

Best,

Dawn Lee Wakefield

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Like Going To Church

2010-01-16T20:52:00.002-06:00

<looniespoons@verizon.net> wrote:

I always read your site for new words and inspirations. I read what Carl wrote and its similar to what I wrote to you about Pet Sounds. It "is like going to church". Every song was written by God through Brian. Thank you for your site

“It was during that time (recording Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations; voted the greatest album and single of all time) we had prayer sessions. It was very impromptu; Brian would actually write prayers down on paper. I remember being very impressed by that ... We prayed for guidance ... It was like going to church.”
Carl Wilson

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All-Time Great Little Saint Nick Covered by Fendertones

2009-12-27T16:07:00.003-06:00

I just got this clip in from Fred Vail (who knows a thing or two about the music of The Beach Boys! lol) What a GREAT performance of this Beach Boys Christmas Classic ... we've watched it several times now. You can check it out here:
Click here : YouTube - The Fendertones - Little Saint Nick

The #3 Christmas record of 1963, "Little Saint Nick" ranks right up there with "Jingle Bell Rock, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," "Blue Christmas" and a few select others, as one of the best seasonal records of all-time.
Well, it may take 20 or so "Fendertones" to do what I heard 'the five boys' do 'live' on December 21, 1963 -- the night we recorded the "Beach Boys Concert" album -- but these guys are fabulous just the same. If any of your readers want more of the same, go to YouTube.com and put in "The Feertones." They have equally impressive versions of "California Girls," "God Only Knows," "Good Vibrations," "Let Him Run Wild" and at least a half dozen more.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Kent, and to all my fellow appreciative readers of "Forgotten Hits."
Fred Vail
Treasure Isle, Nashville, TN > "Music City, USA"

Same to you, Fred ... and this is a GREAT video ... we've watched it again and again and again! Thanks so much for sharing this with our readers! (kk)

Fred ALSO told me about an exciting Beach Boys / eBay auction (that ended last night) ... QUITE a collection ... and it went for a damn good price, too. When all was said and done, these LPs went for a little over $4.00 a piece!!! And there are some REAL Collectors Items in this batch! (Scroll down for complete information ... the auction has already ended) kk

Click here: BEACH BOYS LP LIFETIME COLLECTION - APROX 500 LP'S - eBay (item 140368723514 end time Dec-26-09 15:27:57 PST)

This auction closes in about two hours. By fate I stumbled on it and wrote the seller a note. His passion for our band started with "Beach Boys Concert." Read his description and reason for parting with his collection -- you're going to be touched by his story.
PLEASE send this link on to your fellow BB collectors and fans. I hope his lifelong collection ends up in the hands of a fellow BB fan. It deserves to find another great home.
Hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. Here's to a super healthy, prosperous and successful 2010!
Fred

===>Click headline to access Kent Kotal's Forgotten Hits

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Crystal Blue Persuasion: The Book of Revelation? New Vibration?

2009-12-23T11:17:00.003-06:00

Shawna Hansen Ortega (Songfacts): Can you take me through what inspired "Crystal Blue Persuasion"?

Tommy James: Sure. Once we got started with "Crimson and Clover," "Crystal Blue" was part of that first album. The follow-up to "Crimson and Clover" was "Sweet Cherry Wine," which was another song we were working on. And then we recorded "Crystal Blue Persuasion." "Crystal Blue" was interesting. First of all, I was becoming a Christian at that time, and we never thought a thing about it. We never thought that doing something semi-religious was any big deal. We didn't think of it as being politically incorrect or anything like that. We just did what felt right. I wrote "Crystal Blue Persuasion" with Eddie Gray and Mike Vale. Eddie actually came up with the little guitar riff, and Mike and I did the lyrics. And it just felt very right as a sort of almost semi-religious poetic song. But it turned out to be one of the hardest records I've ever made.

We went in and had a set of drums, we had guitars, we had keyboards, and by the end, we just realized we had totally overproduced the record. It just was not "Crystal Blue Persuasion" anymore. It was a nice track, but wasn't right. So we had to produce the record, and then we had to un-produce the record. And one by one we just started pulling the instruments out, until we ended up with a conga drum, a bongo, a tambourine, a flamenco guitar, and a very light-sounding bass. We took out the drums completely. We took out all the keyboards except one, which was a Hammond. And basically ended up with about four instruments on it. And suddenly it became "Crystal Blue Persuasion," the song that we had written. It has kind of an effervescent sound about it, a lot of atmospherics that just weren't there when it had all those instruments on it. Suddenly when you emptied out the record it sounded like "Crystal Blue" again. Had that light airy sound, which it needed to be right. And it took us about 6 weeks to do all that. It really was a very intricate un-production, pulling all the things out. Actually, it was tougher than putting them in because you didn't want to mess up the record, but you wanted to empty it out. So it came out and went #1 for us. It was the follow-up to "Sweet Cherry Wine." We were in Hawaii when it went #1, and I often think of Hawaii as I think of "Crystal Blue Persuasion." By the way, that was the week of Woodstock.

SF: Yes, and you were invited to perform?

Tommy: Like dopes we turned it down. I gotta tell you what – we were in Hawaii at the foot of Diamond Head. This was when "Crystal Blue" was #1 in August of '69. And we played a date in Hilo, and then we had two weeks off and then we were gonna play in Honolulu. They put us at these gorgeous mansions at the foot of Diamond Head, right on the ocean. And our biggest decision of the day was, Do I go in the ocean or in the swimming pool? We were sitting around drinking margaritas, and it was wonderful. And I get this call from JoAnn, my secretary, and she said, "Artie Kornfeld was up," Artie Kornfeld was one of the principals at Woodstock, and he was also a friend of mine. He produced the Cowsills and a whole bunch of other acts, and he was very successful producer. We had the same lawyer. And so she said, "Artie was up and asked if you could play at this pig farm up in upstate New York." I said, "What?!?" "Well, they say it's gonna be a lot of people there, and it's gonna be like a really important show." And I said, "Did I hear you right? Did you say would I leave paradise, fly 6,000 miles, and play a pig farm? Is that what you just asked me?" She said, "Well, you could put it like that, but it's gonna be a big show. It's important." I said, "Well, I'll tell you what, if I'm not there, start without us, will you please?" And I hung up the phone. And they did. And by Thursday of that week we knew we messed up really bad. (laughing) But in the end I think I got probably more mileage out of that story.

SF: Okay. Is "Crystal Blue" a reference to the Book of Revelation?

Tommy: Yes, it is. It's out of the Bible, right.

SF: Is that phrase in there somewhere? Or did you just string words together?

Tommy: Well, the imagery was right out of Chapter 19 of the Book of Revelation, about the lake of crystal, and just what John sees. The imagery was just right there. "Crystal blue persuasion," although those words aren't used together, it was kind of what the image meant to me.

SF: And when you sing about "it's a new vibration," are you talking about becoming Christian?

Tommy: Yes, indeed. And, of course, everybody thinks if they don't understand what you're talking about it must be about drugs. But it wasn't. (laughing) We were going through a real interesting time back then, and a very wonderful time. Everybody in the band, by the way, became Christian. And we're very proud of it. And "Crystal Blue Persuasion" was sort of our way of saying that in a kind of pop record way.

SF: That's fascinating. I never knew that about that song. See what I learn? (laughing)

Tommy: It's amazing, isn't it?

SF: Earlier you mentioned "Sweet Cherry Wine." Is that a metaphor?

Tommy: Yes. It's a metaphor for the blood of Jesus.

SF: I know you say you converted to Christianity. How did that transformation take place?

Tommy: Well, I don't worship every Sunday; I worship every day. Every hour of every day. It's just me, it's part of me. I became a Christian in 1967. I was brought up Catholic, but I really didn't know my faith very well, didn't know what I believed, why I believed what I believed. And in 1967 I was listening to Billy Graham at Shea Stadium on television. And we were writing, as a matter of fact, and I put the guitars down and started listening. And he just gave the most amazingly lucid teaching on why Jesus came. And I had never heard it put quite that way before. I had heard a lot of over-my-head sophisticated kind of things growing up. But I never really heard the gospel message quite like that. And there's a moment, I equate it to hitting a champagne glass – a crystal champagne glass with a fork, you know how you get that pure tone? That's kind of how I felt when I heard Billy Graham explain why Jesus came. And I knew I'd heard the truth. It's too simple and too beautiful to not be the truth, and not be God, you know what I mean? And I was actually high at the time, it's true. And it just cut right through everything that was going on with me, and I just got right up to the TV and put my hand on the TV and sort of made my commitment right there.

SF: Do you find any kind of disparity there between religion and doing drugs?

Tommy: Oh, God, yes. I mean, the point was that the message of the gospel cut right through all that for me. And unfortunately I didn't quit doing drugs for several more years, but the point was that God never let go of me. I just had my rear end pulled out of the fire, and I got rescued. And I'm very appreciative of that. I can't tell you how appreciative of that I am. So to me it's a very street level kind of thing. Everybody in the band converted at different times. But I certainly don't recommend anybody do it that way. (laughing) I feel like I got saved in spite of the fact that I was doing it, not because of it.

===>Click headline to access complete interview . . .

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Smile ~ SMiLE is #1

2009-12-23T01:03:00.000-06:00

The top album of the decade

Happy to be at #1

Naturally, when you think ’00s, one artist jumps immediately to mind: Brian Wilson. Okay, so maybe the former Beach Boy seems an unlikely chart-topper for the current decade, but his 2004 album SMiLE — a mere 37 years in the making — tops our chart of the best-reviewed albums of 2000-09. Long considered one of the great lost albums in rock history, this "teenage symphony to God" proved to be equally acclaimed once it surfaced. Is it really the top album of the decade? We have a feeling there may be some comments posted below about that topic.

Beach Boys aside, the genre most represented in our list of highest-scoring albums below is "indie/alternative" (again, if this is indicative of anything, it’s of the types of albums both covered by Metacritic and favored by music critics), occupying 17 of the 40 spots. Rap was next, with nine albums (including two from OutKast, the only artist to appear twice in the top 10), followed by electronic, with seven.

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Fred Vail on Little Honda (and more @ Forgotten Hits)

2009-12-20T12:35:00.002-06:00

re: THE BEACH BOYS:
WINTER 2009 - Endless Summer Quarterly, Featuring : The TODAY! Session Outtakes
The Winter 2009 edition of ESQ is now available; it features Craig Slowinski's well-researched session outtakes from the Today! album to coincide with the re-release of Today! and Summer Days [And Summer Nights!!] on vinyl (from the Capitol Vaults); Phil Miglioratti's reflective article on the Beach Boys transitional recording years from 1968 to 1970; Pet Sounds Safari concert highlights, pictures and fan testimony!

A week or two ago we told you about a brand new DVD that Billy Hinsche was making about touring with The Beach Boys in 1974 ...
We kept pressing him for more details ... and he's FINALLY ready to spill!!! (lol)
Check out the link below ... and find out how YOU can obtain a copy of this hot new release. (There's even a "Sneak Peek" video link on the website.)
Billy Hinsche - 1974 DVD
Sounds, great, Billy! (kk)

I've heard about Billy's new DVD but not seen it yet ... I saw some links to "Little Honda" when I watched the preview of this DVD. Interesting ... I was not aware that a very YOUNG Terry Garr was in the Hondell's video of the song. Always loved her legs:) One Beach Boys version of the song (there were two), shows Carl Wilson on a bicycle in a short humorous skit about the song. The driveway he starts in is Dennis Wilson's old Benedict Canyon home where he lived with his first wife, Carol, and her son, Scotty, whom Dennis adopted and loved as his own. Those were fun, fun, fun days on Benedict Canyon ... Dennis Wilson lived next to, or right up the street, from Cary Grant and his wife, Dyan Cannon. I spent a lot of time in that home in the mid-60's. You never knew who would show up there. Steve Boone was also a guest. Dennis and Carol were always gracious hosts. Can't believe that Dennis Wilson would have been 65 on December 4th. Carl Wilson's birthday is Monday. He would have been 63. Two tragic loses cut down far, far too early in life. But the legacy, and the music, lives on!.
Fred Vail

===>Click headline to connect with Forgotten Hits!

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Paul Shaffer on Brian Wilson and Metal Beach

2009-12-19T18:17:00.003-06:00

Recently on the Pet Sounds Mailing List . . .

On Dec 16, 2009, at 6:48 PM, Doug S. wrote:

Is Brian or the BBs mentioned in Paul Shaffer's autobiography? Brian was on Paul's album Coast to Coast on the song Metal Beach.
Doug S

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 8:05 PM, Don Giller wrote:

To answer the actual question, yes:

p. 83, re watching the T.A.M.I concert film in 1964:

...Then came marvelous Marvin Gaye... Lesley Gore rocked pop's first women's lib affirmation, "You Don't Own Me." At th is point I was convinced that it couldn't get any better. But it did. Jan and Dean were great. The Beach Boys were even greater. In fact, the Beach Boys were fantastic, even if Brian Wilson later insisted that they be edited out of the show because he thought their Kingston Trio-style outfits made them look like golf caddies.

p. 239-40, re Paul's "Coast to Coast" CD (and Brian's contribution to it) and playing with the band in 1987:

At this particular "Coast to Coast" session, I was working with Brian Wilson. I had bonded with Brian and his boys when they invited me to the Beach Boys' 20th [sic; me -- that should read 25th] Anniversary Concert in Honolulu. It was my first trip back to Hawaii since my near-fatal accident [me: in 1981]. At first I wasn't going to go. But then I remembered Jan and Dean's top-ten hit that Brian had cowritten, "Dead Man's Curve." One of the unwritten laws of rock and roll is that every surfer must return to confront Dead Man's Curve. My Dead Man's Curve was that highway in Honolulu at the turnoff to the Dole Plantation. I had to go back. The power and pull of surf rock drew me back. The kick of playing with the Beach Boys helped me confront my fear. I was asked to introduce my number.

"As a young lad growing up in the frozen north of Canada," I told the bikini-clad crowd, "I dreamed of a day such as this. I was a shy and retiring teenager when God suddenly gifted me in a way that brought summer sunlight to my dark winter mood. I learned that the Beach Boys were coming to my hometown of Thunder Bay. I bought my ticket weeks in advance. A good two hours before showtime, I was seated i the front row. These were the original five Beach Boys, no sidemen, no keyboards. When it came time for 'Surfin' U.S.A.,' I was on my feet. But because there were no keyboards, the organ solo went to Carl on guitar. I thought to myself --_ Paul Shaffer, you could play that organ solo. You know it note for note. Paul Shaffer, you could be a Beach Boy._ But, alas, I was not called to the stage that night long ago in Thunder Bay. I couldn't be a Beach Boy. But on this sun-kissed beach on this sun-kissed isand, today I am happy to say that I _will_ play that organ solo. Ladies and gentlemen, today Paul Shaffer is a Beach Boy."

It was a nice moment. From then on, Brian and I were friends. At this "Coast to Coast" recording session, though, I encountered a bit of a problem with Dr. Eugene Landy, the clinical psychologist who had attached himself to Brian as his groovy guru/Svengali. Landy also fancied himself a songwriter and had been writing lyrics for Brian's recent songs. He really wanted a piece of the mixed-genre number for my record called"Metal Beach." It was a helluva production, with Joe Walsh, Joe Satriani, and Dick Dale on guitars.

"Got these amazing lyrics, Paul," the good doctor said to me. "And Brian loves them."

I looked over the words with quiet suspicion. They hinted at psychological subtexts that were beyond me. They didn't come close to fitting the groove. At the same time, though, Brian was under Dr. Landy's spell. Brian was following the doctor's orders.

I needed an idea.

An idea came.

"Sorry, Doc," I said, "but 'Metal Beach' is going to be a surf instrumental. No lyrics."

Landy looked at me with a certain artistic longing in his eyes.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Positive," I answered.

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New from Endless Summer Quarterly: Issue + Blog + Facebook

2009-12-14T22:27:00.005-06:00

WINTER 2009 - Endless Summer Quarterly

Featuring : The TODAY! Session Outtakes

The Winter 2009 edition of ESQ is now available; it features Craig Slowinski's well-researched session outtakes from the Today! album to coincide with the re-release of Today! and Summer Days [And Summer Nights!!] on vinyl (from the Capitol Vaults); Phil Miglioratti's reflective article on the Beach Boys transitional recording years from 1968 to 1970; Pet Sounds Safari concert highlights, pictures and fan testimony!

U.S. funds only. Make checks payable to: Endless Summer Quarterly. Send to ESQ at P.O. Box 470315, Charlotte, NC 28247 Individual issue: $12, Subscriptions: $30 U.S., $34 Canada & Mexico, $38 elsewhere in the world. ESQ's PayPal account ID is: esqeditor@aol.com

ALSO ---

Endless Summer Quarterly's online presence site features a jukebox with music from the Beach Boys and their associates; an unmatched archive of Beach Boys history and commentary; a complete downloadable file of all the available back issues; more
The Endless Summer Quarterly Blog: The rants, reflections and reviews of Endless Summer Quarterly's editor-in-chief, David Beard
Endless Summer Quarterly on Facebook: Become a fan today, and follow up-to the-minute updates on upcoming events and new editions in the world's leading Beach Boys publication

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New Podcast with Matt Tyson on release of Christmas Present

2009-12-06T18:47:00.004-06:00

>>>Note: Use the track list below as you listen to the new podcast ~ Phil Miglioratti of PrayForSurf.net Interviewed Matt Tyson

NEW Christmas CD Just Released

Matt Tyson (formerly The Malibus) Christmas CD released!!

I hate to add to the glut of pre-Christmas hype? but I'd like to invite you to check out the new Christmas CD. Four new originals along with all the past Xmas releases by the Malibus - 10 songs in all.

I will be selling it direct for $7.00 (USD), basically at cost plus a little to cover postage. I'd prefer PayPal (woodshedstudio@hotmail.com), but would be willing to discuss other options. Or if anyone is really strapped for cash, e-mail me.

Remamber the Malibus are now "Matt Tyson".

Malibus/Tyson "Christmas Present"

All the songs (new and old) have been re-mixed and mastered to get the 2009 Christmas spirit!

1 Christmas Is My Favorite Time (Tyson)
The original Malibus Christmas single
2 O' Holy Night (Adolphe Adam)
Love this song in its traditional way, but since I can't do the Whitney Houston histrionics? I went with a more ambient arrangement (w/ a little pet sounds influence)
3 The Christmas Song (Torme, Wells)
"Chestnuts Roasting?" that is. Went with a BB "Today" sort of arrangement. Loses some of the jazzy chords (which I always liked) but makes up for it in drivin' fun.
4 Little Drummer Boy (Davis, Onorati, Simeone)
Xmas '08 single with the SMiLE-esque backing vocals.
5 A Cold Christmas Eve (Tyson)
Also put out in '08. Some new vocals re-recorded. Moody, ambient piece.
6 Winter Ready Custom Machine (Parrish, Anderson)
My take on "Sleigh Ride" with hotrod lyrics from '07.
7 It Came Upon A Midnight Clear (Sears, Willis)
A'capella version from a few years ago that segues into a guitar duet of "God Rest Ye?"
8 God Vibrations (Wilson, traditional)
Fun mingling of "God Rest Ye?" with "Good Vibrations"
9 Blue Christmas (Hayes, Johnson)
Country/rock-a-billy version of this Elvis classic.
10 Angels We Have Heard On High (traditional)
High octane version of the traditional hymn? more metal than Malibus? probably doesn't really fit but I like it.

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NEW ~ WINTER 2009 - Endless Summer Quarterly, Featuring : The TODAY! Session Outtakes

2009-11-27T22:44:00.001-06:00

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Forgotten Hits Revives Dead Man's Curve Debate

2009-11-24T21:08:00.003-06:00

DEAD MAN'S CURVE:
The other day we ran a short piece (courtesy of Artie Wayne) reflecting back on songwriter Artie Kornfeld's memories surrounding the writing of the Jan and Dean classic hit "Dead Man's Curve" ... which has since sparked quite a bit of dialog on this topic! Here's a recap ... and the latest! (kk @ Forgotten Hits)

Kent ...
Long before he became known as the Father Of Woodstock, Artie Kornfeld was a hit songwriter / producer (“The Pied Piper”, “The Rain, The Park, and Other Things”) When I went to Los Angeles for the first time in 1968 there were three places I wanted to see: Malibu Beach, MacArthur Park, and “Dead Man’s Curve”. Now 40 years later, I asked my longtime friend and sometime collaborator to tell me the story behind Jan and Dean’s “Classic Hit”, and how he co -wrote “Dead Man’s Curve”, with Brian Wilson and Jan Berry.
-- Artie Wayne

One day, Brian and I were chilling and trying out this tiny Honda that the company had sent him as a thank you for writing the Hondells “Hey Little Honda.” We were cruisin’ about 3 miles from his ex-wife, Marilyn’s mom’s house. Brian, as he was known to do, was pushing two hundred pounds way over what a 60 cc Honda could handle. I said 'Bry, you should slow down', as in Santa Monica there is a lot of sand on the streets. We went over and both the bike ... and us ... were torn apart. We carried half a Honda each 3 miles, bleeding like crazy, to an open door in an empty house.We noticed a piece of blank paper on the piano and Bry sat down and I pulled up a chair and, I guess because of recent events I wrote down the words, “Dead Man's Curve”. Brian started a two four piano rhythm but I didn’t have any idea for the lyric … except I always envied Jan’s Corvette, sang to Brian’s chords” I was crusin’ in my Sting Ray late one night and an XKE pulled upon the right…” Brian repeated what I wrote down with the melody and I almost finished the lyric in about 30 minutes with me writing the words, some with Brian, as being a New Yorker after I put us on Sunset Blvd.I had no idea what landmarks we would pass to that curve after Doheny where it turns right and heads into Beverly Hills..."
-- Artie Kornfeld

===>Click the headline above to read the rest of the story ...

===>Click here to check out additional dialog on the Forgotten Hits blog

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New Beach Boys on YouTube: Live 1971

2009-11-19T15:51:00.002-06:00

New Videos from BeachBoysRarities

The Beach Boys - Help Me, Rhonda (Live 1971)
The Beach Boys - Cool, Cool Water (Live 1971)

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Surprising Story on Buddy Holly Background Vocals

2009-11-15T14:13:00.002-06:00

Click headline to read an article by Dawn Lee Wakefield: "The Story of John Pickering, The Picks and the Legendary Buddy Holly .

She reveals the untold background story of the background vocals on a bunch of Buddy Holly tunes!

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From Hula-Hoops to Helter Skelter

2009-10-04T17:39:00.001-05:00

LOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) -- Jozy Pollock shouldn't be alive today. She should have been at Sharon Tate's home on that warm summer night of August 8th, 1969, when a terrible murder took place. It was a migraine headache delayed her plans and she consequently escaped a horrible nightmare inflicted on the national psyche by Charles Manson and his followers.

Jozy in her Hula Hoop days

Jozy became the British "Hula-Hoop Queen" in her youth, then married American magician Channing Pollock and moved to the United States, where they performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. Then the two of them went on the road with the flamboyant pianist Liberace.

After divorcing her husband in 1968, she entered a fast-paced world of elite rock n'roll musicians and dated a number of famous men. She was engaged to Nigel Olson, the drummer for Elton John as John's career began to enter the stratosphere.

She even met up with May Pang and John Lennon during the 18 months that May Pang lived with the ex-Beatle, from the summer of 1973 to early 1975, when Lennon reconciled with his second wife, Yoko Ono.

In an interview Jozy recounted the incredible event that changed her life.===>Click headline for complete interview . . .

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Eye & Ear Witness Account of Pet Sounds Safari

2009-09-20T18:19:00.005-05:00

>>>Note: Found this in The Forgotten Hits Oldies Newsletter - Click headline above to check out the site...

The Pet Sounds Safari in Cornelius,N.C. on Sept. 11th & 12th was a Big Hoot !!!

Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean fame was awesome the night of his performance with The Surf City Allstars. David Logeman, the drummer, must of beat those skins for 3 hrs. straight. I mean, he played for his band the SSAS, Dean's Show, Jez Graham's, Billy Hinsche's and the original member of the Beach Boys, David Marks, (who by the way is not only talented but a funny guy). Chris English, another talented member of the Saturday Concert, played some of his songs from the new CD, DREAMTOWN. You want to hear this one.
An Encomium in Memoriam Vol.1 ... Jan Berry, of Jan & Dean, was a new release and so many guest artist performed on this as well along with 7 Bonus tracks. You can order the special CD at www.jananddean.com

David Beard, editor of Endless Summer Quarterly had a big hand it getting this all together and believe me, IT WAS A SPECIAL TWO DAYS with surprises. I know I appreciated and give thanks to everyone who gave their time, talent and donations for the Cornelius Animal Shelter. Even when I live in Tennessee, I support any Animal Shelters who are struggling. Our Sevier County Shelter really, really needs help too. Right now, if you go to www.comedybarn.com you can vote for Miss Ellie as cutest dog and the shelter may win a million dollars if she is top winner. Like to see something like this happen next year, or in my neck of the woods, Pigeon Forge, Tn (Home of Dolly Parton)

See pix of the guys,from L-R: Chris Farmer, Billy Hinsche, Dean Torrence, Edie Andrews, David Marks, Phillip Bardowell, David Logeman & Gary Griffin. Other pix of David Marks (original Beach Boy member) and Dean Torrence. Also a good one of Billy Hinsche.
Peace!
Edie

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Rare Sagittarius Song with Lead Vocal by "Little Honda" Lead Singer

2009-09-08T08:26:00.003-05:00

Sagittarius - Gladys

Rare cut. Song "Gladys" from "Blue Marble" album on Together Records. Written and produced by the late Gary Usher. Lead vocal by Hondells, Castells, Love Song lead singer, Chuck Girard. ...

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Beatles' Revolution? Not Quite ...

2009-09-05T18:30:00.002-05:00

Watching the Beatles in fast-forward reminded me of just how far we've come in four decades.

Eric Miller | posted 9/04/2009

End of the Endless Summer Tour

2009-09-04T12:46:00.002-05:00

Fairfield, Iowa is nearly 2000 miles from the Pacific, but the eclectic town of 10,000 will be feeling more like 1960s Southern California this Labor Day when seminal rock band The Beach Boys come to town. Playing to benefit the David Lynch Foundation and presented by DLF.TV, The Beach Boys will be performing alongside Iowa-based roots rockers The Nadas—a lineup that will undoubtedly bring out music lovers from Fairfield and the rest of Iowa out for a day of classic rock and contemporary sounds. The show starts at 12:30 on Monday, September 7th.

The Beach Boys are certainly a household name, but Fairfield is definitely not on par with Chicago, St. Louis or Minneapolis as entertainment destinations in the Midwest. With hopes of bringing people from all over the region to the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center next weekend, we would be honred if you might inform your readersabout the upcoming show. The Labor Day date will be the last on The Beach Boy’s Endless Summer Tour, so not only is it a chance to see this classic all-American band close to home, but the last chance to see them anywhere in the country anytime soon. ===>Click headline for a great photo/video montage . . .

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Billy Hinshce (Beach Boys Band Member) on Dino, Desi and Billy

2009-08-31T20:31:00.002-05:00

AN EXCLUSIVE FORGOTTEN HITS BONUS!!!:

Kent Koval of Forgotten Hits: "I asked Billy Hinsche to share a few Dino, Desi and Billy memories with our readers ... and we hit the motherlode!!! GREAT stuff here, Billy ... thank you SO much for sharing this with us!!!"

Kent,
At your request, I have written a short piece on Dino, Desi and Billy ... use whatever you like!

Dino Martin and I were longtime best friends and classmates in grammar school (Good Shepherd of Beverly Hills) and started out as a duo - just me and Dino, following the lead of Chad & Jeremy and Peter & Gordon, and both of us just playing 6 string acoustic guitars.

It wasn't long before we realized that having a drummer would be a good idea and we should "go electric" and proceed as a trio. We knew that Desi Arnaz, Jr. (in a younger class) could play drums and so we asked him if he wanted to start a group with us - we asked him during a lunch break out by the basketball court. He was happy to accept the role as our drummer (his older sister, Lucie Arnaz, was our classmate). ===>Click headline to access complete story . . .

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