Posted on 09/21/2018 10:34:58 AM PDT by Beowulf9
Two years after their shockingly great 50th anniversary album, Good Times! — which gave them their highest showing on the Billboard album chart since 1968 — the Monkees have returned to the studio to cut Christmas Party, their first holiday album. Set for release October 12th, the album is produced by Fountain of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, with new vocals by surviving Monkees Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork along with vintage recordings of the late Davy Jones.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
Be fair, The Monkees certainly weren't the only "group" that could be said about.
That's certainly true for many of the '60s hits recorded in Los Angeles, including Glen Campbell's guitar work on many Beach Boys hits.
Brian Wilson brought in an army of musicians who were not in the Beach Boys to record Pet Sounds. For a lot of the recording, the actual band (without Wilson) was touring. They were added in at the end, mostly just vocals. Nobody says the Beach Boys were fake.
Great stuff! I didn’t remember Rodanne!
Jones was a drummer, according to bandmate Peter Tork, and apparently a good one. From the Wiki article, Tork stated that Jones was a good drummer and had the live performance lineups been based solely on playing ability, it should have been Tork on guitar, Mike Nesmith on bass, and Jones on drums, with Micky Dolenz taking the fronting role, rather than as it was done...
They wanted him out front because they figured the teenage girls would flip over him...and they did.
The tv band became more actively engaged as time went on, they wanted more control and as with the Beatles before them, you don’t make much money on your albums if all of the songs are written by someone else.
I recall reading that the Beach Boys could not surf
Where they found in his locker?
Phil Specter and the Wall of Sound. Brian Wilson, especially Pet Sounds. Wilson wanted them because Specter had used them.
Dennis, middle brother, was the wild child in tge group, and was a surfer. It was he who promoted the sub-culture and its slang to songwriter brother Brian. Brian was not a gifted lyricist generally, but he did have a great ear for fresh pop-culture lingo.
Gidget (Girl Midget) was an early precursor to that sub-culture going mainstream.
Fair point. They were not identical situations though.
The Beach Boys were (along with The Beatles) one of the first self-contained bands. They did play their own instruments. Carl was the most dedicated instrumentalist, but they all took part - Mike Love, front man, the least.
The BBs also did few covers, except very early. Like The Beatles, they had a duo who wrote almost all the songs.
They, primarily Brian, the leader, also did most of their own recording and engineering. They were among the first to take control away from the record label.
Finally, Brian Wilson was a musical genius whose compositions, orchestrations and arrangements, by 1965, went far beyond what any five-man band could do.
Even the Wrecking Crew marveled how the Boys could just walk in from playing around, walk up to the mikes, and nail a complex harmony recording in one take. Vocally, they were extremely sophisticated and experienced, even if not classically trained.
The Beach Boys, especially Brian Wilson, were pioneers. The Monkees were not (but they were often enjoyable).
P.S.
Even the vaunted Beatles needed classically-trained “Fifth Beatle” George Martin for things like his strings arrangements, or a guitar solo by the likes of Eric Clapton.
Even the vaunted Beatles needed classically-trained “Fifth Beatle” George Martin for things like his strings arrangements, or a guitar solo by the likes of Eric Clapton.
As an aside, the only reason Clapton appears on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is because George Harrison was trying to get MacCartney or Lennon to help him with his song and they were ignoring him. Frustrated, he reached out to Clapton and invited him to come record with him. He didn't tell the others but when he showed up with Clapton they suddenly took it very seriously because Clapton at the time was considered the apex guitarist. So had Lennon/McCartney been less dismissive of George we'd have never had what we ended up with, one of my favorite Beatles tracks.
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