Tuesday, October 2, 2018

The Beach Boys - Awake - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1973)

While I'm on a Beach Boys kick, here's one more stray tracks collection. This one covers 1971 to 1973.

Most of the "lost" Beach Boys album reconstructions I've seen focus on 1969 and 1970, since there are lots of non-album songs from that time. It turns out there are a bunch of songs from 1971 to 1973 as well, but while the earlier songs are nearly all officially released from box sets and such, most of the songs from this album are still unreleased. But I was selective, and in my opinion, the music on this is just as solid as on the previous two stray tracks albums I posted, if not better.

A couple of songs here need some explanation. In 1970, a South African rock group known as "The Flame" (or "The Flames") released an album produced by Beach Boy Carl Wilson on the new Beach Boys owned record company, Brother Records. The Beach Boys liked this group so much that two of its members, Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin, joined the Beach Boys in 1972. Also in 1972, the Beach Boys played one of the songs from that 1970 Flame album, "Don't Worry, Bill." The song was done in concert as part of a medley with the song "Wonderful." I've extracted "Don't Worry, Bill" from the medley so the song can be appreciated on its own.

"TM" is a song from an album by jazz saxaphonist Charles Lloyd about transcendental mediation. Technically, it's not a Beach Boys song, but it sure sounds like one to me, because most of the singing is done by Beach Boys Mike Love, Carl Wilson, and Al Jardine. There are a few other Lloyd songs from this time period with a lot of the Beach Boys on them, such as "How Sweet" and "All Life Is One," but I didn't consider those strong enough for inclusion here, especially because Lloyd has prominent lead vocals on them.

By the way, the last song on this album, "Carry Me Home," is especially strong. It was written and sung by Dennis Wilson, who often had good songs that were ignored and unreleased by the Beach Boys in the 1970s. Apparently the only reason it hasn't been officially released is because he openly sings about his fear of dying, and he died in 1982.

Even though I consider 1973 to be the end of the "golden era" of the Beach Boys, from 1966 to 1973, I still have a lot more of their stuff to post, starting with stray tracks from 1974 and 1975. But I'm going to switch my attention to some other bands for a while.

01 Fourth of July (Beach Boys)
02 [Wouldn't It Be Nice To] Live Again (Beach Boys)
03 Awake (Brian Wilson)
04 Won't You Tell Me (Beach Boys)
05 I've Got a Friend (Beach Boys)
06 Ten Years of Harmony (Beach Boys)
07 Don't Worry, Bill (Beach Boys)
08 Out in the Country [Demo] (Beach Boys)
09 TM (Charles Lloyd & the Beach Boys)
10 We Got Love (Beach Boys)
11 Hard Times (Beach Boys)
12 Carry Me Home (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700625/TBECHBYS1973_Awke_atse.zip.html

I'm still not in a position to make more album covers. But I'd stumbled across some cover art by someone named jiggy22, and all I had to do was change the title.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting collection and well sequenced. I look forward to hearing some of your other BB configurations! Thanks for your efforts!

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