Dennis Wilson - Bambu - Alternate Version (1979)

I wasn't sure whether to post this album or not, because it's kind of been officially released. But then again, kind of not. (I'll explain more below.) But before I leave the Beach Boys' 1970s music, I decided to post this after all. I figure if I don't, many people are likely to overlook it.

Before I go on, let me make clear that Dennis Wilson was one of the original members of the Beach Boys, if you don't know that already. He was the brother to the band's main songwriter, Brian Wilson, and also brother to arguably the band's best singer, Carl Wilson. At first, for most of the 1960s, Dennis was mostly along for the ride as the band's drummer. But he slowly developed into an excellent singer and songwriter. He was very much in a similar role as George Harrison of the Beatles though, because the other members of the band didn't fully appreciate his talents and usually only allotted him one or two songs per album. He put out one solo album in 1977,  "Pacific Ocean Blue." It's great. In my opinion it's easily the best solo album by any of the Beach Boys, including being better than any of Brian Wilson's many solo albums. But it was little noticed at the time, though it has slowly gained a following over the decades.

Dennis attempted to record a follow-up solo album, to be called "Bambu." (Apparently that was named after cigarette rolling paper and not the Asian plant.) It was more or less finished in 1979. But he was a tortured soul, and his life was slowly falling apart, helped along by lots and lots of drugs. He never got his act together enough to definitively finish it and release it. Things spiraled further down for him after that. He died at the end of 1983 due to drowning while drunk, but if that didn't kill him something else probably would have before long, because his life was so out of control by then. 

Now, let me explain when I said this album has kind of been officially released. In 2008, a deluxe edition of "Pacific Ocean Blue" came out, and all of "Bambu" was included as a second disc. Then, in 2017, a vinyl album version of "Bambu" was released for a limited time as part of that year's Record Store Day. So it's out there, but you couldn't go out and buy just that album in a store today. 

To make matters worse, the 2008 and 2017 versions are different, with differing song orders and a few songs on one but not the other, and vice versa. Personally, I think both versions are imperfect. The main issue for me is they have some songs, mostly instrumentals, that aren't as good as the rest, such as "Common," "Album Tag Song," and "Piano Variations on Thoughts of You." I've honed it down to what would have made the best album of 45 minutes or less, which was the typical length of that era.

Note that I also didn't include "Love Surrounds Me," because it was included on the 1979 Beach Boys album "L.A. (Light Album)." He also donated "Baby Blue" to that album. However, there's an alternate version to that song that's pretty good and somewhat different, so I've added that at the end as a quasi-bonus track.

Also, I've included a slightly different version of "Constant Companion" from a bootleg. Most of it is identical to the official version, but there's an extra instrumental section that's about 15 seconds long at the end.

A lot of people think that everything good the Beach Boys did was due to the genius of Brian Wilson. And while Brian undoubtedly was a genius, most of the band's songs after 1967 were written by other band members. In a better world, the Beach Boys could have been mainly led by Dennis Wilson from the mid-1970s onwards, if his personal demons hadn't gotten the best of him. As Fleetwood Mac songwriter Lindsey Buckingham said of him, "I knew him pretty well... He was crazy, just like a lot of other people, but he had a really big heart, and he was the closest thing to Brian there was too. He was halfway there."

If you're not aware of Dennis Wilson's solo work already, I hope you'll check this out, and also listen to "Pacific Ocean Blue."

01 Under the Moonlight (Dennis Wilson)
02 It's Not Too Late (Dennis Wilson)
03 Love Remember Me (Dennis Wilson)
04 Wild Situation (Dennis Wilson)
05 Are You Real (Dennis Wilson)
06 He's a Bum (Dennis Wilson)
07 Cocktails (Dennis Wilson)
08 I Love You (Dennis Wilson)
09 Constant Companion [Alternate Version] (Dennis Wilson)
10 Time for Bed (Dennis Wilson)
11 All Alone (Dennis Wilson)
12 Mexico [Edit] [Instrumental] (Dennis Wilson)
13 Baby Blue [Alternate Version] (Dennis Wilson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700626/TBECHBYS1979_BmbuAlternte_atse.zip.html

The album cover is the same as the 2017 version, mostly. I tweaked with the contrast to make it sharper. I also removed the text "The Caribou Sessions" from under the word "Bambu," since I thought that was unnecessary.

The Beach Boys - Full Sail - Non-Album Tracks (1979-1981)

I've been posting Beach Boys stray tracks albums off and on for quite some time now. For the 1960s and early 1970s, they only consisted of songs not on the band's studio albums. From the mid-1970s onwards though, their albums were so hit and miss that I've made these albums from every good song I could find, on their albums or not. 

With this album, I feel like I've come to the end of an era. In terms of releasing new music, the Beach Boys started going downhill after their 1973 album "Holland." All through the rest of the 1970s though, they continued to put out enough good music for nearly an album a year, if only they'd done a better job of figuring out which songs were worthy of their albums. However, after about 1980, they basically became an oldies band that made money through concerts. They didn't put out as much music as before, and what they did often was really bad. I still plan on posting more stray tracks albums after this one, but it'll be rough going finding the occasional good songs among many bad ones.

That said, they still were decent through the time period featured here. In 1979, they released the album "L.A. (Light Album)." I have four songs from that here, plus two more songs from it on the previous stray tracks album. (I also included a live version of "Angel Come Home" that I find superior to the "L.A. (Light Album)" version.) In 1980, they released the album "Keepin' the Summer Alive." I only have four songs from that total, all of them here. Furthermore, I've added five more non-album songs, three of them still unreleased. So yeah, you basically have to pick the best from two albums plus a bunch of other songs to get one decent album. This isn't a lost "Pet Sounds" masterpiece by any means. But had they put out an album much like this around 1980, I think it would have been much better received.

A couple of the unreleased songs are interesting enough for further comment. "Stevie," in my opinion, is a really good song, sounding like the Beach Boys in their prime. It turns out it's a song about Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks. It seems Brian Wilson had a bit of a crush on her from afar. I suspect the reason the song wasn't released then was because of the somewhat embarrassing subject matter. It's been reported that it was seriously considered for inclusion on the 2013 box set "Made in California," but didn't quite make it. Perhaps Wilson was still embarrassed, and nixed it?

The other unreleased song I want to mention is "Oh Lord." This powerfully emotional song was much better than anything on an album like "Keepin' the Summer Alive." Apparently, it was written too late to be considered for that album. But it's been reported a full Beach Boys version was done for their next album, the 1985 album simply called "The Beach Boys." That's a terrible album, and this song would have stuck out like a sore thumb on it. But still, it would be interesting to hear the full band version someday.

01 Country Pie (Mike Love & Celebration)
02 Lady Lynda (Beach Boys)
03 Night Bloomin' Jasmine (Brian Wilson)
04 Full Sail (Beach Boys)
05 Angel Come Home (Beach Boys)
06 Love Surrounds Me (Beach Boys)
07 Sumahama (Beach Boys)
08 Goin' On (Beach Boys)
09 Livin' with a Heartache (Beach Boys)
10 Santa Ana Winds (Beach Boys)
11 Endless Harmony (Beach Boys)
12 Stevie [Edit] (Brian Wilson with Dennis Wilson)
13 Oh Lord (Brian Wilson & Dennis Wilson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17168583/TBECHBYS1979-1981FllSail_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NA7TfZ98

I believe the album cover dates to 1976. That doesn't quite fit the time period here, but I used it because it fits the album title so well. It's a rather low res photo though, and it seems to have some color and contrast issues that I can't entirely fix. If anyone can find a better version, please let me know, so I can replace it.

UPDATE: On September 27, 2024, I used the program Krea AI to upgrade the image. That fixed the issues I had.

The Beach Boys - It's a Beautiful Day - Non-Album Tracks (1978-1979)

Here's the next in my long series of stray tracks albums for the Beach Boys. 

Their official studio albums in the late 1970s were very spotty, so I'm taking the good songs from those. The band's material came down a lot in quality from their earlier peaks like "Pet Sounds," but they were still putting out a lot of good stuff in this era. Brian Wilson still had flashes of brilliance, and his brother Dennis Wilson in particular was hitting a creative peak. 

Unfortunately, they were making big missteps too. For instance, their 1978 album "L.A. (Light Album)" was ruined by the inclusion of an 11 minute long disco version of their previously released song "Here Comes the Night." Ugh! But if you separate the wheat from the chaff, this is actually a pretty good album.

In my opinion, a big part of the reason the late 1970s are not considered a good time for the Beach Boys was that they made terrible decisions about what to include or not include on their albums. "Here Comes the Night" was just one of several really bad clunkers they put on. Meanwhile, they left off lots of good songs. This album includes two songs that remain unreleased, plus another four that only came out as rarities at the time (such as a song on the soundtrack to the movie "Americathon"), or were put on archival releases much later. Six songs can make a world of difference between a good album and a bad one.

Note that I'm not including any songs from the two Dennis Wilson late 1970s solo albums, "Pacific Ocean Blue" and "Bambu." That's because they're solid albums and any Beach Boys fans should have both of them. I think they're the best solo albums by any members of the band, including Brian Wilson. ("Bambu" was never quite finished, and was only officially released decades later.)

I also only have two songs from the band's 1979 album "L.A. (Light Album)." I'll have more of that on the next album in this series. They continued to make good music as a bad through 1979 and 1980, and then pretty much dropped off a cliff after that.

01 California Feelin' (Beach Boys)
02 Winds of Change (Beach Boys)
03 Winter Symphony (Beach Boys)
04 Come Go with Me (Beach Boys)
05 Pitter Patter (Beach Boys)
06 Kona Coast (Beach Boys)
07 My Diane (Beach Boys)
08 Sad, Sad Summer (Mike Love & Celebration)
09 Angel Come Home (Beach Boys)
10 Goin' to the Beach (Beach Boys)
11 It's a Beautiful Day (Beach Boys)
12 Lookin' Down the Coast (Beach Boys)
13 Baby Blue (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376783/TBECHBYS1978-1979ItsaButfulDy_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a promotional picture of the band from the late 1970s, but I'm not sure about the exact year.

The Beach Boys - The Beach Boys Love You - Alternate Version (1977)

A lot of people are of the opinion that the Beach Boys stopped being a creative force and turned into more of an oldies act after 1973. I disagree. I feel they continued to do a lot of interesting and creative things until about 1980. But the problem with their late 1970s music is that much of their good stuff didn't get on their records and some bad stuff did.

One bright spot in their late 1970s output is the 1977 album "The Beach Boys Love You." It essentially is a Brian Wilson solo album, with him writing or co-writing all the songs for the first time in ages. But the other Beach Boys played and sang on it, with a majority of the songs featuring someone other than Brian on lead vocals.

It was a weird album, which was fitting because Brian Wilson was going through some weird times. He'd suffered mental problems since the 1960s, but his therapist, Eugene Landy, was highly unethical and would eventually be disbarred and prohibited from approaching Wilson. Apparently, during this time period, Landy thought that it would be helpful for Wilson to work on his music, so he forced him to do so, denying him dinner if he didn't spend a certain number of hours with his music that day. That sort of treatment would get Landy in trouble later, but the short term effect was that Wilson was more musically productive than he'd been in years. He wrote and produced all the songs for "The Beach Boys Love You" by early 1977, and then completed a follow-up to be called "Adult/Child" by mid-1977.

"The Beach Boys Love You" was critically hailed as a comeback by critics at the time, though it didn't sell that well. Personally, I think it's a good album, though sometimes Wilson's quirky ways get to be too much. The biggest offender in my opinion is the song "Ding Dang." Wilson was obsessed with the main riff, and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds said he once witnessed Wilson playing it on the piano for nearly 24 hours straight. I've removed that song, plus a couple others I don't like so much ("Mona" and "Love Is a Woman").

The album was only about 35 minutes long to begin with, and after removing the three songs, it was less than 30 minutes long. I've added about another 20 minutes at the end, using songs from "Adult/Child" plus other Brian Wilson-led songs from 1977 that were done in the same vein. The band's record company rejected "Adult/Child" as not being strong enough for release, and I think deservedly so. There were some good songs on it, but more duds, as well as some uninspired cover versions. Plus, two of the better songs actually dated to the early 1970s, and I've already used them elsewhere. So I've only used five songs from it ("Still I Dream of It" was a part of that album, but got officially released much later), plus three others that could have easily fit on it.

The end result is kind of "The Beach Boys Love You... Plus." It has most of the "Love You" album, plus eight more songs in the same vein that were done just a few months later. Had the band waited and put out a track list like this one, I think the album would have been much more acclaimed.

01 Let Us Go On This Way (Beach Boys)
02 Roller Skating Child (Beach Boys)
03 Johnny Carson (Beach Boys)
04 Good Time (Beach Boys)
05 Honkin' Down the Highway (Beach Boys)
06 Solar System (Beach Boys)
07 The Night Was So Young (Beach Boys)
08 I'll Bet He's Nice (Beach Boys)
09 Let's Put Our Hearts Together (Beach Boys with Marilyn Wilson)
10 I Wanna Pick You Up (Beach Boys)
11 Airplane (Beach Boys)
12 Marilyn Rovell (Beach Boys)
13 Our Team (Beach Boys)
14 Go and Get That Girl (Beach Boys)
15 Life Is for the Living (Beach Boys)
16 It's Over Now (Beach Boys)
17 Everybody Wants to Live (Beach Boys)
18 Lines (Beach Boys)
19 Still I Dream of It (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700629/TBECHBYS1977_ThBechBysLoveYuAlternte_atse.zip.html

This album is different enough from the official "Beach Boys Love You" that I decided I shouldn't just use the exact same cover. I found a good publicity photo of the band in 1976. The text at the top comes from a 1977 ad for the album.

The Beach Boys - Only with You - Non-Album Tracks (1976-1977)

Here's the next installment of my Beach Boys stray tracks.

However, with this album, I'm changing things up a little bit. I started in the late 1960s, and moved forward chronologically to the mid-1970s. All through those years, the official Beach Boys studio albums were solid and sometimes even great. But starting around this time, 1976, those albums become much more hit and miss. Unfortunately, as time goes on into the 1980s and beyond they become much more miss than hit. So, from this point on, these albums will cover everything the Beach Boys did, solo and as a band, and on album, singles, or other.

The only exception to that is if there are still any albums that are so good that I would recommend any Beach Boys fan should get the entire album. Luckily, there still are a couple of cases like that. One is in the time period covered by this album. I'm referring to "Pacific Ocean Blue," the first of two solo albums by Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. Drummers are not usually known for either their singing or songwriting, but Dennis (who died in 1983) was great at both. In fact, I'd argue he was the second biggest creative force in the group being his genius brother Brian Wilson. Thus, I'm not including any songs here from "Pacific Ocean Blue," though a couple are bonus tracks from some versions of that album.

The first five songs on this album come from "15 Big Ones," the Beach Boys studio album released in 1976. As you can tell from the numbers, there are 15 songs on that album and I only like five, so  I don't think it's a very good album. Not only did critics and the public not like it very much, but even some of the Beach Boys themselves have knocked it. One problem was they couldn't decide if they wanted it to be an album of originals or of covers, and split the difference, with seven originals. Furthermore, the album was touted as the return of Brian Wilson, who produced the album after not producing any of the band's albums since 1966. But Brian was going through troubled times, having an idiosyncratic musical vision that was at odds with the rest of the band.

Basically, the album is a mess, but they rushed it out anyway, because they hadn't put out a new studio album since 1973, and demand was high, since they'd become the number one concert draw in the US (thanks to their backlog of hits).

Luckily, I think I was able to make a strong album by drawing on various solo projects and songs that weren't released at the time. In my opinion, this will be a common theme for the rest of the 1970s: the band was still recording a lot of good songs, it's just that a big chunk of them weren't ending up on their albums.

I want to make a particular note about the song "I Write the Songs." Chances are, you're familiar with this as a huge hit by Barry Manilow. But actually it was written by Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, and he released a version of it before Manilow's. The song is written from the point of view of Brian Wilson, since he's the one who "writes the songs that make the whole world sing."

One could imagine an alternate universe where the Beach Boys got the number of hit with this song, which would have been a much needed shot in the arm preventing them from turning into a oldies act. But Johnston left the band for a few years in the mid-1970s, and his version came out on an obscure solo album hardly anyone noticed (except for, apparently, Manilow).

01 Rock and Roll Music [Extra Verse Version] (Beach Boys)
02 Had to Phone Ya [Alternate Version] (Beach Boys)
03 That Same Song [Extended Version] (Beach Boys)
04 Everyone's in Love with You (Beach Boys)
05 Just Once in My Life (Beach Boys)
06 Sherry She Needs Me (Beach Boys)
07 Still I Dream of It [Demo] (Brian Wilson)
08 Sea Cruise (Beach Boys)
09 Tug of Love [Feel the Pull] (Dennis Wilson)
10 I Write the Songs (Bruce Johnston)
11 Morning Christmas (Beach Boys)
12 Only with You (Dennis Wilson)
13 Brand New Old Friends (Bruce Johnston)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17187624/TBECHBYS1976-1977OnlywthYu_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8dT1JseJ

The cover art here looks like a typical album cover photo, doesn't it? Actually, I looked for good photos of the band in 1976 or 1977, and the best one I could find featured them in an ad for car stereos. I removed some text up in the sky and replaced it with my own.

UPDATE: On October 1, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

The Beach Boys - Caribou Ranch - Non-Album Tracks (1974-1975)

In 1973, the Beach Boys released "Holland," the latest in a long series of albums that tended to come at least once a year. And then... nothing. The band was riding a big wave of popularity, thanks to the release of the greatest hits album "Endless Summer" in 1974 that did surprisingly well, going all the way to number one in the charts in the US. But they didn't put out another album of new material until 1976, and by that time, their critical momentum was lost. 

From the mid-1970s onward until today, the band essentially turned into an "oldies" band, playing their earlier greatest hits the vast majority of the time, with their new material of much less interest to the average fan. 

It turns out the band was having big personnel problems. They tried recording a new album in 1974 and 1975 at Caribou Ranch in Colorado, but they couldn't get it together. The main problem, it seems, was genius Brian Wilson. His father died in mid-1973, and that sent him into a spiral of heavy drug use and general bad behavior. His voice deteriorated significantly due to heavy cocaine use and smoking, and he pretty much gave up on music. Rumors of him spending an entire year in bed date to around this time. So, with Brian as the creative leader of the group, it's no wonder they couldn't put finish an album.

That said, a lot of recording was done, and what I've heard sounds pretty good. Much music recorded around this time has never been made public, not even on bootleg, but there's enough for me to put this album together. However, I had to dig pretty deep in order to find enough material. I included "Good Timin'" and "It's OK"even though they weren't released until 1979 and 1976 respectively, because they actually were recorded during this time. I'm also including an early version of Dennis Wilson's "River Song" that was recorded in 1974, even though another version would be released on his 1977 solo album "Pacific Ocean Blue." I'm also including a Dennis Wilson song "Holy Man" that was recorded during this time, but he never got around to adding the vocals. So, many years later, a Dennis Wilson sound alike finished it off, and that version got officially released. Furthermore, I've included a solo piano version of "Disney Girls," even though that song was on an earlier Beach Boys album. I just think this very is really cool.

On top of all that, I went to some lengths in order to include a version of "You Are So Beautiful." Although Dennis Wilson isn't officially credited as a co-writer to the hit song by Billy Preston, it is widely believed that he did help write it. He played it in concert frequently from 1975 onwards, but unfortunately all the versions I've heard are just a snippet of about one minute long, with lots of audience singing. So I've stitched together different versions to create a full performance that's almost three minutes long.

Add all those songs together, plus the rest, and you get an album that's 37 minutes long. Clearly, this was not a creative high point for the band. But they could and should have put together an album to keep their career going, especially since there are reports that there was a lot more recorded that has yet to be released. Plus, they could have drawn on the volumes of songs that had been recorded in previous years and were still unreleased and totally unheard of at the time. Oh well.

01 Good Timin' (Beach Boys)
02 Holy Man (Dennis Wilson with Taylor Hawkins)
03 California Feelin' [Demo] (Brian Wilson)
04 It's OK (Beach Boys)
05 My Love Lives On (Beach Boys)
06 River Song [Early Version] (Beach Boys)
07 Child of Winter (Beach Boys)
08 Barnyard Blues (Beach Boys)
09 Don't Fight the Sea (Beach Boys)
10 In the Back of My Mind [Demo] (Brian Wilson)
11 Disney Girls [Solo Version] (Bruce Johnston)
12 You Are So Beautiful [Live] [Edit] (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376710/TBECHBYS1975CarbuRnch_atse.zip.html

I kind of cheated with making the cover art. I found a photo of the barn at the Caribou Ranch near Boulder, Colorado, where the Beach Boys and many other big name artists recorded in the 1970s. I also found another photo that wasn't very good, but included the Caribou Ranch sign over the road leading to the place. I liked the sign and the barn, so I combined the two photos. I figured there's no good place left to add "The Beach Boys," so I just left that off.

The Beach Boys - Acappella: 1968-1977

As I just explained in my last blog post, I'd had an album of the Beach Boys doing acappella versions of their songs from 1967 to 1977 that I'd posted here in April 2018. But I'd deleted that because I've found a bunch more acappella versions, allowing me to split that album into two. Here's the second album. Read the previous blog post for more details.

All the new songs are from 1968, due to some official archival releases that came out in December 2018 for copyright purposes. (Again, read the previous blog.) There was a similar release that happened in 2017 for 1967 songs. So, if the pattern holds, we should expect an archival release at the end of 2019 covering 1969, one at the end of 2020 covering 1970, and so on. And, if the pattern holds, there should be more acappella versions coming out on each one. So it may take a few years, but I hope eventually that I'll be able to split this album yet again.

By the way, note that nearly all the songs here are from 1968 to 1971, with only the last two from after that. Who knows, maybe by 2027 we'll still be getting yearly archival releases, allowing me to add more acappella songs from 1977 in that year!

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 We're Together Again [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
02 Never Learn Not to Love [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
03 Ol' Man River [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
04 Break Away [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
05 Cotton Fields [The Cotton Song] [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
06 Walk On By [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
07 Add Some Music to Your Day [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
08 Got to Know the Woman [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
09 Our Sweet Love [Vocals with Strings Version] (Beach Boys)
10 Slip On Through [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
11 This Whole World [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
12 All I Wanna Do [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
13 Forever [Acappella Mix] (Beach Boys)
14 Don't Go Near the Water [Acappella Mix] (Beach Boys)
15 Long Promised Road [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
16 'Til I Die [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
17 Surf's Up [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
18 Marcella [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
19 Sail On Sailor [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
20 The Night Was So Young [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)

Add Some Music to Your Day [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
Cotton Fields [The Cotton Song] [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
Forever [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
Surf's Up [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
'Til I Die [Desper Mix Edit - Vocals and Organ] (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376751/TBECHBYS1968-1977AcppllaVrsons_atse.zip.html

This is the same cover I used for the 1967 to 1977 version that I'd had, prior to splitting that in two. I changed the years on the cover but kept everything else the same. I found the photo on the Twitter feed of the "Beach Boys Legacy," showing the group singing in the studio in 1979.

The Beach Boys - Acappella: 1967-1968

Back in April 2018, I posted two albums here of the Beach Boys doing acappella versions of some of their songs. I broke it into two parts, one covering 1963 to 1966, and one covering 1967 to 1977. There also is an officially released CD of acappella versions of the entire "Pet Sounds" album (as part of the "Pet Sounds Sessions" box set), so I didn't include that.

Now, I'm deleting that second album covering 1967 to 1968 with two albums covering that time period, because I've found a bunch more acappella versions. These come from an obscure place. In December 2018, the Beach Boys officially released two big archival albums of 1968 material called "Wake the World: The Friends Sessions" and "I Can Hear Music -The 20/20 Sessions."

The reason they did this is because of European copyright law that says a record company loses the rights to the music if they don't make it available for sale within 50 years. December 2018 was the last moment to secure the rights to 1968 recordings. Strangely though, last year the Beach Boys did the same thing with 1967 recordings and they made CDs for sale of that material, but these 1968 albums are on-line download only. As a result, they've gone by almost unnoticed.

You have to a die-hard Beach Boys fan to find much of the music on these 1968 archival releases very interesting (although there are a few previously unreleased songs, which I will be doing something with on another album here). The main appeal to me is a handful of newly revealed acappella versions of songs, plus some other acappella songs that had only existed on bootlegs.

So here's the first of the two albums I've made from the mere one I did before. If you haven't heard much of the Beach Boys singing acappella, you're in for a treat!

01 Our Prayer [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
02 Heroes and Villains [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
03 She's Goin' Bald [He Gives Speeches] [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
04 Do You Like Worms [Roll Plymouth Rock] [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
05 Vega-Tables [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
06 Wind Chimes [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
07 Surfer Girl [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
08 Darlin' [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
09 Little Pad [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
10 Here Comes the Night [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
11 Let the Wind Blow [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
12 Friends [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
13 Little Bird [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
14 Anna Lee the Healer [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
15 Transcendental Meditation [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
16 Do It Again [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
17 Time to Get Alone [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
18 I Went to Sleep [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376711/TBECHBYS1967-1968AcppllaVrsons_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a photo of the Beach Boys rehearsing in 1967.

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.

The Beach Boys - Reverberation - Non-Album Tracks (1970)

I recently posted an album of Beach Boys stray tracks from 1967 to 1969. This is the next album in a series, covering 1970.

My method is the same as in the last album. Namely, I'm not trying to replicate any of the "lost" Beach Boys albums, even though I'm using the name of one of them, for a lack of any better name. If you're interested in those lost albums, you can start by checking the Wikipedia page for the Beach Boys album "Sunflower." It shows how that album was first known as "Sun Flower," then "Add Some Music," then "The Fading Rock Group Revival," then "Reverberation," then "Sunflower" again (but without the space between the "sun" and the "flower.") There are some tentative song lists there as well.

Instead of that, I'm just pulling together all of the non-album tracks from 1970. It was a very fruitful year for the group. "Sunflower," which was released in 1970, has 12 songs on it. This album I've created which I call "Reverberation" also has 12 songs on it. Personally, I think it's just as strong of an album.

Most of the songs on it came out on later archival releases, such as the "Good Vibrations" and "Made in California" box sets. But two of the songs are still officially unreleased. To be, it really is a mystery why so many of these songs stayed in the vaults for so long. Personally, I think the band peaked from about 1966 to 1973. That puts 1970 right in the middle of that peak

However, not every song was good, in my opinion, so there were a few I left off. For instance, in 1970, Brian Wilson made a demo of a Halloween novelty song called "My Solution." Some people like it, but I don't. There were a few others like that I thought were marginal and left off. What remains makes up a solid album, in my book, that's 40 minutes long.

I've also included a bonus track, which is a 1970 version of "Big Sur," a song that eventually was released on 1973's "Holland" album. I've included it both because this version is significantly different from the 1973 version and also because this early version is still officially unreleased. It's only a bonus track though, since it's not totally different from the other version.

01 We're Together Again (Beach Boys)
02 Walkin' (Beach Boys)
03 Walk On By [Edit] (Beach Boys)
04 Passing By [Vocals Version] (Beach Boys)
05 Susie Cincinnati (Beach Boys)
06 Games Two Can Play (Beach Boys)
07 Barbara (Beach Boys)
08 I Just Got My Pay (Beach Boys)
09 Fallin' in Love [Lady] (Beach Boys)
10 Back Home (Beach Boys)
11 Sweet and Bitter (Beach Boys)
12 Loop De Loop [Sail Plane Song] (Beach Boys)
13 Cotton Fields [The Cotton Song] [Single Version] (Beach Boys)
14 H.E.L.P. Is on the Way (Beach Boys)
15 It's a New Day (Beach Boys)
16 Sound of Free (Beach Boys)

Big Sur [Early Version] (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700630/TBECHBYS1969-1970_Revrbraton_atse.zip.html

I found the cover at an Internet forum, made by someone named Picassoson.

The Beach Boys - The Fading Rock Group Revival - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1969)

Today, the "Albums Back from the Dead" blog posted a couple of "lost" Beach Boys albums. That reminded me to post my own versions of such.

The typical "lost" Beach Boys albums focus on 1969 or 1970 or thereabouts, because the band went through various versions of albums under various proposed names that got rejected by their record company. "Landlocked" is a particularly popular title for this, even though that was pretty much just the name for the "Surf's Up" album before the song "Surf's Up" was added to it.

I'm taking a somewhat different approach, which is usually how I approach major artists with lots of stray tracks. I'm not so interested in hearing historically accurate "what if" albums as I am gathering up all the good stray tracks and making coherent albums out of them, even if the track listing wasn't exactly something the band envisioned.

And so it is here. Although I'm using one of the lost album titles, I'm just gathering up all the good non-album songs from 1967 to 1969 and putting them on one album, ordered chronologically by year. I don't start earlier because "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" are huge things that are big projects in and of themselves, and I'm not such a big fan of their music prior to 1966. (While I think the early Beach  Boys have many great songs, there are many songs from then that I don't like, and I haven't seen anything close to an album's worth of rare tracks.)

Anyway, with that premise in mind, I found 43 minutes worth of good songs from 1967 to 1969. 1970 is probably the peak of good stray tracks for the band, because I plan to follow this with an album just covering that year.

By the way, I should mention that one song, "Ol' Man River," uses a special edit, which was made by Scott G. of the blog "Alternative Albums and More." There are various recorded snippets of the Beach Boys doing that song, but none of them felt like a proper song. For instance, the version on the "Made in California" box set is only one minute and twenty seconds long. He stitched the snippets together to make something coherent that lasts a full four minutes.

01 The Letter (Beach Boys)
02 Can't Wait Too Long (Beach Boys)
03 You're Welcome (Beach Boys)
04 With a Little Help from My Friends (Beach Boys)
05 Mona Kana [Instrumental] (Beach Boys)
06 A Time to Live in Dreams (Beach Boys)
07 Love Affair [Demo] (Beach Boys)
08 The Gong (Beach Boys)
09 Well You Know I Knew (Beach Boys)
10 My Little Red Book (Beach Boys)
11 Soulful Old Man Sunshine (Beach Boys)
12 I'm Going Your Way [California Slide] (Beach Boys)
13 San Miguel (Beach Boys)
14 Where Is She (Beach Boys)
15 Break Away (Beach Boys)
16 Celebrate the News (Beach Boys)
17 Ol' Man River [Long Version] (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700633/TBECHBYS1967-1969_TheFdingRockGrupRevivl_atse.zip.html

The cover was made by Picassoson as a mock cover for an imagined "Carry Me Home" single. I changed the text of the title.

The Beach Boys - Acappella: 1963-1966

In their prime, the Beach Boys' harmonizing abilities were a true wonder. As my Beach Boys collection has grown, I've seen some stray tracks here and there of them doing songs acappella style (meaning all vocals, no instrumentation), but I haven't seen any sort of collection of them, official or otherwise. So I decided to make one.

I have three albums like this. This one covers their early years, from 1963 to 1966. I also have an acappella version of the "Pet Sounds" album. Then I made another album covering them from 1967 to 1977. If there's interest, I can post those other two albums.

There's one song here that technically isn't acappella - "God Only Knows." That's because I have a purely acappella version on the Pet Sounds mentioned above. This version also has Brian Wilson playing piano.

I'm not as die-hard a Beach Boys fan as some, so if anyone knows of acappella versions I missed, please let me know and I'll add them in.

The album is 57 minutes long. The songs are in rough chronological order.

01 Farmer's Daughter [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
02 Little Deuce Coupe [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
03 Be True to Your School [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
04 Catch a Wave [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
05 In My Room [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
06 Surfers Rule [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
07 Little Saint Nick [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
08 The Lord's Prayer [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
09 Don't Worry Baby [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
10 All Summer Long [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
11 Hushabye [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
12 Fun, Fun, Fun [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
13 Girls on the Beach [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
14 I Get Around [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
15 When I Grow Up [To Be a Man] [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
16 She Knows Me Too Well [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
17 Wendy [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
18 Dance, Dance, Dance [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
19 Don't Hurt My Little Sister [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
20 Do You Wanna Dance [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
21 Help Me, Rhonda [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
22 Kiss Me Baby [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
23 California Girls [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
24 Girl from New York City [Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)
25 God Only Knows [Vocals and Piano Version] (Beach Boys)
26 Their Hearts Were Full of Spring [Live Acappella Version] (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15127584/TBeachBys_1963-1966_AcapllaVersions_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art, using a photo of the Beach Boys singing "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" acappella style on a TV show, and that version is the last song on the album. The rest of the art is inspired by a fake cover made by "I Design Album Covers."