The Beach Boys and Friends - 25 Years Together, Waikiki Shell, Honolulu, HI, 12-12-1986

Here's a really interesting Beach Boys concert, featuring lots of special guest stars. It was a TV special filmed in Waikiki Beach in Hawaii to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the formation of the band, back in 1961. The Beach Boys stayed on stage the entire time. Often they performed their own songs, but sometimes they were the backing band for: Ray Charles, Gloria Loring, Glen Campbell, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the Everly Brothers, Jeffrey Osborne, Belinda Carlisle, and Three Dog Night. That's a pretty impressive list.

I happened to stumble across a video of this concert on YouTube. I converted that to an audio file and cut it into mp3s. While doing so, I deliberately cut out some things. For instance, there were some long talking segments by actor Patrick Duffy in which he talked extensively about the history of the Beach Boys. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't have relistening value, so I axed it. I also cut out a few other little things, like some really bad jokes or cheesy comments made by the Beach Boys between songs. 

I gotta say, I put a lot of effort into making this a better listen. One big problem was there was a constant noise coming from the crowd all the time, through every song. Probably, microphones were stuck in the crowd to capture that audience noise in order to supposedly increase the excitement level. Or some of it could have been added in later. That has happened even to officially released live albums occasionally. Regardless, I used the MVSEP to get rid of most of the crowd noise, except for the bits you'd expect at the starts and ends of the songs. The sonic difference was dramatic, like suddenly being able to hear after taking ear muffs off. 

The last two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles due to extra editing on them. For "The Spirit of Rock and Roll," an announcer came on near the end of the song and talked over it. Luckily, that didn't last too long, and I was able to patch it by bringing in a section from elsewhere in the song. "Good Vibrations" was much more difficult. For some stupid reason, the song was repeatedly interrupted by brief comments made by random people, saying things like "Happy anniversary to the Beach Boys!" These comments clearly were filmed on the beach at a different time and spliced into the footage. This happened about ten times, through random points in the song. Worse, the volume of the song itself was briefly turned way down, ruining the rhythm. I found a different live version of the song from the 1980s and patched in bits of that, or patched in sections from elsewhere in the same version. It was a real pain in the ass to fix, but all those dumb comments are gone now.

I think this is a really interesting concert, a lot better than what I'd expected from the Beach Boys at this point in their career. The main negative is that the band tried to cram in too many songs for the limited time they had for their TV special. So many of the songs are short versions, sometimes in medleys. There's even a couple that are a minute or less. But there are a lot of plus sides. One nice thing is that Brian Wilson usually didn't tour with the band, but he was here and involved. In fact, he looked as healthy and fit as he ever did, after some rough years in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

And while the Beach Boys mostly played their expected classics, there was a couple of really nice surprises. One was a version of "Heaven" near the end of the concert. This was released on a Carl Wilson solo album and never officially done by the Beach Boys. The other one that is even more interesting is the closing song, "The Spirit of Rock and Roll." At the time, Brian Wilson was working on his first solo album. But there were many false starts before the album, simply called "Brian Wilson," was released in 1988. At one point, there was nearly enough material for an album to be released, only for it to be scrapped and most of the songs discarded. Some of this later became a popular bootleg called "Sweet Insanity." "The Spirit of Rock and Roll" was one of those discarded songs. So it's interesting that it was not only chosen for inclusion in this special, but it was the finale. This appears to be the ONLY time the song was ever performed by the Beach Boys, as opposed to Brian Wilson solo.

But maybe the most interesting thing of all were the special guests, the vast majority of whom have stood the test of time. Gloria Loring is better known as an actress than a singer, but she had a good voice and had a big hit in 1986 with "Friends and Lovers," which she sang here. Other than that though, the guests mostly sang Beach Boys songs, while being backed by the actual Beach Boys on backing vocals and instruments. For instance, not only did the back up Ray Charles singing and playing keyboards on "Sail On, Sailor," but Charles was the one playing the prominent keyboard part in the "Good Vibrations" finale. I particularly liked hearing Belinda Carlisle singing a Beach Boys song as well as a soul classic.

Everything here is unreleased, I believe. The sound quality is very good, though not great. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 talk (Beach Boys)
02 Help Me, Rhonda (Beach Boys)
03 Fun, Fun, Fun (Beach Boys)
04 California Girls (Beach Boys)
05 California Dreamin' (Beach Boys)
06 talk (Beach Boys)
07 Sail On, Sailor (Beach Boys & Ray Charles)
08 Sloop John B (Beach Boys)
09 Do It Again (Beach Boys)
10 talk (Beach Boys)
11 Friends and Lovers (Beach Boys & Gloria Loring)
12 I Can Hear Music (Beach Boys & Gloria Loring)
13 talk (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
14 In Cars (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
15 talk (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
16 Little Deuce Coupe (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
17 The Little Old Lady from Pasadena (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
18 I Get Around (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
19 Barbara Ann (Beach Boys)
20 talk (Beach Boys & the Fabulous Thunderbirds)
21 Rock and Roll Music (Beach Boys & the Fabulous Thunderbirds)
22 Be True to Your School (Beach Boys)
23 Don't Worry Baby - Getcha Back (Beach Boys & the Everly Brothers)
24 Wake Up Little Susie (Beach Boys & the Everly Brothers)
25 Surfer Girl (Beach Boys)
26 Come Go with Me (Beach Boys)
27 talk (Beach Boys)
28 Disney Girls [1957] (Beach Boys)
29 God Only Knows (Beach Boys & Jeffrey Osborne)
30 talk (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
31 Surfer Girl [Reprise] (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
32 Surf City (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
33 Surfin' U.S.A. (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
34 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Beach Boys & Belinda Carlisle)
35 Band of Gold (Beach Boys & Belinda Carlisle)
36 talk (Beach Boys & Three Dog Night)
37 Darlin' (Beach Boys & Three Dog Night)
38 talk (Beach Boys)
39 Heaven (Beach Boys)
40 Good Vibrations [Edit] (Beach Boys & Everyone)
41 talk (Beach Boys)
42 The Spirit of Rock and Roll [Edit] (Beach Boys & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eYAr29uv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/lny0w2Q0FB2gE8x/file

I had a hard time finding a good cover photo by taking a screenshot from a video. If I used a long distance shot showing many people, it was too low-res and blurry. I chose this one from the "Good Vibrations" finale. From right to left, that's Gloria Loring, unknown, Al Jardine, and Belinda Carlile. I used Krea AI to boost the image quality.

The Everly Brothers - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Manchester Apollo, Manchester, Britain, 5-24-1997

A while back, I posted an album of BBC studio sessions by the Everly Brothers done in the 1960s and early 1970s. That was all I could find at the time when it came to the Everly Brothers and the BBC. But then I discovered this unreleased 1997 BBC concert.

1997 is later than I'd prefer for this duo. Their hit-making days were long over. But they were in their fifties, and their vocal powers hadn't diminished yet. Plus, they were supported on lead guitar by the very talented Albert Lee.

The sound quality is excellent, as you'd expect from the BBC. In terms of set list, there aren't many surprises - nearly every song is a classic hit from the 1950s or 60s.

By the way, since I found this one, I renamed the earlier BBC collection "Volume 1," and updated the cover art and mp3 tags. If you want that updated version, you can find it here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-everly-brothers-bbc-sessions-1963.html

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 Green River (Everly Brothers)
02 Kentucky (Everly Brothers)
03 Bowling Green (Everly Brothers)
04 talk (Everly Brothers)
05 So Sad [To Watch Good Love Go Bad] (Everly Brothers)
06 Claudette (Everly Brothers)
07 talk (Everly Brothers)
08 Crying in the Rain (Everly Brothers)
09 When Will I Be Loved (Everly Brothers)
10 Ebony Eyes - He Stopped Loving Her Today (Everly Brothers)
11 talk (Everly Brothers)
12 Bye Bye Love (Everly Brothers)
13 All I Have to Do Is Dream (Everly Brothers)
14 talk (Everly Brothers)
15 Long Time Gone (Everly Brothers)
16 Blues Stay Away from Me (Everly Brothers)
17 'Til I Kissed You (Everly Brothers)
18 Walk Right Back (Everly Brothers)
19 Cathy's Clown (Everly Brothers)
20 Wake Up, Little Susie (Everly Brothers)
21 Lucille (Everly Brothers)
22 talk (Everly Brothers)
23 Let It Be Me (Everly Brothers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jjcioVYs

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/E1gtBbruRuJAHId/file

The cover photo is from 2000. I found a few photos from 1997, but I liked this one better.

The Everly Brothers - Sveriges Radio, Karlaplan Studios, Stockholm, Sweden, 4-22-1965

In my search for BBC recordings for the Everly Brothers, I came across this. I posted their 1960s BBC sessions a while back, but I forgot to post this one. Happily, I noticed that it hadn't been posted while fixing broken links recently.

This is very similar to a BBC studio session, except it was done for a Swedish radio station in 1965. The Everly Brothers played a short concert set list without an audience. However, there was a twist: after the recording was done, Don Everly went back and recorded some comments between the songs and sometimes over the songs. I left all of those in. (I don't have the same dislike for talking over the music if it's done by the actual artist and not a DJ.) I don't know why the comments are only from Don and not his brother Phil too, but it is what it is.

The good news is the sound quality is excellent. I've noticed a bunch of Swedish radio shows that were recorded and preserved with great sound quality, and this fits right into that.

The one downside is this is rather short, at only 30 minutes. But I figured I should present it exactly as it is, with no additions or edits, since it's all linked together by Don Everly's comments.

01 Lucille (Everly Brothers)
02 Susie Q (Everly Brothers)
03 talk (Everly Brothers)
04 Raunchy [Instrumental] (Everly Brothers)
05 talk (Everly Brothers)
06 Walk Right Back (Everly Brothers)
07 talk (Everly Brothers)
08 Bye Bye Love (Everly Brothers)
09 Gone, Gone, Gone (Everly Brothers)
10 talk (Everly Brothers)
11 Untitled Instrumental (Everly Brothers)
12 talk (Everly Brothers)
13 I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town (Everly Brothers)
14 talk (Everly Brothers)
15 Bird Dog (Everly Brothers)
16 talk (Everly Brothers)
17 So Sad [To Watch Good Love Go Bad] (Everly Brothers)
18 Lucille (Everly Brothers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15107890/TEverlyB_1965_SverigeRadioKarlaplanStudiosStockholmSweden__4-22-1965.zip.html

The cover photo is from an appearance on the "Thank You Lucky Stars" TV show in 1965.

The Everly Brothers - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1963-1972

The vast majority of artists who have enough material for their own BBC studio sessions albums are British, but there are exceptions. One exceptions are the Everly Brothers, from the US. 

They were very popular everywhere in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But by the middle of the 1960s, their popularity dropped a lot in the US. However, while the only had one Top 40 hit in the US from 1963 to 1968, they had ten such hits in Britain. Most dramatically, "The Price of Love" was a number two hit in Britain in 1965, but it didn't even make the top 100 in the US. So perhaps it's not that surprising that the Everly Brothers capitalized on this by promoting themselves more in Britain.

For this album, I've limited the source material to just actual BBC sessions. The Everly Brothers were on TV and radio a lot, especially in the US, so if I started including that stuff, this would turn into a very different thing. Perhaps I'll explore more of that at a different time. Most of these are BBC radio sessions, but the last two songs are from a BBC TV show.

In terms of sound quality, this is all pretty good, even though everything here is officially unreleased. There was another session I didn't use at all due to poor sound quality. (And there's at least one additional lost session.) Furthermore, there was a fair amount of repetition of some of their big hits. I've only included one version of each. If there was more than one, I chose the version with the better sound quality.

Happily, only two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles due to BBC DJs talking over the music. I used the usual X-Minus technique to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

In case you're not an Everly Brothers fan, this is a good place to get started. By chance, this has virtually all of their classics, including some of the ones from the 1950s.

This album is 40 minutes long.

UPDATE: On January 21, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I changed the name of the album to "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" after discovering material for a "Volume 2."

01 Wake Up Little Susie (Everly Brothers)
02 Walk Right Back (Everly Brothers)
03 Baby What Do You Want Me to Do (Everly Brothers)
04 All I Have to Do Is Dream (Everly Brothers)
05 So Sad [To Watch Good Love Go Bad] [Edit] (Everly Brothers)
06 I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town [Edit] (Everly Brothers)
07 Till I Kissed You (Everly Brothers)
08 Cathy's Clown (Everly Brothers)
09 The Price of Love (Everly Brothers)
10 Gone, Gone, Gone (Everly Brothers)
11 Let It Be Me (Everly Brothers)
12 Lucille (Everly Brothers)
13 Bowling Green (Everly Brothers)
14 Susie Q (Everly Brothers)
15 Bye Bye Love (Everly Brothers)
16 Stories We Could Tell (Everly Brothers)
17 The Brand New Tennessee Waltz (Everly Brothers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/f1vCi7k2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/IQXqKJP77ReVkus/file

The cover photo shows the brothers on the TV show "Thank Your Lucky Stars" in Britain in 1965.