for those who hadn't heard
Derek A. Bill
The new Beach Boys collection due out on May 19th, called Summer Love
Songs, was made possible by a longtime fan coming forth with previously
unknown session tapes for such classics as "Don't Worry Baby," "Why Do
Fools Fall In Love" and others. The reels -- which contained the
discarded multi-tracks from the Beach Boys' 1964 Shut Down Vol. II
album -- enabled the group's production team to create the first true
stereo mixes for some of the Beach Boys' most beloved tracks.
After the success of the reissue of Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue
album, Wilson's biographer Jon Stebbins told us that an article in a
Northern California newspaper about his work on the project led to the
long lost Beach Boys tapes: ["The article was published in the local
entertainment weekly and I got an email subsequently from a
singer-songwriter named Lance Robison who lives here on the central
coast, and he said that he had some Beach Boys tapes that I might be
interested in. I hear that thing a lot in my line of business. But,
anyway, I emailed him back and asked him a few pertinent questions
about it. And his response to my initial email was pretty astounding."]
SOUNDCUE (:26 OC: . . . was pretty astounding)
€ Stebbins admits that he was speechless at his first sight of the
45-year-old master tapes: ["He pulled out three tape boxes, and they
were original multi-track masters from the Beach Boys' Shut Down Vol.
II album. I also knew that the Beach Boys had been missing the master
tape -- the multi-track masters. So whereas before, all you had was a
'left' and a 'right' two tracks for a stereo mix; now you could turn it
into, y'know, 6, 8, 10 tracks (and) spread it across the spectrum. So,
true stereo mixes of these things."] SOUNDCUE (:28 OC: . . . of these
things)
€ From there Stebbins brought the tapes directly to the Beach Boys'
official archivist, Alan Boyd. Boyd, who has spent years cataloging the
band's session masters and live tapes, had never thought these
multi-tracks had survived. Prior to 1965, it was not Capitol Records'
standard policy to have artists deliver session tapes along with the
finished masters to the label. It's not that the tapes were thought to
be "missing" or "lost" -- they were never expected to still exist.
€ Alan Boyd recalls hearing the session tapes as being an
incredible personal and professional moment: ["I have been somewhat
fanatical about this music since I was about five years old. Y'know, I
may have found my way into this job as some deep-seated desire to
figure out what made this music tick. It never gets old. When you find
something like this for the first time and you really get to hear the
creative process, and the boys are getting comfortable with the song
and working their way through it. Uh, no, it was a definite 'Whoa,
hands are shaking' kind of thing."] SOUNDCUE (:24 OC: . . . kind of
thing.)
€ The missing master tapes enabled Boyd and engineer Mark Linnett
to make the first true stereo mixes for "Don't Worry Baby" and "Why Do
Fools Fall In Love," both of which lead off the upcoming release.
€ The full tracklisting to Summer Love Songs is: "Why Do Fools Fall
In Love" (new stereo mix), "Don't Worry Baby" (new stereo mix),"
"Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," "Surfer Girl," "California
Girls," "Please Let Me Wonder," "In The Parkin' Lot," "Your Summer
Dream," "Kiss Me, Baby," "Hushabye" (new stereo mix), "I'm So Young"
(new stereo mix), "Good To My Baby" (new stereo mix), "Fallin' In Love"
(new stereo mix of Dennis Wilson solo track)," "Time To Get Alone" (new
stereo mix), "Our Sweet Love," "Help Me, Rhonda," "Keep An Eye On
Summer," "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)," and "Girls On The
Beach."
€ Jon Stebbins wrote the groundbreaking books Dennis Wilson: The
Real Beach Boy and the David Marks biography The Lost Beach Boy.
€ Alan Boyd directed the Beach Boys' 1998 official documentary,
Endless Harmony.