Brian Wilson Presents Smile

File:Beachboys smile cover.jpg

Capitol Records had already created artwork for the album cover when the project collapsed

Perhaps the most famous unreleased rock and roll album of all time, The Beach Boys' Smile (sometimes referenced using the idiosyncratic capitalization SMiLE) was intended as the follow-up to their influential 1966 album Pet Sounds, but was never completed in its original form. In an event unique in popular music history, the album was resurrected 37 years later; a re-recorded version of the work was released by Beach Boys composer and leader Brian Wilson in 2004. During the interim period, Smile acquired a certain mystique, and bootlegged recordings were sometimes traded. Many of the tracks that were originally recorded for Smile were eventually placed on subsequent albums.

The conception of Smile

During the making of Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson started work on a new song, based on a statement by his mother, Audree Wilson, that dogs could feel 'vibrations' from people. The result was the Beach Boys single "Good Vibrations", a number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic. The most expensive and complex pop recording made up to that time, it still stands as a milestone in recording history. Subsequently, Wilson attempted to construct what he famously dubbed his "teenage symphony to God" — a whole album, comprising a suite of specially written songs, recorded using the kind of unusual sounds and innovative production techniques that had made "Good Vibrations" so successful. Originally, the album had the working title of Dumb Angel, which soon became Smile.

Crucial to the writing of the Smile songs was Wilson's close collaboration with session musician and lyricist Van Dyke Parks; they wrote a number of songs together including "Surf's Up", "Wonderful", "Cabinessence," and "Wind Chimes."

Studio techniques

With Good Vibrations, Wilson began to experiment with radically editing his work. Now, instead of taping each backing track as a complete performance, he began to break the arrangments into sections, recording multiple 'takes' of each section. He also recorded the same section at several different studios, to exploit the unique sonic characteristics or special effects available in each. He would then edit these different segments together to create a composite whole that combined the best features of production and performance.

Wilson intended to use the same approach for the songs on the new project. Working mainly at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles (which was Phil Spector's favourite studio), Brian began a long and complex series of recordings in mid-1966 that continued through most of the first quarter of 1967. He also frequently used Sunset Sound Studios on Sunset Boulevard, Western Recorders and at Capitol's own studio. Much of Smile was recorded in this piecemeal manner; each of the finished tracks is a heavily-edited composite recording and many of the unreleased Smile fragments are alternate versions of backing tracks, alternate sections of these tracks, or passages intended to provide a transition between tracks.

Wilson had already developed his 'classic' production method over several years, bringing it to a high degree of perfection with the recording of Pet Sounds during 1965.. Armed with new Ampex 8-track recorders, Wilson had assembled tracks of unrivaled complexity and technical brilliance using a team of crack L.A. session musicians sometimes known as "The Wrecking Crew" (a name they were given retroactively in drummer Hal Blaine's autobiography). Brian's approach to recording the basic backing tracks was a refinement of Spector's methods, and it was built on the quasi-smyphonic effect that could be obtained by using multiples of instruments such as bass, keyboards and guitars in a large rock ensemble, and then blending the sound with echo and reverberation.

It is a mark both of Brian's production skills and the high calibre of his musicians that most of the Pet Sounds backing tracks were recorded live in a single take, and often within one or two takes only. These backings were then dubbed down onto one track of an 8-track recorder, and although some of the fine detail in the arrangments was often covered by the group's distictive harmony vocals, Wilson's natural talent for arranging ensured that they interacted perfectly with the vocal tracks, often to the surprise of the musicians who performed the backings. The remaining seven tracks were used for the Beach Boys' vocals. These were usually recorded on to one or two tracks, with another track used for lead vocals, and then doubled or even tripled -- California Girls, for example, features all six band members triple-tracked.

Although Wilson often had entire arrangments worked out in his head (these were usually written out in a shorthand form for the other players by session saxophonist Julius Wechter), surviving tapes of his recording sessions show that he was remarkably open to input from his musicians, took advice and suggestions from them, and even incorporated apparent 'mistakes' if they provided a useful or interesting alternative.

He also began to experiment widely with unusual instruments to add colour -- Pet Sounds is notable for its remarkable variety of instrumentation, including bass harmonica, theremin, accordion, koto, piccolo, flute, brass, strings, timpani and a wide range of keyboards and guitars. He was also beginning to experiment with sound effects (an important element of SMiLE), as evidenced by the evocative closing section of the album, which combines the sound of a train thundering thorugh a crossing with the barking of Brian's dogs, Banana and Louie. One especially amusing fragment of studio discussion from the sessions features Brian asking his (obviously astonished) engineer Chuck Britz whether it would be possible to bring a horse into the studio.

In spite of the availability of complex multitrack recording, Wilson always mixed the final version of his recordings in mono (as did rival producer Phil Spector). He did this for several reasons; Wilson personally felt that mono mixing provided more sonic control over the result that the listener heard, regardless of the vagaries of speaker placement and sound system quality. It was also motivated by the knowledge that radio and TV broadcast in mono, and most domestic and car radios and record players were monophonic. Another more personal reason for Wilson's preference for mono was the fact that he was deaf in one ear. It is often claimed that this was the result of childhood damage to his eardrum inflicted by a blow from his violent father Murry Wilson, but both father and son have repeatedly denied this.

The recordings

There is much debate over how many of the major songs intended for Smile were at or near completion when the project was abandoned. It is generally agreed that the major songs slated for the album included "Heroes & Villains", "Good Vibrations", "Cabinessence", "Wonderful", "Wind Chimes", "Vege-tables" , "Our Prayer" and "Surf's Up"; there was also said to be a planned "Elemental Suite" featuring instrumental segments representing the traditional four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Surf's Up was certainly fully written by late 1966, since Brian was filmed performing the song on piano for a fall 1966 CBS News music special hosted by Leonard Bernstein.

"Good Vibrations" had of course already been released and although Wilson would have preferred to leave it off the album, Capitol reportedly insisted on its inclusion.

A full backing track for the first section of the album's centerpiece, "Surf's Up", had been recorded and mixed, but vocals and other ovedubs were yet to be added, and work on the middle and closing sections was either not done or not finished. The version of the song that was assembled by Carl Wilson and released on the 1970 Surf's Up LP added new vocals over the original 1967 backing track of the first section. The long middle section consisted almost entirely of Wilson's stunning demo recording of the song, taped one night in late 1966 with only Wilson's double-tracked voice and solo piano; this was augmented with new overdubs made in 1970. The closing section used the closing section of the demo recording, with new harmony overdubs, which that were combined with another partially completed 1967 song segment, "Child Is Father Of The Man"; this was either newly recorded or had new vocals added over an existing track.

Two other songs, "Cabinessence" and "Our Prayer", were virtually complete; Cabinessence needed to be edited together and was missing a lead vocal, and Our Prayer needed the addition of some vocal sweetening. They were finished by the rest of the band -- primarily Carl and Dennis Wilson -- for inclusion on the "20/20" album.

One of the most often talked-about tracks is "Heroes & Villains", a semi-autobiographical piece couched as a wild west fantasy and featuring some of Parks' most intriguing lyrics. The song appears to be the central source of the basic musical structures of a number of other songs (e.g. Windchimes), making it probable that Smile was intended as a 'theme and variations' work. A single version was released in mid-1967, but rumours persist of a far longer edit, and it is known that several alternate versions were put together.

It now appears that this song underwent many changes during its production and that several important elements, including the so-called "Cantina scene" and the segment commonly known as "Bicycle Rider" were taken out of the finished single and album versions, although they were included in other unreleased mixes and the Beach Boys frequently included the "Bicycle Rider" section when performing the song in concert (Brian Wilson included many more of these sections in performances of the song 2002, as did Beach Boy Al Jardine's spin-off group Beach Boys Family & Friends).

A large number of other tracks, track segments and many beautiful vocal and instrumental fragments (some only a few seconds long) were recorded and most still exist in the Capitol archives, but their place in Wilson's final design for the album remains uncertain. Major fragments that have emerged over the years include the pieces known as "Barnyard", "I'm In Great Shape", "Mrs O'Leary's Cow" (aka "Fire"), "The Old Master Painter", "You Are My Sunshine" and "George Fell Into His French Horn".

Although Wilson produced few finished recordings in this period, renowned session bassist Carol Kaye, (who played on most of the major Beach Boys recordings) has stated that in her opinion the Smile album was in fact quite close to completion: the major songs had evidently all been written, nearly all the constituent parts (except the later sections of "Surf's Up") had been recorded, and most of the recordings were either complete or ready to assemble, awaiting only final ovedubs, editing and mixing.

The central question about Smile is whether Wilson and Parks had sequenced the songs and link segments as they were being written, or whether the final decision would be made after the recordings were complete. It would appear that (apart from completing the unfinished tracks) Wilson's main task was deciding which of the many link segments he wanted to use, and how they would be sequenced.

However, such claims seem less credible in the light of the album's current completion -- the majority of the songs had no vocals recorded, and while many believed for many years that the album would be in large part instrumental, it is now clear that this was never Wilson's intention. It is significant that the vocals are missing on many recordings, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the band's known opposition to the project explains why so many backing tracks remained unfinished.

The project collapses

The project started to hit problems around the time that Wilson recorded the "Fire" piece for the Elements suite in early 1967. He was becoming mentally unstable, showing evidence of depression and paranoia, and during the "Fire" sessions he became irrationally concerned that his music was responsible for starting several fires in the neighborhood of the studio. For many years it was rumored that Wilson had tried to burn the tapes of this session, but this is not true. He did however, abandon the "Fire" piece for good.

Brian's deterioration and eventual breakdown was the result of a complex web of causes. As Beach Boys chronicler Timothy White has noted, Brian came from a troubled family background; there was a family history of mental illness, including suicide, and his father Murry, although apparently never formally diagnosed, showed unmistakable signs of suffering from bipolar disorder. Brian also did himself no favors -- he was reputedly smoking copious amounts of marijuana and hashish during the Smile period, as well as experimenting with powerful hallucinogen LSD.

Brian Wilson's mental problems were exacerbated by growing friction within the group and by pressing business and legal worries. The group was by then embroiled in a messy contractual dispute with Capitol and was in the process of suing the label to terminate their contract (a legacy of their management by the Wilsons' father) and establishing their own recording label, Brother Records.

Amidst increasingly erratic behavior and escalating use of drugs, Brian's mental condition began to become a concern for his friends, colleagues and family, but although stories of his sometimes bizarre behavior have now become the stuff of legend, his session musicians have often countered that they never saw Brian behave in the studio with anything less than total professionalism.

Wilson was also in a uniquely vulnerable creative position compared to his major commercial rivals. Competing producers such as Phil Spector routinely used professional songwriters and outside arrangers, and The Beatles could split the songwriting among themselves and call on the vast experience and expertise of their producer-arranger George Martin; Brian Wilson, on the other hand, co-composed, arranged and produced all the Beach Boys music himself -- a task which he accomplished in the face of increasing resistance from within the band.

Adding to the pressure was antagonism between lead vocalist Mike Love and both Brian Wilson and lyricist Van Dyke Parks. Fearful of losing their audience by tinkering with the band's proven hit formula, Love was increasingly strident in his criticism of Wilson's experimentalism, which he is said to have derisively labelled as "Brian's ego music". Love, who had written the lyrics to "Good Vibrations", was also a vocal critic of Wilson's new writing partner Parks: this conflict reached a crisis point when Mike Love vehemently expressed his dislike of Parks' lyrics during a vocal recording session for the song "Cabinessence". Love insisted that Parks explain the lyrics in the closing section, famously haranguing him over the meaning of the obscure phrase "Over and over, the crow cries uncover the cornfield". After a heated argument, Parks walked out of the studio, effectively ending both his partnership with Wilson and work on the album. Although recording and mixing continued for some time after this, it is clear that the loss of his lyricist and Love's dogged opposition to the new material were major factors in Wilson's decline and eventual termination of the project.

Wilson continued to work on cues for use in titles such as "Heroes & Villains", "Do You Like Worms" and "Vege-Tables"; he also taped numerous fragments that were probably intended to serve as musical links between the main songs, creating a seamless flow of music from start to finish. Through the first half of 1967 the album's release date was repeatedly postponed as Wilson tinkered with the recordings, experimenting with different takes and sounds, unable or unwilling to supply a completed version of the album.

Expecting the tapes to be delivered before January of 1967, Capitol had already prepared elaborate cover artwork, including a cover illustration and a series of group photos; record sleeves with a track listing supplied by Carl Wilson had already been printed and were waiting in the Capitol warehouse. But the truth was that Brian was rapidly losing interest in Smile and he was beginning to crack under the mounting pressure to provide a smash-hit follow-up to the huge success of Good Vibrations.

Capitol evidently still hoped right up to the last that Smile might somehow appear, but very soon after after the release of The Beatles' groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at the start of June 1967, Wilson realised that he could not hope to top their achievement, so the Beach Boys formally announced that the Smile project had been cancelled and the album would not be released.

From famous to infamous

Following the failure of Smile, Brian Wilson retreated from the public eye, increasingly hampered by drug and mental health problems, but his legend grew and the Smile period came to be seen as the pivotal episode in his decline; Wilson would become tagged as one of the classic celebrity drug casualties of the rock era.

Had Smile been released as originally conceived, it might have been a dismal failure or it might have stood alongside Sgt. Pepper and Dylan's Blonde on Blonde as a landmark album that marked a turning point in rock history--but in its absence an almost magical aura grew up around the project and its legendary status was only heightened by Brian Wilson's tragic personal disintegration. By the beginning of the 1990s, Smile had earned its place as the most infamous unreleased album in the rock era and become a focal point for bootleg album makers and collectors.

Beach Boys fan sites on the Internet devoted themselves to discussion and analysis of the album; one such site attempted to reconstruct Wilson's original vision of the Smile album, including audio files of unreleased songs. The tracks were set in an order that had been carefully researched in what was thought to be closer to Wilson's intent. Eventually, those files were taken down.

Fallout and eventual releases

Faced with the necessity of delivering an album to Capitol, over the months following the cancellation of SMiLE the Beach Boys re-recorded much of its music in drastically scaled-down arrangements. They released the results on the intriguing but less than groundbreaking replacement, Smiley Smile, with the two fully produced remnants from the Smile sessions (Good Vibrations, Heroes & Villains ) standing out like the proverbial sore thumb against the gentle, folksy character of the re-recordings. Much of the album was recorded at Wilson's newly-installed studio in his Bel-Air home, and mostly without the aid of the session players on whom he usually relied.

The musical ghost of SMiLE is present throughout the album. A version of Heroes And Villains opens Side I, followed by a version of Vegetables. Fall Breaks and Back To Winter was a folksy re-arrangement of the legendary Fire instrumental, interspersed with short breaks that quoted the Woody Woodpecker theme. Although apparently not part of Smile, She's Goin' Bald was very much of a piece with Smile's humour and is also notable for its fairly blatant reference to LSD. Little Pad is clearly related to (or is a variant of) the Smile piece Blue Hawaii. Good Vibrations opens Side II, followed by With Me Tonight, one of several products of Brian's interest in rounds and canons; Wind Chimes is a breathy, languid, harmomium-driven sketch of the original with a very slow tempo and liberal use of rubato; Gettin' Hungry is a loose AB arrangement; Wonderful, like Windchimes is an almost whsipered rendition of the original; Whistle In is another round, evidently one of numerous similar fragments and small pieces Brian composed at the time, including Well You're Welcome, the B-side of Good Vibrations.

Although the Smile songs were never released in their original form, they continued to exert a powerful influence on the Beach Boys' output over the next few years, and much of their later material was recorded in the shadow of the Smile legend. A noteworthy piece from this period (unreleased at the time) was Can't Wait Too Long; according to David Leaf's liner notes for the Smily Smile / Wild Honey 'twofer', it was assembled from various sections recorded in late 1967, after the SMiLE sessions, but the entire sequence is clearly built around the rising and falling bass-line from Heroes And Villains. Mama Says, which closes the Wild Honey album, is evidently a variation of a piece intended as a section of Vega-Tables.

Carl Wilson, who had initially been one of the album's detractors, became increasingly keen to bring as much of it to completion as possible and tantalising extracts from the Smile sessions, assembled by Carl, gradually surfaced on Beach Boys albums over the next few years on Wild Honey, 20/20, Sunflower, and Surf's Up.

Wilson's gradual recovery and re-emergence in the 1990s sparked renewed interest in his oeuvre. Many of the original Smile recordings were finally released on the 1993 box set Good Vibrations (edited by Brian Wilson's engineer of choice, Mark Linett, with no input by the man himself). But Smile as a unified whole envisioned by Wilson and Parks remained unheard by the public at large.

Wilson revisited the Smile theme and some of the album's most significant stylistic devices on "Rio Grande", the closing 8-minute suite which appeared on his 1988 solo debut Brian Wilson.

An impressive marimba-driven version of "Wind Chimes" was released on the Good Vibrations box set. This cut appears to be substantially complete, and although the middle-eight and coda parts that were edited into that version may not necessarily have been the segments Wilson himself would have chosen for Smile, they demonstrate that the track required only moderate editing for completion. The song was re-recorded for Smiley Smile in a greatly subdued arrangment.

The box set also includes a ravishing version of "Wonderful" that features a beautiful harpsichord and vocal accompaniment and also appears to be more or less complete; this song was also re-recorded on Smiley Smile, also in a very subdued arrangement, with liberal use of rubato.

"Vege-Tables" exists in at least two complete versions. Like the two songs mentioned above, it was also re-recorded in late 1967 for Smiley Smile but this version remained fairly true to the earlier Smile recording. The earlier version features a more open sound, with prominent use of sound effects and percussion, and (like "Heroes and Villains") it includes several lines of lyrics that were deleted from the Smiley Smile version.

Smile resurrected

Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE
File:Brian-wilson-smile-cover.jpg
LP by Brian Wilson
Released	September 28, 2004
Recorded	April 13-17, 2004, at Sunset Sound, Hollywood, California)
Genre	Rock
Length	47m 1s
Record label	Nonesuch
Producer	Brian Wilson
AMG	4.5 stars out of 5	link

On February 20, 2004, 37 years after it was conceived, a complete version of Smile was performed by Wilson along with his backing band, which includes members of The Wondermints, in a live performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London. This performance was made whole by the addition of either lost or newly-composed lyrics that filled the gaps left open by the original 1966-67 Beach Boys sessions. This show was followed by subsequent performances in Britain.

Recording of the new version of SMiLE began in April 2004 with his ten-piece touring band, augmented by a ten-piece string section and an acoustic bassist. The basic tracks were taped at Sunset Sound in just four days, with overdubbing and mixing continuing through April, May and June.

On September 28,2004, Brian Wilson released a newly recorded studio version of the Smile album, to critical praise. For the new version, Wilson, Wondermints leader Darian Sahanaja, woodwind player/string arranger Paul Mertens and lyricist Van Dyke Parks based their arrangements on the original, unreleased Beach Boys tapes to give SMiLE a coherent and fresh, updated sound.

Interestingly, although Brian was reported to have only included Good Vibrations in the original SMiLE tracklisting at Capitol's insistence, a new version of the song -- featuring Wilson's original lyrics, rather than the later Mike Love lyrics -- was included as the closing track of the album.

Plans have also been announced to bring the new SMiLE to the U.S. on tour before the end of the year and a December 2004 Australian tour has also been scheduled.

The Showtime cable network released a documentary film about the making of SMiLE in the fall of 2004.

Track listing

The songs that might have been

(based upon a handwritten note that Wilson gave to Capitol Records in 1967)

• "Do You Like Worms"
• "Wind Chimes"
• "Heroes and Villains"
• "Surf's Up"
• "Good Vibrations"
• "Cabin Essence"
• "Wonderful"
• "I'm in Great Shape"
• "Child Is Father of the Man"
• "The Elements"
• "Vege-Tables"
• "The Old Master Painter"

Other tracks and fragments from the sessions

• "Look"
• "Barnyard"
• "Holidays" (sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Tones" or "Tune X", which were actually different tracks recorded during the sessions)
• "He Gives Speeches" (which was later re-recorded as "She's Goin' Bald" for the Smiley Smile album)
• "You're Welcome"
• "George Fell into His French Horn" (a recording never intended for release, consisting of horn players talking into their instruments)

Suite 1: Americana

• "Our Prayer"
• "Gee"
• "Heroes and Villains"
• "Roll Plymouth Rock" (previously known as "Do You Like Worms?")
• "Barnyard"
• "The Old Master Painter"
• "You Are My Sunshine"
• "Cabin Essence"

Suite 2: Cycle of Life

• "Wonderful"
• "Song For Children" (previously known as "Look")
• "Child Is Father of the Man"
• "Surf's Up"

Suite 3: The Elements

• "I'm in Great Shape"
• "I Wanna Be Around"
• "Workshop" (previously known as "Friday Night")
• "Vega-tables"
• "On A Holiday" (previously known as "Holidays", "Tones" or "Tune X")
• "Wind Chimes"
• "Mrs O'Leary's Cow" (previously known as "Fire" or "The Elements")
• "Water Chant"
• "Blue Hawaii" (previously known as "I Love to Say Da Da")
• "Our Prayer (reprise)"
• "Good Vibrations"

The set order for the 2004 re-recorded album

• "Our Prayer/Gee"
• "Heroes And Villains"
• "Roll Plymouth Rock"
• "Barnyard"
• "The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine"
• "Cabinessence"
• "Wonderful"
• "Song For Children"
• "Child Is Father Of The Man"
• "Surf's Up!"
• "I'm In Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop"
• "Vega-Tables"
• "On A Holiday"
• "Wind Chimes"
• "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"
• "In Blue Hawaii" (medley consisting of "Water Chant", "I Love To Say Da-Da", and "Our Prayer (reprise)")
• "Good Vibrations"

Further reading

One of the principal sources of original information on Smile, and the basis for much of its legendary status, was Jules Siegel's article, http://www.cafecancun.com/bookarts/wilson.htm Goodbye Surfing, Hello God! which appeared in the first issue of Cheetah Magazine in October 1967. Almost equally influential was Dominic Priore's 1987 book Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile.

External links

• http://www.smilethealbum.com
• http://www.thesmileshop.net
• http://dumbangel.keenspace.com
• http://www.brianwilson.com
• http://www.vandykeparks.com