Let There Be Light, Again: The Beach Boys And Their Last Great Album

A funny thing happened on the way to...well, the CD player in the kitchen while I was preparing lunch the other day. I was in a Beach Boys kind of mood so I grabbed a CD more or less at random from the Beach Boys section, and it turned out to be this album - Light Album Relit - which I didn't even remember I had burned to CD. This alternate album is by now years old and must've been one of my first attempts at reworking an album. But I wasn't sure whether I pulled it off, whether it was a worthy alternative, or even better: a replacement option, for the fine, but improvable original. Anyway, so I played it, and I thought to myself 'hey, that plays pretty well like that'. So out of the hidden corners of OBG's music closet comes the Beach Boys' Light Album, reworked...or shall we say, relit...

Here's another fun fact about L.A. (Light Album). It was the first album of the Boys that I ever bought, other than a compilation (long time One buck Heads will know that my very first self-bought CD was a horrendous compilation of the early Morgan Hite sessions). Which no doubt had to do that it was one of the cheapest out there, as one of the least loved releases, even though its reputation has improved over time. My young teenage self sensed a profound feeling of bewilderment when I put the disc on for the first time: Sure, "Good Timin'" sounded like the surf'n'cars Beach Boys, which at that time was the only Beach Boys I knew, but when stuff like "Full Sail" or "Angel Come Home" came on, I was like 'this doesn't sound like the Beach Boys'. I hadn't been exposed to Dennis' gruff vocals from the mid-70s on, neither to the Beach Boys tryng out a ton of different styles, from adult contemporary to - ahem - disco. Yes, you may remember L.A. as the album with the eleven minute disco remake of "Here Comes The Night". 

Truth is, L.A. is a mess, because the witing, production, and recording of it was a total mess. If albums like Carl & The Passions - So Tough (improved by yours truly as All This Is That) or 15 Big Ones had sounded like barely coherent collections of disparate tunes, that's because they were, and L.A. unfortunately aligned with those albums more than more coherent albums like Sunflower or Holland (greatly expanded by yours truly as Sail on, Sailor). I studied the credits, and all the names were right - the Wilson brothers, Love, Jardine, all present and accounted for - but the music didn't sound right. It didn't sound like the Beach Biys I knew, but in fairness, it didn't sound like the Beach Boys because it wasn't a group album, rather the Beach Boys' White Album, where everyone buggered off and did their thing and then brought the disparate pieces to form this album. Threee tracks are tracks off solo projects: Mike Love's "Sumahama" comes from his unissued solo album First Love and was reworked to be included here. And "Love Surrounds Me" and "Baby Blue" originated in Dennis Wilson's long-running but ultimately doomed efforts to release a follow up to Pacific Ocean Blue. It is believed that producer James William Guercio and Bruce Johnston talked Dennis into giving up these Bambu tracks because quality wasn't sufficient for what was to be their big label debut for CBS Records. 

Carl, rather than working with his brothers and bandmates, had struck up a songwriting relationship with Geoffrey Cushing-Murray, one that veered him further into the adult contemporary-soft rock waters of his solo albums in the 80s. The sessions and early results were such a mess - and CBS mightily miffed not only at the Beah Boys missing deadlines for their long-awaited album debut for the label, but also at the feeble offerings - that the band decided they needed to get Bruce Johnston back in the fold to help with arrangements and production. So, Johnston - fired right before completing Carl & The Passions - So Tough was back as a Beach Boy - and here to stay, for better or worse, mostly the latter. 

But, L.A. is a pretty good album, becaue it isn't a Mike and Al album, like 15 Big Ones or M.I.U. before it, it is - as said, somewhat by necessity - a Carl and Dennis album. And those are - if there is no Brian - the next best Beach Boys albums. Dennis has the two aforementioned numbers and sings lead on Carl's "Angel Come Home", a personal number about his divorce he didn't want to sing himself for that reason. Carl's other two tracks, "Goin' South" and "Full Sail" are, as said, a little too much on the soft rock sideof things, but at least the minimal contributions of Mike and Al are both pretty good, in that they are inoffensive and easy to listen to, which is pretty much all you can ask from a Mike or Al song. Mike's Japan fantasy "Sumahama", written as a tribute to his then-fiancé of Korean (!) descent, is total cliché, but in that total guilelessness almost cute. And Al's "Lady Linda", written as a tribute to his then-wife, is a pretty decent, hummable tune. 

And now, the dancing elephant in the room: That disco version of "Here Comes The Night". Farq went to bat for it, and I agree: The production by Brue Johnston is top notch. The song is really well built, having little wordless vocal blips in its incessant disco beat during the first two minutes to build anticipation for when the vocals finally come in. It's an excellent production - if you can stomach the idea of the Beach Boys' disco fever - but it also was way too freakin' long at almost eleven minutes. Essentially you have six minutes of an impeccably built up song and five minutes of an extended, repetetive vamp section. So, as you might have guessed, a first working order for this alt album reworking was to get "Here Comes The Night" down to about six and a half minutes, which lets you appreciate its good parts before it wears out its welcome. 

The other major inventions other than sequencing were some re-arranging around the Dennis & Carl bits, which I edited into two suites. Dennis' work with Beach Boys tour keyboard player Carlos Muniz for his second, ultimately unreleased solo album Bambu yielded a take on the latter's "It's Not Too Late", graced by a beautiful vocal of brother Carl on the chorus. Which makes the track the mirror image of "Baby Blue", also scheduled for Bambu.These songs are spiritual siblings, with Dennis' gruff, heartfet verses and Carl's angelic choruses, so I combined them into a track retitled "Longing". Carl's two ballads have been turned into two thirds of the "Away Trilogy", and "Goin' South" lost its cheeesy soft rock sax solo in the transition. But waitaminuet you say, Trilogy? That's right. L.A. was truly Dennis Wilson's last stand, with the Beach Boys and sadly as a musical artist full stop ( I don't count his one song cameo on the zombie travesty that is Keepin' The Sumer Alive. So, I felt, on this - the last real Beach Boys album, with the only real Beach Boy still on board - Dennis should have the last word. And so he does: "My love is bigger than the ocean" he sings in this extract from an extract (from the aborted first stab at a solo album in the early 70s), in the final section of "Away Trilogy". And then the sounds of the ocean carry Dennis vocals, and the memory of him away...

The Light Album was indeed the lat Beach Boys album you could listen to in one sitting without feeling ashamed or wanting to skip songs, and it showed that even in familiar chaotic circumstances the Boys could produce somewhat quality work. This isn't Pet Sounds, for sure, but it dosn't need to be. So, check out Light Album Relit and see if for you it also brings some light and joy...

P.S.: Speaking of joy (of the sardonic kind). Here's the ultra-cheesy promo clip for "Here Comes The Night", which I wouldn't want to keep from you. No Dennis, who probably had no fucks to give about this, and a disinteretsted (disoriented?) Brian with a cigarette hanging from his mouth who's there, but doesn't seem to know it. Sign of the times...

P.P.S.: Going back to this period finally kicked my ass to go and take care of my take on Dennis Wilson's Bambu, which I have to say I'm very satisfied with. So, coming soon on these very pages...