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...

 

Caroline Now! Or, A Better Bye Bye To Bri...

When I reposted my two Beach Boy alt albums last week to commemorate Brian Wilson's passing, it wasn't a particularly great solution, mainly because those two albums - great as they are, and they are plenty great - didn't feature Brian a lot. But, as said in that write-up, I browsed through the virtual Brian Wilson and Beach Boys archives on my computer and didn't find anything that was in 'ready to post' shape. Call it a sign of the times. Because what I didn't do was browse my physical music collection for something fitting to post, otherwise I would have happened upon Caroline Now! The Songs of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys right away. Now, the fact that I didn't think of that album right away, tells you that it isn't in heavy rotation, and truth be told, I had a bit forgotten about it. But if the goal is to clebrate Wilson and his songwriting, it is a particularly fitting choice and listening back to it is also better than I remember. 

Caroline Now! is the antithesis to the 'stars go and cut a classic, well-known number by an artist' modus of a lot of tribute albums that results often in well-meaning karaoke.. And I say that as someone who likes well-done well-meaning karaoke from time to time. The concept of Caroline Now! was to focus not on the usual big songs, but rather the more unknown songs of Brian Wilson, done by some very modestly known musicians. The biggest name on here is probably Alex Chilton, who has been One Buck Record-ed before, or depending on your preferences St. Etienne or The High Llamas, all affirmed and obvious Beach Boy fans. Anothe really obvious fan of the Boys' music if obviously Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake, who contributes a lovely reading of "Only With You". This project actually grew out of sessions that involved Blake and Chilton in Scotland under the direction of musical directors David Scott (of The Pearlfishers) and Duglas T. Stewart (of BMX Bandits),  and then grew to include indie artists from around the world contributing a song to the planned compilation, until it grew to 24 tracks. It then came out on a tiny German record label.  

So, while I played with the idea of tightening the album up a bit, I finally didn't because different folks might find songs I'm not too fond of to their liking, and since this is out of print for about 24 years I figure those who want to hear it, should hear it in its entirety. I did, however, reseuence the whole album, because that was one of my peeves with it. It had about five of my least-liked songs on this thing in the first ten tracks, so for me it never built much momentum. There's a reason why I had pretty much forgotten about this album. So, my resequencing hopefully help with that, it definitely doesn't hurt.

Personal highlights include the radio Sweethearts' country-rock take on "Honkin' Down The Highway", Spanish trio Souvenir's 60's girl group-ish French-language take on "Girl I Can Tell" (as "Ne Dis Pas"), The Pearlfishers' "Go Away Boy" and Kle's "fabulous "Rainbow Eyes", which was part of Wilson's unreleasd Sweet Insanity album. If you like 80s and 9s cult bands Belle And Sebastian, The Vaselines, The Apstels, or Orange Juice - you'll find key members doing tracks here. The producers even recruited some contemporaries: 60's pop band The Free Design reunited after thirty years for this project and their lovely take on "Endless Harmony" (which for me personally blows the original out of the water), Alex Chilton is here - as mentioned - and the album ends with L.A. gadfly/producer/manager/svengali/charlatan/hipster Kim Fowley and his take on "Almost Summer". 

So, this is a much better and more fitting to sweet, crazy ol'  Brian Wilson, the gentle giant of songwriters. Just listen...and remember...it's almost summer...and an endless harmony...

So long Brian, say hello to the Boys...

A little under two hours after I had put out Le Trip yesterday, the news came down that Brian Wilson died. Damn. I mean, he had a longer and richer career than someone seeing him holed up as a fat, psychotic wreck in the early and mid-70s would have thought, including a frankly astonishing flurry of projects in his third act. Not all of these projects were great or even all that useful - did we need Brian reimagining Gershwin or covering his favorite Disney tunes? - but the fact that he stayed active in the music business after all these years was certainly something not many bet on in the mid-70s or one decade later when he was under the indluence of uor favorite charlatan and mine, Dr. Eugene Landy. Now he's gone, and all the Wilson brothers are gone, while Mike Love can still goof around stages with his fake Boys. Why the hell are all the talented Beach Boys gone and the scrubs remain? 

Anyhoo, be that as it may, especially since some guys the Boys drafted in when Brian was...uh...indisposed did a hell of a job. No, I'm not thinking of Bruce Johnston, who is almost as awful as Mike'n'Al, but of the Durban Beach Boys Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin. You can probably see where this is going, folks. Is this a shameless attempt to lead to the two Durban-Beach Boy era albums I re-imagined? Yes, yes it is. Thing is, I quickly went through the archives yesterday evening and don't have anything purely or mainly Brian ready for publication, that isn't someone else's work. So I'm going back to my re-imaginings of Carl & The Passions - 'So Tough', on these pages known as All This Is That, and of Holland, which has become the double album epic Sail On Sailor. (You van find out more about thes eprojects in their original write-ups, should you be so inclined). There is some Brian in there - the arrangement for "Marcella" can only come from one man - and some of his dream-like music for the extremely odd Mount Vernon And Fairway-Suite has been saved as "The Pied Piper (A Dream Voyage)". 

No, these aren't specifically Brian albums, but they are fine albums, full of inventive, fresh music that should have given them more attention in the early 70s, before Endless Summer and their own 15 Big Ones turned them irrevocably into an oldies act. Why not listening to these while you say goodbye to the last Wilson brothers? In the band, Brian always was the brain, and Carl was the soul, while Dennis was, uh, the libido and the muscle, probably. Now all Wilson brothers have sailed from us, but their fantastic music remains. 

Sail on sailors, sail on...

R.I.P. Brian Douglas Wilson, 1942 - 2025

Sail On Sailor: How Holland got bigger, bolder and better

So, let me tell you a little story about how an album that never was could have come to be. 

It is 1972 and the Beach Boys are busy working on their new album, far from prying eyes in far away Baambrugge in the Netherlands. In this reality, "Sail On Sailor" isn't the result of record company pressure for a hit single, but Brian Wilson came up with the track idea and structure and then lets the Boys finish the track. Manager Jack Rieley soon realizes that with all the tracks the Boys are working on, the album will clearly run too long for vinyl limits. In this reality, Carl & The Passions doesn't exist and All This Is That, the album that does, isn't stupidly packaged together with Pet Sounds in one of the worst marketing decisions ever (thanks, Mike!). So, Rieley can hatch a plan to let the band's creative energy intact and convince the brass at Warners/Reprise to let the band issue a double album. But Rieley's ambitions don't stop there. 

Always aiming to have the Beach Boys be (or appear) hipper and with the time, Rieley notices an undercurrent of wanderlust, of going places that permeat almost all of the songs the band worked on (and even some of the CATP/ATIT outtakes which will come into play later). With the exception of “Only With You”, “Hard Time” and “Funky Pretty”, every song either directly sings about traveling, describes a place to travel to or makes allusions to leaving town, finding a new place to live etc. So Riley presents his plan to the band to market the new record as a concept album, a loose travelogue that is united by the wish to  move and discover  in the lyrics, as well as the music itself. The band agrees, and together concoct startegies how to make the concept more visible. Soon the band and Rieley decide to structure the album around recurring elements, notably different versions of “Sail On Sailor” and “Steamboat” which serve as the album's Leitmotive. 

Waitaminute...is that Lou Reed driving the car? Oh, nevermind, it's good ol' Jack Rieley. How fitting.

Rieley's and the band's ambitious plans run into a bit of a snag, however, when Brian finally unveils what is supposed to be his new stroke of genius, Mount Vernon And Fairway. As in real life and history, everyone but Briaan and Rieley is aghast when Brian unveils his newest quote-unquote master piece. But unlike real-life, where the band pacifies deeply hurt Brian with its inclusion as a bonus EP (pushing the already astronomical budget even higher), here it's gone, terminated, deep-sixed, except for a small part: The powers that be, both in the Beach Boys and at Brother Records, recognize the drawing power of the name Brian Wilson, and having not only a new composition besides the “Sail On Sailor” and “Funky Pretty” co-writes, but also a Wilson vocal is too tempting, so parts of the music are edited into a ‘new’Wilson song, “Pied Piper”, here subtitled ‘A Dream Voyage’ to better fit into the concept of the album. The aforementioned snag, however, is that Wilson's work was pencilled in for almost an entire album side of the newly formatted double album. So, this is then the moment where the band begins to dig in the archives for suitable replacements, and come up with "Out In The Country" and "Sweet Something". And the rest, as they say, is history...

Alternate history, of course. But yeah, having an entirely different Holland doesn't sound as impossible or improbable as before, right?! As said in yesterday's write-up the release of the Sail On Sailor – 1972 box set was a gamechanger. Some of the stuff was a revelation, like the backing track for “Steamboat”. I mean, I always liked the tense soundscape with its quasi-industrial steamboat sounds at the beginning and the slashing guitar riff. But hearing the backing track for itself left me still marveling at how well-constructed this is. No Brian Wilson needed, we’re good here, guys. More proof that the talent for writing and arranging in the band didn't just reside with Wilson the Eldest. 

"Say, fellas, is this what that famous wanderlust is all about? 

Other tracks were both challenge and opportunity: The two versions of “Out In The Country” seem to have little to do with each other – one a fast country gallop, practically bluegrass, the other slower and organ-driven and arguably incomplete. The Allmusic review mentions that the song is “presented in two rough versions – pity they were never combined and finished”. Pity indeed, but I did my best. So I did combine these, as best as possible, and I think it works pretty well, having the quicker bluegrass sections alternate with the more pastoral vocal passages. Actually, the story of "Out In The Country" is a whole lot more complicated than these two outtakes let on. The 'country version' was a finished track (and it shows in the superior sound quality), possibly dating back all the way to the Sunflower sessions, but was prepped for release on Carl & The Passions before getting binned in a malicious 'accident'. The original “Out In The Country” has lead vocals from co-writer Don Goldberg, though they do sound a lot like Al Jardine's and would have been fine to my ears. 

But Bruce Johnston then 'accidentally' 'misplaced' the tape for this song because he didn't want an outsider have lead vocals on a Beach Boys album (and, coincidentally him having no lead vocals on said album). Thankfully, he himself got misplaced shortly afterwards, entirely voluntary, for basically being a dick around the Wilsons and/or Jack Rieley (depending on who tells the story). Cowardly and stupidly, the powers that be still wiped Goldberg's vocal from the finished version of the box set (in 2022! Come on!), but both versions of the song are strong enough to deserve to be heard, methinks, so the original “Out In The County” shows up as Part I, while the hybrid mix is now Part II. These tracks, like "Sweet Something", also widen the already wide palette of Holland: The two Carl &The Passions outtakes are a clear outgrowth of the rootsy feel of that album, straight-up crossing into country territory. Overall, a very rich album became even richer with the inclusion of these outtakes. 

As usual, sequencing proved complicated. In early test run versions I'd often skip the 'California Saga', good as it is for Mike'n'Al standards, to get to the more intriguing things on this album. The solution: break up the saga and spread its three parts across three album sides. Balance the Chaplin/Fataar numbers with everyone else's (in real life, Mike Love absolutely would have blown a casket at the prospect of having lead vocals on a single song out of twenty!), get the right mix of uptempo, midtempo numbers and ballads and end each side on an obvious closer. Done, done and done. 

Seeing the fantastic cover art of the box set, it was immediately obvious to me to want to use it, as it is almost custom made for the 'concept' part of the album. As Hannibal Smith would say, I love it when a plan comes together. 

So, here it is. Sail On Sailor - A Travelogue In Twenty Chapters. Get on board and join the journey. 

The Beach Boys' other masterpiece: The Beauty of Holland

Holland is the best Beach Boys album post-1966. That is probably only a semi-bold statement. It goes to show that the quality of every Beach Boys album post-Pet Sounds was, uh, variable and quality control was sometimes...lax. But is it frivolous to suggest that Holland is the best Beach Boys album, like, ever?

Conventional rock and roll writing since, uh, well, pretty much the time that Pet Sounds came out tells us so. So let’s call it down the middle and say that Holland is by far my favorite Beach Boys album. I never tire of it, and I don’t need to be specifically in the mood to put it on. Pet Sounds, for all its brilliance, is an album-long mood piece, and it you’re not into some long, bitter-sweet melancholy, you might find yourself pushing it back into the shelf. There’s no question that the best songs on Pet Sounds – “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, “God Only Knows”, “Caroline No” – beat the stuffing out of most of Holland, because they’d beat the stuffing out of most albums. But overall, the quality of songwriting on Holland is amazingly high, especially considering that Brian Wilson was missing in action for pretty much all of it, and out of it when he was in. And there is an amazing variety on it that the single-mindedness of Pet Sounds can’t compete with. Almost every one of the songs here does something fresh and different, apart from maybe the throwback signature sound of “California”. 

I already mentioned in the write-up for All This Is That, the alternate Carl And The Passions – So Tough, that the “Durban Beach Boys” era including South Africans Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar as band members is easily my favorite. For the first time in years, the band was taking actual risks and ventured into a modernization of their sound. For years they had been running behind, constantly being out of step with the times and prevailing music trends. But put Holland on, without any other information for the prospective listener, and you couldn't tell when it was made. Could it be from 1969? 1972? 1975? 1978? There’s no telling. It’s a fantastic album, top to bottom, and the one time the latter-era Beach Boys sounded of their time. Or timeless.

Holland is arguably the high point for the band as a creative unit. Unfortunately, it was also the end of the road for the Beach Boys as any kind of viable, musically interesting band. The end came swiftly. In late 1972, even before Holland was released, hip manager Jack Rieley was sacked or quit (depending, again, on who tells the story), only to be replaced by Chicago manager James William Guercio (leading to some weird crossover attempts) and finally, the decidedly less hip Stephen Love – yes you guessed it, Mike’s brother. By mid-1973 Chaplin was gone and the last hold-out from this period, Fataar, finally left in late 1974. The same year saw the release and success of Endless Summer – a compilation of their surf’n’car hits – profiting from the nascent nostalgia of the burgeoning me-generation for a simpler time sealed the deal. From that point onwards, the Beach Boys would essentially be a Mike Love-led oldies oriented show band. They perked up briefly in 1979 with L.A. (Light Album), the last Beach Boys album of any worth - and, not incidentally an album with more Carl And Dennis and less Mike and Al - but artistically they were essentially done after Holland. So that album is the testament to the Beach Boys being worthy of acclaim as a band, not just the singers and executors of Brian Wilson’s music. And what a testament it is. 

And yet. And yet. Something about it disturbed me, especially after picking up the very good In Concert album issued in 1973. It’s liner notes mentioned that the extremely enjoyable Champlin-Fataar song “We Got Love” was kicked off Holland at the last second to make room for “Sail On Sailor”, after the Reprise record men complained that “we don’t hear a single”. But they kicked off the wrong tune! Because if Holland has a weak spot, it’s the Chaplin-Fataar song that stayed, “Leaving This Town” with its (to me) slightly tedious and long-winded Moog solo, as well as the tendency for all Chaplin-Fataar songs to run a little long, or at least longer than strictly necessary, due to having extended vamp sections at the end. But that one also has Wilson and Love in the credits (and thus, ready to get royalties), so I can see why “We Got Love” got voted off the album while still giving the two ancillary members a token number.

Luckily for fans, the Beach Boys is one of the most-bootlegged band out there, so two other fascinating Holland outtakes were very well documented: the hot little Fataar-Chaplin rocker “Hard Time” (often called “Hard Times” on bootlegs) and the incredible “Carry Me Home”, a co-write between the South Africans and Dennis Wilson. The story of a dying soldier praying that he – or at least his body – make it back home could have been an unusually timely song for a Beach Boys album had it been included – a moving prayer for the boys and body bags coming back home from Vietnam. But, alas, it was maybe abandoned for that very reason, and I have my suspicion that a stout patriot like Mike Love probably has something to do with it.

This is going to be my second stab at an alternate version of Holland, after a first try as a single album I called Nether Lands a couple of years back, posted somewhere in the comments of a Beach Boys thread on the now dearly departed False Memory Foam Island. It essentially swapped “Leaving This Town” for “We Got Love” and reinstated the two mentioned outtakes, while shortening the long run-out grooves the Fataar-Chaplin team favored to make it work as a single album. But before the release of the big Sail On Sailor – 1972 box set two years ago, that was the best I could do, and I thought I was done with Holland. The box set yielded a heretofore unbooted Carl &The Passions outtake with another Fataar-Chaplin number, “Oh Sweet Something” as well as two versions of an aborted Carl &The Passions number, “Out In The Country”. Plus a wealth of backing tracks, a cappela versions and other tidbits. And the game was on, again...

End of part one.

Yup, folks, we're gonna stop here. The write-up for my alternate version of Holland kept getting longer and longer, slowly but surely marching towards the 2000 word mark, and more and more unwieldy to fit into a single blog post. So I decided to do what greedy Hollywood producers have done for years to double their profits: Split the damn thing in two! So, today's post has the back story and my impressions of Holland and its track selections, while the second part, which will drop tomorrow on these very pages, will have a deep dive into the what's and why's and what-have-you's of my alternate album.  

But, faithful readers, it would be unfair to have you read all my musings and then go away entirely empty-handed with the promise of the good stuff coming tomorrow. So, you'll find attached, as a little teaser, a couple of live "Durban Beach Boys" tracks (not from the official Live album, neither from the box set, I transferred a concert from You Tube, but can't tell you the date or venue) and my NAM Mix of "Carry Me Home", in case you haven't picked that one up with Volume Two of All Pearls, No Swine. 

See you tomorrow for Sail On Sailor, the double album concept record re-imagining of Holland...

All This Is That: repolishing the Beach Boys' diamond in the rough

 

“Carl & The Passions - ‘So Tough’” is just about the weirdest album imaginable. I love it, but nothing about it should work. That already starts with the album art and its title. The red sports car in a beach setting image is pretty cool by itself, presaging about a half dozen Beach Boy compilations by over a decade. But it isn’t representative of the music within. Like, at all. The title makes it even worse, other than not even identifying whose album this is (until the CD version akwardly plastered the band name on the cover). Besides being weird as hell, having the Beach Boys adopt a moniker like Carl & The Passions (the name of Carl’s music group as a teenager, ostensibly to cheer him up) and having the ‘So Tough’ title, together with the cover makes it sound like it’s some sort of retro exercise – a return to car and surf songs, maybe, or an exercise in doo-wop. Instead, it is of course none of these things. It’s rather the loosest, and in some ways earthiest album the band would ever cut. By 1972, the popular emphasis on roots music had even reached the Beach Boys, who had experimented with country music as early as the 1970’s single version of “Cottonfields” with its very prominent pedal steel guitar. There’s some pedal on ‘So Tough’, but it really is more about the harmonies, which in places recall the loose harmony style of The Band rather than the Beach Boys.

In tow with the non-fitting album cover and title, none of the musical ingredients on ‘So Tough’ should really go together. Besides the relatively rootsy atmosphere, these songs don’t really have much in common, besides the transcendental meditation undertow to “He Come Down” and “All This Is That”, courtesy of Mike & Al of course. Part of it is that ‘So Tough’ is clearly an album assembled to bring out a Beach Boys product, without the band necessarily having the requisite songs ready, which means that half of the tracks here are hardly Beach Boys tracks at all. The two Ricky Fataar-Blondie Chaplin compositions, fascinating as they are, don’t really seem to feature any other Beach Boys on them, much less a specific Beach Boys sound. Dennis’ two numbers aren’t Beach Boys numbers at all, having been taken from a finally abandoned first attempt at a solo album. Their heavy instrumentation doesn’t really jibe with anything else on the album. Even Carl gets in on the more exotic sounds game, with his “You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone” graced (if that's the word...) by a rather noisy and unusual instrumentation and an even more unusual gruff and growling vocal delivery by the usually most angelic of Beach Boy voices. That leaves just three songs that really truly sound like the Boys: the fantastic retro number “Marcella” and the two aforementioned tracks by Mike & Al. And even Mike’s faux gospel is quite a bit out of his usual wheelhouse.

So, it shouldn’t really work. And yet I love this album dearly. Because the Durban Beach Boys era was definitely the most interesting of the band, making them sound contemporary with their era for the first time. Because lovelorn Dennis is always a winner, over-instrumentation or not. Because Mike and Al arguably provide career highlights. And because this exact incongruous nature of ‘So Tough’ gives it an element of, if not anything goes, than a certain je ne sais pas quoi that other albums don’t have. And while I love a lot of it, warts and all, there’s no doubt that the album is far from perfect.

So, does my re-imagining make it so? Of course not, but it's – I hope – a valiant stab at something slightly more coherent. Before 2022’s Sail On Sailor: 1972 box set, there was of course no way to think of making an alternate album for ‘So Tough’. There simply wasn’t any material, even from a band as much and as well bootlegged as the Boys. The Sail On Sailor box set finally unearthed a couple of outtakes, but I decided not to use them. On an album as divergent as this as is, this seemed counterproductive. They will come back into play when I get to my reimagining of Holland as a double album. But that box set notably proposed a number of different mixes for half of the album’s line up. New mixes for the two Dennis numbers strip them of the overcooked orchestration by Darryl Dragon. “Here She Comes” loses its puzzling original mix in which Fataar’s drums occasionally drowned out Chaplin’s vocals. The changes to “He Come Down” seem minor in comparison, going for a 'drier' sound and more focus on the vocals.

Another idea was the need for better sequencing. People who bought this album in 1972 might’ve checked their turntable twice to make sure they put on the good record, when ‘So Tough’ opened first with the uncharacteristic, though possibly prophetic “Mess”, then followed by the decidedly non-Beach Boy-ish “Here She Comes”. So the idea for All This Is That was to frontload the album with the classic Beach Boys sound of “Marcella”, more evenly distribute the two Dennis numbers and give it more coherence by building around the now new title track “All This Is That” as a unifying element. Part of Al’s original demo, based on Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” gets transformed into the charmingly simple, acoustic “All This Is That” prelude, the reprise at the end is built around an alternative verse and the a capella version.

So, that's it. All This Is That. It really is. Enjoy.