A Cork on the Ocean: Beach Boys and Wilson Brothers song-by-song

The Ventures had, but their version is much better, IMO.

Also covered by the Fendermen, also better. Both versions are rather closer to the Beach Boys version in terms of sound and guitar tone and the fact that there's no horns or organ but with a easy looseness that Carl lacks.

But there are a whole lot of covers:
Honky Tonk (Part 1) by Bill Doggett

 

David Marks turns 75 today.

 

Honky Tonk
2/5
Not bad but this one has always bored me.

 

Since we're talking about it...

 

"The instrumental peaked at number two for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100,[4] and was the biggest R&B hit of the year, spending thirteen non-consecutive weeks at the top of the charts.[5]" wiki, Honky Tonk was huge, IIRC 2 million copies sold, so it would have still been on jukeboxes all over since it sold both pop and R&B. Something almost anyone would've learned to play at the time.

 

Honky Tonk

Good, sleazy fun.

3/5

 

Honky Tonk - 3/5

Another well-placed instrumental. This album is so well sequenced that I can barely feel the tracks changing, it just flows very nicely and "Honky Tonk" has the same effect as the other instrumentals. Some might say it's all filler, especially since 5/12 songs are instrumentals. I think it works merely because "Why not?". Another excellent choice.

 

It's interesting that a group that is regarded as perhaps the greatest rock/pop vocal group of all time was seemingly trying to carve out a niche as an instrumental rock group in addition to their vocal numbers. I'd like to think that was because they needed material for live performances that would "stoke" up the audience, and these surf rock instrumentals could do that, and give them some "cred" as a surf rock group which it seems they wanted (and Capitol wanted) as a marketing scheme.

 

The first of two shuffles on the LP, the next one being (at least the verses of) "Finder's Keepers."

 

HT: Good guitars and, if they were allowed to sound a little bit more raunchy, could be above-average surf rock. Unfortunately someone (Capitol, Murray, Nik, Mike, Brian, or some combination thereof?) decided to keep their instrumentals polite to a fault.

1.75/5

 

Surfin’ USA (March 23, 1963)

Spoiler

A1: Surfin’ USA (Brian Wilson, Chuck Berry) = 5
> Surfin’ USA (demo from Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys) = 5
> Surfin’ USA (demo from Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace of a Musical Legacy) = 5
> Surfin’ USA (backing track from Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace of a Musical Legacy) = 5
> Surfin’ USA - The Hot Doggers = 4
> Surfin’ USA - The Jesus & Mary Chain = 4
> Surfin' USA (Chuck Berry, Julio César, Gil Luaño, Brian Wilson) - The Rocking Boys (1963 Spanish Version) = 4
Note: This seems like a hard song to screw up, of course I didn’t listen to the William Hung version from 2005.
> Surfin’ USA - Aaron Carter = 1
Note: Musically it doesn’t sound too bad, but those vocals drag it way down.
> Surfin’ USA Live 2012 - The Beach Boys = 4
A2: Farmer’s Daughter (B. Wilson, Mike Love) = 4
> Farmer John - Don & Dewey = 4
> Gonna Hustle You - Brian Wilson = 3.5
> Farmer’s Daughter - Yo La Tengo = 3.5
> Farmer’s Daughter - Fleetwood Mac (from Fleetwood Mac Live 1980) = 5
> Farmer’s Daughter Live 2015 - The Beach Boys = 4
> Farmer’s Daughter - Basil Swift & The Seegrams = 4
> Farmer’s Daughter Live - Continental Drifters = 5
> Farmer’s Daughter - The Keyes = 4
> Farmer’s Daughter - The Summer Set = 5
A3: Misirlou (Nick Roubanis, Fred Wise, Milton Leeds, Bob Russell) = 4
> Misirlou - Dick Dale & The Del-Tones = 5
> Misirlou - The Devil's Anvil = 4
> Misirlou - Tetos Demetriades (1927) = 4
> This Little Woodie - The Rip Chords = 4
> (Video on post #1397 Unavailable)
A4: Stoked (B. Wilson) = 3
> Bulldog - The Fireballs = 4
> Stick Shift - The Duals = 3
> Stoned - The Rolling Stones = 4
> Cry For A Shadow - The Beatles = 4
A5: Lonely Sea (B. Wilson, Gary Usher) = 4
> The Lonely Sea - The Beach Boys (film clip from “The Girls On The Beach”) = 4
> The Lonely Sea - Steve Almaas & Ali Smith = 4
> The Lonely Sea - Eric Matthews = 4
A6: Shut Down (B. Wilson, Roger Christian) = 4
> Shut Down - The Condo F**ks = 3
> Last Drag - Roger Christian = 5
> My World Is Empty Without You - The Supremes = 4
> Vroom Vroom - Charli XCX = 2
B1: Noble Surfer (B. Wilson, Love) = 2
> Shut Down Live 1964 - The Beach Boys = 4
> Surfer Dan - The Turtles = 4
> Video unavailable (singing in Swedish about a boat) sounds interesting!
> Surfin´ con Los Mabber´s = 4

B2: Honky Tonk (Bill Doggett, Shep Shepherd, Clifford Scott, Billy Butler) = 3
> Honkey Tonk, Parts 1 & 2 - Bill Doggett = 4
> Night Train - Jimmy Forrest = 5

 

I'm not sure whether Brian was there at that show, but I think they always played a stack of covers at that time. For example, Dennis singing 'Silly Boy' (with David Marks on drums), David singing 'Louie Louie' and Carl singing 'What'd I Say'.

 

Is Carl W playing a Fender Jaguar on this one, or is it a Strat? I can normally tell, but here I'm not so sure. It sounds pretty Jaguar-like in places for sure.

Apparently, after 1963 he stopped playing guitar solos and session musicians (Glen Campbell) took over, but everything up until that then would have been him (including this album) .

 

There isn't a guitar solo on a Beach Boys song in the first half of the 60s that isn't played by Carl.

 

And on tracks like "Don't Worry Baby" and "Help Me Rhonda," there's barely a guitar solo at all. Carl can be a bit minimalist at times.

 

It was revealed recently that it's David Marks on Don't Worry Baby.

The Beach Boys - Don't Worry Baby, the 'chop' guitar solo is... David Marks!

 

Honky Tonk

This may not have been a "surf" track originally but boy do they make it sound like one. I would say I enjoy this well enough and as said it is a good showcase track but it isn't saying much for as enjoyable as I find this albums copious instrumentals, it's all a bit milquetoast for me. The original is better I will also add.

2.5/5

 

One of the best parts about "Noble Surfer" is that it reinforces that the band regularly sings about noble surfers rather than ignoble surfers. That the noble surfer wears huarache sandals shows that the surfers of "Surfin' USA" are also noble.

 

"Honky Tonk" - I don't like being negative, but I really find this quite boring. Just seems pretty standard to me.. 1/5

 

Not true. I hope this thread does something to dispel some of these incredibly wide-spread myths and reveals the true, extremely complex story, as far as it’s known.

 

I think it was more Brian than Carl. The Beach Boys evolved into a vehicle for Brian’s (and eventually, the others’) increasingly complex compositions and less a band in the studio. Here they were still a band, and of course they remained one on stage.

 

"Honky Tonk" - 2.3/5. A generous Summer score, and 'cause I like Carl.

 

I have to say that the fact that there are five instrumentals on this album is annoying on a song-by-song thread, because there is never lots to say about instrumentals, unless one goes the music theory route, (which is always fun to read.) But on the album as a whole, I don't mind them. I actually like them and I think they go alon way into giving the album a certain gestalt; and I like listening to the album on the rare occassions that I do listen to it as a whole.

I think it's stronger than the sum of its parts, slightly, maybe because so many of the songs are very short, so it all goes by fast and enjoyably.

 

Our votes for "Honky Tonk"
1-2
2-11
3-13
4-1
5-0
Average: 2.3852

 

Today’s song is “Lana”, written by Brian Wilson; produced by Nik Venet & and uncredited Brian Wilson & Murry Wilson.

The Beach Boys – Lana Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

“Lana" opens with a “sliding blues piano lick…imitating Gershwin”, according to Brian’s future collaborator Andy Paley. In 2010, in Brian’s reimagining of Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”, Brian utilised a similar piano lick in the arrangement.

When asked on the smileysmile.com board if there was anything he would like to do over and improve, Brian said:
Brian:

According to WillJC, above, “Lana” was recorded at Western Recorders studio on November 12th or 26th, 1962 on the same day as “Farmer's Daughter”, and “Mother May I”, with lead vocals re-recorded on January 16th at Radio Recorders studio and doubled at Capitol Studios on February 13th, 1963, when the celeste was also added.

It features a key change up a 4th (as on “Ten Little Indians”) playing a different melody (probably written by Brian rather than improvised by Carl) during the guitar/accordion/celeste solo.

Line Up: (per WillJC):
Brian Wilson: lead & backing vocals, piano, accordion, celeste
Carl Wilson: bass, backing vocals
Dennis Wilson: drums
with
Bob Norberg: guitar, backing vocal


A Lana/Farmer’s Daughter acetate cut at Radio Recorders exists, without the celeste, credited to “Johnny Dew” and “the Beach Boys”, on the respective sides. “Johnny Dew” was an inside joke referring to Murry constantly telling Brian to “do it.”

The acetate is also credited to “Wil-War Record Productions’, a company formed by Shane Wilder and Herb Warme. Wilder claimed to have been involved with The Beach Boys in the early days, but apparently many of his claims (whatever they are and I literally just read about him yesterday when researching this song) have been disproven and little is known about him; but here at least there is some evidence of a relationship. Perhaps his company invested in the band by paying for the Radio Recorders overdub session and pressing of this acetate?