Hawthorne, CA:
Birthplace Of A Musical Legacy
The Beach Boys
While various members of The Beach Boys battle it out in court, we can take
comfort in the fact that their music from over 30 years ago is still as vibrant
and infectious as ever. Accolades continue to pour in for Brian Wilson with
tributes and collaborations. The demand for unreleased music from The Beach
Boys, of which there is plenty, is meeting its quota. Healthy chunks of session
talk, alternate takes, unreleased songs and experimentations have surfaced in
recent years on various box sets and collections. And now, much like it did
with its Beatles Anthology CDs, Capitol Records has scoured
The Beach Boys vaults and unleashed a real peach. Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace
Of A Musical Legacy is a 57-track collage of session outtakes, live
numbers, studio banter, band commentary, a cappella, and various backing tracks
culled mostly from the early-'60s during the band's heyday.
We start in the Wilson household where Brian, along with his brothers, Carl
and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine are sweetening the harmony
for a song about a favorite California pastime called "Surfin'." Instead
of a bunch of monkeys playing with a tape recorder — we get a pure vocal
performance that reflects a raw talent taking form. The selections roam from
one backing track to another demo, past a few words from a band member to the
stage of a Beach Boys concert. The whole idea behind something like Hawthorne
is to get another perspective on a particular song — be it Brian Wilson
assembling the parts of "Surfin' USA," a festive take of "Barbara
Ann" featuring Dean Torrance — or the strange, but true renderings
of classic Smile material like "Heroes and Villains"
and "Vegetables."
Truly lost gems include a Dennis Wilson composition, "A Time to Live in
Dreams," and "Lonely Days," never released in any form, from
the Wild Honey sessions. There are some incredible takes of
"Good Vibrations," but nothing from Pet Sounds, which
received a treatment on its own four-CD set. Instead, turn up the stereo mixes
of "Dance Dance Dance" and "Salt Lake City," and get ready
to sway. These alone make the set priceless. On something like "Good To
My Baby," we get a glimpse into how Brian produced a session and squeezed
the life out of a melody until it became a tonal teardrop of immense proportions.
Hawthorne also features spoken words from and about Dennis
and Carl Wilson, their legacies intact amidst all the recent feuding. Somehow,
this collection, with all its warts and blemishes exposed, recalls a more peaceful
and productive time when The Beach Boys were something more than just an attraction
at the county fair.
~ Shawn Perry
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