The Beach Boys - California Feeling (1981)
Back in the eighties, before the advent of the internet, if you wanted to make an imaginary album you literally had to press up a vinyl record and sell in under the counter of a record shop. I know there will be people saying 'vinyl?' and 'record shop?' 'what are they?', but it's how we lived back then. In 1981, this is what happened with The Beach Boys, when an enterprising fan gathered together a number of unreleased tracks and made an album which he called 'California Feeling'. He titled it after a track which the band had recorded as the title song for what would later become the 'M.I.U. Album', with not only the title changing, but the song being omitted from the track listing as well. Along with a few other out-takes and demos making up the running time, we had a very enjoyable Beach Boys' album, possibly even better than some of the officially released records at this turbulent time in their career. The best Beach Boys blog - Alternative Albums And More - never actually got around to piecing this one together, and as my old Youtube rip was not the best quality I've sourced the best recordings of the songs to put it back together. I have left off a couple of distinctly below-standard demos, and re-jigged the running order a bit, and I still think it stands up very well for a bootleg of some 35 years ago. The album cover is the original which housed the vinyl back in 1981.
Track listing
01 California Feelin'02 We're Together Again03 How's About A Little Bit Of Your Sweet Lovin'04 Our Team05 Brian's Back06 Santa Ana Winds07 Lookin' Down The Coast08 Stevie09 California Dreamin'10 Sherry She Needs Me11 River Song12 Marilyn Rovell13 We Gotta Groove14 Carry Me Home
Wilson is famous for his 'girl' songs ('Help Me Rhonda', 'Caroline No', 'Wendy' etc etc) and this album is no different, with 'Stevie' being written for Stevie Nicks, and 'Marilyn Rovell' being the maiden name of his wife-to-be. 'River Song' and 'Carry Me Home' are two of Dennis Wilson's best songs, 'California Dreamin'' is a rare (for them) cover version, 'Santa Ana Winds' was completely re-written for inclusion on 1980's 'Keepin' The Summer Alive', while 'Sherry She Needs Me' was an instrumental titled 'Sandy She Needs Me' from 1965, which didn't have a vocal for over a decade.
Nice idea, but why call it a 1976 album? I'm pretty sure some of the songs are from years later, like "Stevie," which is from 1981. As you said, the song is about Stevie Nicks, but she wouldn't even become a big star until 1977.
ReplyDeleteWhen I downloaded the Youtube version some years ago it had a 1976 date on it, but it looks like it has now long gone which is why I re-compiled it. Checking some of the dates it looks like it must have come out in the early 80's, so that date must have been incorrect and so I'm updating the dates. Cheers
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