"Sail On Sailor 1972"
A New Beach Boys Box Set is an In-Depth Look at a Bold, Productive, Artistic Year
“I do want to call the reader’s attention to the fact that the story of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys is partly a story about winning the lottery (when they had a great string of top ten records, 1962-66). We have a tendency to think of rock and roll (and pop music) as a meritocracy, where the successful and famous have power because their work is so good. Sometimes being good does have something to do with it, of course, but luck and timing also play a big part in most music success stories. So the pitfall for us is to assume that the difference between the winners and losers (i.e., the ‘alternative’ bands or rap artists you’ve heard of and those you haven’t heard of) must be related to merit. Maybe sometimes. But my personal history of rock and roll is full of superb records (and artists) whose number didn’t come up.”
Williams, Paul. “The Beach Boys Love You and Spring”. Brian Wilson & The Beach Boys: How Deep Is The Ocean? Essays and Conversations. 1966-1997. New York: Omnibus Press, 1997, p. 224.
1972 was a unique, and one of the most productive, years in Beach Boys history.
Early in the year, longtime member Bruce Johnston departed, suspicious of new manager (and sometime lyricist) Jack Rieley. Drummer Dennis Wilson, hand still mending from an injury the previous year, was limited to vocals and occasional one-handed keyboards. Guitarist/vocalist Blondie Chaplin and drummer/vocalist Ricky Fataar, both from South African band The Flame, were drafted in as full-fledged, creative Beach Boys shortly before Johnston’s departure. (Fataar had already been filling in for Dennis Wilson live.) The Boys were in a commercial trough in their nostalgia-addicted homeland, seen as hopelessly dated amidst the trends of the early Seventies. (They were faring better on the other side of the Atlantic.) It was hoped that with Rieley’s “socially conscious” lyrics and the “integration” provided by the South Africans, Wilson, his brothers Brian and Carl, their cousin Mike Love, and Alan Jardine would spark a commercial renaissance alongside the artistic renaissance that was already well underway (see last year’s Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971). Reprise Records distributed their records, released through their own Brother Records label. Surf’s Up had provided a commercial beachhead, but it was just a start, nothing like past glories.
Sail On Sailor: 1972 (Brother Records/Capitol 6CD) is a thorough, illuminating time capsule of this gamble of a year. At first glance, it is only of interest to the most obsessive fans, but it rewards all listeners with any interest in the band or American culture of the period.
The set is the latest in a series of archival releases produced by Brian Wilson’s engineer Mark Linett and composer/documentary director Alan Boyd. It includes both of the studio albums The Boys recorded in 1972, Carl and the Passions—“So Tough” and Holland (the latter was released in early 1973). In addition are alternate versions, alternate mixes, outtakes, home recordings, live tracks, and more. The centerpiece is the band’s second show at Carnegie Hall on Thanksgiving, November 23, 1972—their final concert of the year. Of special note is the long-lost Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks “Sail On Sailor” home songwriting session, written about in books for decades but unheard until now.
Carl and the Passions—“So Tough”, this lineup’s first foray into the studio, was even more of an oddity in 1972, packaged in a two-record set with their 1966 classic Pet Sounds, confusing their remaining fans and suggesting they weren’t confident with the new album. The title highlights Carl Wilson’s growing leadership role in terms of the album production work. The erratic album is sort of a lesser, single-disc version of The Beatles’ 1968 self-titled (“white”) album, with solo tracks, duo tracks, and trio tracks not really adding up to a coherent whole, either as a cohesive album or as a collection of band songs. Carl Wilson, Love, and Jardine write as a trio, delivering a couple of songs inspired by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. “He Come Down” is cloying and bathetic, not the “spiritual” powerhouse Howie Edelman opines in the box set’s liner notes, but “All This Is That”, inspired by Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, is a calming, ethereal highlight of the band’s entire catalog. The new guys contribute two new compositions, both admirable if unlike anything on a Beach Boys album to date. “Hold On Dear Brother” is the more soulful, superior one. (Appropriately, the song was used as the title of a book subtitled The Beach Boys Without Brian Wilson.) Brian, with help from Rieley and Tandyn Almer, contributes two of his more raucous tunes, “You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone” and “Marcella”. The latter was reportedly inspired by his favorite massage therapist. These are enjoyable but not his best. Other than “All This Is That”, the album’s unmistakeable high water marks are Dennis’s two contributions. Written with Beach Boys concert backing musician Daryl Dragon (The Captain of Captain and Tennile) and conceived for an aborted solo album, “Make It Good” and “Cuddle Up” are orchestral, intense, candid passion poems that must be listened to carefully, not written or read about in a review. The album bombed in ’72, but it developed a cult following that includes Elton John (who contributed to liner notes to a 2000 CD reissue). Highlights of the bonus tracks for this disc on the box set include Jardine’s “The Road Not Taken” demonstration recording, a harbinger of “All This Is That”.
Holland, partly recorded in the titular country, is a much better, more cohesive, collaborative album. It leads off with “Sail On Sailor”, one of the band’s best works and one of the most encouraging anthems of resilience and determination in musical history. One of the revelations of Edelman’s liner notes is that Brian recommended Carl play his guitar part like a distress or SOS signal. Chaplin sings lead amidst a breathtaking bed of harmonies. It is an indictment of someone or something in their home country that this track never made it higher than number 49 on “The Billboard Hot 100”, and that was after it was reissued in 1975. Dennis’s and Rieley’s dulcet “Steamboat” (sung by Carl) is the second highlight, followed by the “California Saga” trilogy. Thinking of home in the low countries, the group finished a three-part trilogy to their home state and country (at a time when they were not antipodal) that they started at home. Love’s solo “Big Sur” waltz leads into “The Beaks of Eagles”, with Love and Jardine reading Robinson Jeffers poetry over a swirling musical track. Jardine’s solo “California” is the final part. Reminiscent of “California Girls”, it is a rollicking, boisterous, exuberant, propulsive celebration of the then-Golden State, sung by Love. One need not agree with the theme of “The Trader” (or Edelman’s politically correct liner note commentary) to recognize it as a stellar Carl Wilson/Jack Rieley composition. “Leaving This Town” is a pensive collaboration, Fataar and Chaplin this time writing with two older Boys. “Only With You” is another nearly ineffable Dennis Wilson composition, with lyrics from Love. “Funky Pretty” doesn’t quite live up to its predecessors, but it’s fun. Holland sold better. Tom Petty couldn’t get enough of it, attended several concerts on the tour, and contributed to the liner notes on the 2000 reissue. But it still wasn’t the comeback the band wanted. America, then and now, typecasts her best artists and wants little but nostalgia. Bonus tracks on the Holland disc in this set are highlighted by Dennis’s outtake “Carry Me Home” and “We Got Love”. “We Got Love” is a Chaplin/Fataar/Love composition extracted from the album at the eleventh hour that the band nonetheless played live regularly for the better part of the next two years. (It is a highlight of 1973’s The Beach Boys in Concert.)
One of the undisputed highlights of Sail On Sailor: 1972 is the late Thanksgiving Carnegie Hall concert. This previously unreleased (and un-bootlegged) treasure is absolutely required listening for anyone with the least interest in this subject. After an admonishing introduction from Rieley, who informs the audiences there will be no requests until the encores, the Boys play two masterfully executed sets, showcasing both recently recorded albums (including the one yet to be released) with other recent and relatively old material. (It was 1972. It was all relative.) This stupendous concert included what might well have been the final live performance of “Only With You”, along with a few other songs from the yet-to-be-released Holland album. Another standout is that era’s arrangement of “Don’t Worry Baby”, probably the most sublime live arrangement of the Beach Boys’ career. Don’t miss that era’s version of “Wild Honey” with Chaplin belting out the lead with puissance, and yet another standout is a surprisingly driving “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, one of Love’s better cover renditions. A medley of the Smile version of “Wonderful” with The Flame’s “Don’t Worry, Bill” is an enjoyable juxtaposition. Williams (quoted above) singled out this era as the Boys’ greatest qua live performers in his liner notes to the 2000 reissue of The Beach Boys in Concert, and he was right. (The two concerts of November 23 were recorded for that album but not used.)
The set is rounded out by two discs of studio and live bonus tracks, including alternate takes from “Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale)”, Brian’s homesick, longing look back at nights with his “Magic Transistor Radio” in Los Angeles. Mount Vernon and Fairway was the intersection of the Love family’s house in the 1950s and early 1960s, cousins Brian and Mike would listen to the radio together there in their formative years, and this sui generis piece was issued as a bonus 45 rpm single with original pressings of Holland. Additionally, “Spark In The Dark” is a piano/organ instrumental; “Rooftop Harry” sounds like 2012’s “From There to Back Again”. The live tracks include an ultra rare 1973 performance of “California Saga—Big Sur” (I’m only aware of one other performance, also from that year) and a 1975 “Sail On Sailor”. The latter is sung by long-time Beach Boys auxiliary Billy Hinsche of Dino, Desi, and Billy fame. Hinsche, Carl’s then-brother-in-law, took over lead vocals on the tune after Chaplin’s departure. Billy was beloved by fans and was particularly generous and accessible to me. Unfortunately, he died last year at age seventy after a mysterious brief illness. Sail On Sailor—1972 includes a special dedication to him.
The set closes with a new edit of the “California Saga Trilogy”. Jardine decided to add more of Jeffers that was left on the cutting room floor in ’72. As a postscript, Linett and Boyd add a brief a cappella snippet of an unheard alternate verse of “All This Is That”. Closing archival releases like that is an endearing trademark of theirs.
This lineup was short-lived, probably inevitably. Chaplin departed after a December 19, 1973 Madison Square Garden concert. Fataar stayed until late 1974, when the dreadful Capitol compilation Endless Summer, with early tunes he had nothing to do with, rose up the charts amid a deluge of pre-1966 nostalgia/hippie backlash led by American Graffiti and Sha Na Na. Fortuitously, Dennis’s hand had mended. He returned to the drum throne while Fataar joined Joe Walsh’s band. In 1978, Bruce Johnston returned to the Boys. The band continued to play songs from this period in concert for years, but most in the audience wanted nothing but Endless Summer fare. The same glorious American culture that catapulted them to superstardom also typecast them, as with so many of its greatest (and not so greatest) artists. By 1980, these tunes were just about purged from the repertoire.
The artistic achievement of this period was not wasted, however. “Sail On Sailor” became a semi-staple of FM radio. Many of these songs are enduring fan favorites, filling Brian Wilson and Alan Jardine setlists for decades. (They even pop up at Love/Johnston “Beach Boys” concerts occasionally.) Many artists beyond Petty and John found inspiration in this material. I heard Los Lobos cover “Sail On Sailor” while I was working at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles last year. As Williams pointed out in the essay quoted above, it took the world a long time to discover Moby Dick and Van Gogh’s paintings. Maybe this music has a new lease on life, now.
Today, Blondie Chaplin, after a solo career, works with Brian Wilson and Alan Jardine again. Ricky Fataar plays with Bonnie Raitt. Mike Love and Bruce Johnston continue to tour as “The Beach Boys”. Carl and Dennis Wilson are long departed, but they live on in their art.
Sail On Sailor—1972 is another reminder that The Beach Boys were far more than Endless Summer and its desultory surf and car singles and album tracks. Its songs are celebrations of a better time—when “Country Joe [would] do his show and sing about liberty”—and they were perhaps encouragement to the artists themselves to persevere through challenges at that time. The tunes are without question a timeless reminder of life’s possibility and human potential, at any time.
Sail on, sailor.
Dennis Carl Wilson December 4, 1944 - December 28, 1983
Carl Dean Wilson December 21, 1946 - February 6, 1998
William Ernest Hinsche June 29, 1951 - November 20, 2021
Carnegie Hall, New York, November 23, 1972, late show (lead vocal: Mike Love)
Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland, USA, June 26, 1975 (lead vocal: Billy Hinsche)