In 1978, 11 years after psychological problems caused Brian Wilson to begin withdrawing from music making, the Beach Boys recorded a Mike Love song called “Brian’s Back.” The track didn’t surface until 1979 (as a single’s B side) and wasn’t widely heard until two decades later, but even if it had been released immediately, the message in its title would have come as old news to anyone who’d heard 1976’s 15 Big Ones and, especially, 1977’s The Beach Boys Love You.
Brian wrote or co-wrote five amiable tracks on the former album, the first Beach Boys release to be produced by him in a decade. As for the latter, which started as a solo project, he produced the LP, played many of the instruments, wrote all 14 songs (in three cases, with co-authors), and sang lead on five of them.
While Love You didn’t sell particularly well, it garnered plaudits from the critics, including yours truly. Wilson himself called it the Beach Boys’ best album, and though many other people would probably put Pet Sounds at the top of the list, this record is pretty darn great. Certainly, it qualifies as the group’s most under-appreciated LP.
A new box set, We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years, underscores that assertion and shows just how fruitful this whole period was for Brian. The collection includes three CDs and 73 tracks, 35 of which were previously unreleased and 22 of which have been newly mixed for this box. Also included are three vinyl albums that duplicate 39 of the CDs’ selections and a copiously illustrated, 44-page, LP-sized booklet with extensive liner notes by Beach Boys biographer Howie Edelson and detailed discographic information.
Disc One begins with a remaster of The Beach Boys Love You, which contains 14 superlative tracks and zero filler. There are exuberant rockers like “Honkin’ Down the Highway” (co-written with the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn), “Good Time,” and “Mona,” which name-checks Wilson idol Phil Spector and two of his most beloved productions, “Be My Baby” and “Da Doo Ron Ron.” There are songs that evidence Brian’s quirky, sometimes hilarious worldview, such as “Johnny Carson” (“He sits behind his microphone / He speaks in such a manly tone”). And there are sweet, emotional ballads that showcase his vulnerability, among them “Let’s Put Our Hearts Together,” a duet with his then-wife Marilyn Rovell.
Also on the first CD are 10 outtakes from the sessions for Love You. They include alternate versions of a couple of the LP’s songs, fine covers of Dion’s “Ruby Baby” and the Righteous Brothers’ Spector-produced “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” and previously unreleased numbers such as “Marilyn Rovell,” “Sherry She Needs Me,” and “We Gotta Groove.”
Disc Two opens with nine songs from sessions for an aborted follow-up album called Adult/Child and four backing tracks from those sessions. The first selection, “Life Is for the Living,” is as clichéd as its title and arguably ranks among the least consequential numbers Brian ever wrote. But the Adult/Child sessions also yielded such standouts as a well-sung, orchestrated version of “Deep Purple,” the Peter DeRose/Mitchell Parish standard; “Still I Dream of You,” a sweet original that previously appeared on a 1993 anthology; and “New England Waltz,” a pensive instrumental.
While the second disc isn’t as strong as the first, the third includes some essential material. It opens with a dozen alternate mixes and outtakes from 15 Big Ones, including lots of high-spirited rock-and-roll covers, a few of which arguably outshine the original hits. Among them are the Righteous Brothers’ “Just Once in My Life,” Tommy James’s “Mony, Mony,” Johnny Preston’s “Running Bear,” Bill Haley’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” the Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love,” Frankie Ford’s “Sea Cruise,” and Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music.”
From the Love You project, meanwhile, the disc offers seven alternate mixes and nine of Brian’s vocal-and-piano demos. While not as fleshed out or powerful as the tracks on the 1977 LP, these stripped-down cassette versions should interest anyone who appreciates the classic album they helped to form.
Note: The first pressing of the CD/LP edition of We Gotta Groove has already sold out. Until or unless more copies are produced, your only purchase option is a digital download, which is available here.
Also Noteworthy
The Third Mind, Spellbinder!. The Third Mind, a psychedelia-infused outfit that has one foot in the 1960s, is turning out to be as prolific as it is excellent. This improvisatory band, co-founded by Dave Alvin (the Blasters, etc.), has issued five albums in less than three years. The latest has only four tracks, but with a playing time of 36 minutes, it would be misleading to call it an EP.
Billed as a companion to last summer’s Right Now!, the disc includes a nearly 15-minute remix that melds two numbers from that album: Jesse Colin Young’s “Darkness, Darkness” and jazz great Pharoah Sanders’s “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” Also featured are a strings-enhanced version of Right Now!’s “Before We Said Goodbye,” by Alvin and Third Mind vocalist Jesse Sykes.
The nearly nine-minute title cut is a new band composition inspired by jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo, a big influence on group guitarist David Immergluck (also of Counting Crows). Rounding out the program is “Reap What You Sow,” a Michael Bloomfield/Nick Gravenities number that also appears on Right Now! but was omitted from its vinyl edition.