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June birthday legends
When June rolls around these days, it can only mean honoring birthdays for these legends:
June 16:Â Mona and Lisa
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17 Replies
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June 18, Paul McCartney
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In this new Paul McCartney video we are treated to his drumming skills. So multi-talented, that reminds me of Mona and Lisa. Seems when music is in your soul, it finds many ways to express itself.
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In these uncertain times of Covid and social strife, this song in particular rings a chord with me. One of my favorite, lesser known, Beach Boys songs
Happy Birthday Brian
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Here is an enjoyable documentary about Paul McCartney providing some great insight into his career and personal life.
“They (Beatles) made Rock n Roll art!”
Inspiration Paul got from hearing Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto led to “Penny Lane”
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You’re right, Jung. We’ve got a whole week of birthdays to celebrate!
I wonder why Paul’s “Young Boy” video is only now coming out. The song is from a 1997 album, and the footage looks to be from about the same time.
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That’s a good question David. I thought this was a song off his recent album because the video said premiered June 2020, and it looked like the way he looks now in that video.
Here is Brian Wilson in Concert from 2005. Those big audiences for a major concert seem like a distant memory these days. Hopefully one day we can return to those. A little trivia, did you know in high school, Brian was such a great quarterback, some speculate if he did not go into music, he could have gone on to professional football. He was that good. A real athlete. He was also captain of the high school baseball team too.
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Jung, I had no idea about Brian’s athletic accomplishments. Excelling in both music and sports is pretty rare. The only other example I can think of is Johnny Mathis.
I just found out that Flaming Pie (the source album for Young Boy) is going to be re-released next month with bonus tracks, etc., which would explain the timing of the video.
Flaming Pie is definitely worth checking out if you’re not familiar with it. It got great reviews, and was nominated for a Grammy award. This is my favorite song from it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kvy6shOOVU
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David, I had a listen to the Flaming Pie album on youtube, well the tracks that aren’t blocked anyway, and it is good. Like the song “Some days” as well. In the Beautiful Night video, it’s great to see Ringo doing some of the drumming in there. I had a listen to some of Brian Wilson’s songs on his 2015 album No Pier Pressure, and some nice songs on there too.  Really great to see these 2 masters still at it decades later creating their own music.
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Jung, I somehow never heard about No Pier Pressure, so I just listened to it. Very mellow and laid back! I agree; I doubt anyone fifty years ago imagined that Brian and Paul would still be writing great songs into their 70’s.
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I remember in 2012 looking down upon the big 5-0 in a few months the following year and feeling a little blue, and I came across a Beach Boys 50 year anniversary concert they did in Japan on Youtube that cheered me up so much. Here was Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Bruce Johnson, all old enough to be my father in their 70s rocking on stage, and they were even doing brand new songs that they just wrote the year before. So inspiring! My growing old blues faded away pretty fast.
This is probably my favorite Beach Boys song. In 2000 I went down to Disney Land to attend a huge telecom sales conference, and as one of the entertainment venues they had Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean doing a concert in a small venue conference room, and they played “Sloop John B” and I was able to stand about 30 feet from Mike Love as he sang this. It was music heaven, and always remember that when I hear this one!
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That’s cool that you were able to be so close to a Beach Boy, Jung! I once had a front-row seat at a John Sebastian concert, and that sort of proximity makes the experience so much more memorable.
Sloop John B isn’t quite my very favorite Beach Boys song, but it’s certainly in the top ten percent. I just did a little reading up on the history of the song, and it actually dates back to 1916! Here’s Al Jardine on the story of how they ended up recording it:
Brian was at the piano. I asked him if I could sit down and show him something. I laid out the chord pattern for ‘Sloop John B.’ I said, ‘Remember this song?’ I played it. He said, ‘I’m not a big fan of the Kingston Trio.’ He wasn’t into folk music. But I didn’t give up on the idea. So what I did was to sit down and play it for him in the Beach Boys idiom. I figured if I gave it to him in the right light, he might end up believing in it. So I modified the chord changes so it would be a little more interesting. The original song is basically a three-chord song, and I knew that wouldn’t fly.
So I put some minor changes in there, and it stretched out the possibilities from a vocal point of view. Anyway, I played it, walked away from the piano and we went back to work. The very next day, I got a phone call to come down to the studio. Brian played the song for me, and I was blown away. The idea stage to the completed track took less than 24 hours.
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David, thanks for finding the info about Sloop John B. I know it was based on a folk song that Alan Jardine was involved in, but it’s nice to learn of the exact details, and wow, it only took them 24 hours from concept to re-write to recording. It was the biggest hit from Pet Sounds going up to #3 in the US charts.
John Sebastian would have been great to see up close too. I think seeing Mike Love up close was the only time I got close to a celebrity.  Well there was the time I saw Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip get out of their limousine during a visit to Vancouver in 1982 at a museum. 🙂 I was about a 100 feet away on the side of a drive way.
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Yeah, I really lucked out with that Sebastian concert. I read that the concert was going to happen, and a few weeks later while I was in the area I stopped by the theater to ask whether tickets were on sale yet. They told me they had just started a couple of hours ago, and they showed me the seating chart with only five seats marked out. It was a very small venue (a converted movie theater), and all the tickets were the same price, so I pencilled myself in for the VIP vantage point.
It’s great that you got to see the queen in person! She’s a living link to a lot of world history.
My closest encounter with a musical celebrity was about ten years ago, when I attended a solo concert by Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Again it was a rather small event, and I stood in line afterwards to get his autograph. He didn’t speak to me or even make eye contact, and he was wearing a big hat so I couldn’t get a good look as I stood over him while he sat at the table. But even though I didn’t see his face, I was still a believer.
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It looked like a matter of good timing for you David getting those close up John Sebastian tickets. Those small venues are certainly the best. You occasionally hear of those stories of a famous musician showing up unexpectedly at a small live band bar or restaurant to play to a very lucky unsuspecting audience. Imagine being at a small bar, and Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson just popping in with a guitar to do an intimate gig for the lucky few patrons. Or better yet, Mona and Lisa shows up out of the blue! What a dream come true!
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