Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace of a Musical Legacy [Live]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Once a bustling suburb on L.A.'s southern flank, Hawthorne and its middle-class values informed an innocent, distinctly SoCal vision of youthful hedonism and produced Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Irony being what it is, Hawthorne's centerpiece mall eventually decayed into a boarded-up economic disaster area while the Wilson family home was bulldozed to make room for--what else?--a freeway. But the Beach Boys' gloriously unlikely legacy remains, celebrated here in this double-disc anthology of harmony-rich rarities and audio vérité dialog snippets. It's also a credit to the band's manic 1960s work ethic; despite the wealth of similar rarities to be found on the twofer catalog reissue series and the Good Vibrations and Pet Sounds box sets, previously unheard gems continue to emerge. While the surviving members' uneasy relationship likely prevented some more candid session revelations from emerging, the focus here is the arc of the group's musical history.

Skewed heavily--and rightfully--toward the band's first seven years, this chronology offers up charmingly rough early demos ("Surfin'," "Surfin' USA," "Little Deuce Coupe"), edited session highlights, backing tracks ("Fun, Fun, Fun," "Salt Lake City," "Good Vibrations," "Be with Me," "Sail On Sailor"), spectacular a cappella versions ("Kiss Me Baby," "Can't Wait Too Long," "Add Some"), alternate takes ("The Little Girl I Once Knew" with an a cappella break, "Time to Get Alone," "Break Away"), and some modern stereo remixes and edits that add revealing details ("Dance, Dance, Dance," "Heroes and Villains," "Vegetables," "Time to Get Alone"). The crucial latter contributions of Carl and Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine are also showcased on "Let the Wind Blow," "A Time to Live in Dreams," and "Cotton Fields," respectively. The dialog adds some minor perspective but, as always, it's music that carries the day. Hawthorne, CA is a must for collectors and a concise, insightful introduction to a true American musical institution. --Jerry McCulley

Tracks:

Mike Love introduces Surfin'
3701 West 119th Street, Hawthorne, California: The Surfin' Rehearsal
Happy Birthday Four Freshmen
Mike on Brian's Harmonies
Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring (live rehearsal)
Surfin' USA (demo)
Surfin' USA (backing track)
Carl Wilson Radio Promo
Shut Down (live)
Little Deuce Coupe (demo)
Murry Wilson Directs A Radio Promo
Fun, Fun, Fun (backing track)
Brian's Message To "Rog" - take 22
Dance Dance Dance (stereo remix)
Kiss Me Baby (a capella mix)
Good To My Baby (backing track)
Chuck Britz on Brian in the studio
Salt Lake City (session highlights)
Salt Lake City (stereo remix)
Wish That He Could Stay (session excerpt)
And Your Dream Comes True (stereo remix)
Carol K Session highlights
The Little Girl I Once Knew (alternate version)
Alan and Dennis Introduce Barbara Ann
Barbara Ann (session excerpt - with Dean Torrence)
Barbara Ann (master take with party overdubs)
Mike on The Everly Brothers
Devoted To You (mastertake without party overdubs)
Dennis Thanks Everybody/In The Back Of My Mind

Tracks:

Can't Wait Too Long (a capella mix)
Dennis Introduces Carl
Good Vibrations (stereo track sections)
Good Vibrations (concert rehearsal)
Heroes And Villains (stereo single version)
Vegetable Promo (instrumental section)
Vegetables (stereo extended mix)
You're With Me Tonight
Lonely Days
Bruce on Wild Honey
Let The Wind Blow (stereo remix)
I Went To Sleep (a capella mix)
Time To Get Alone (alternate version)
Alan and Brian talk about Dennis
A Time To Live In Dreams
Be With Me (back track)
Dennis introduces Cotton Fields
Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song; stereo single version)
Alan and Carl on Break Away
Break Away (alternate version)
Add Some Music To Your Day (a capella mix)
Dennis Wilson
Forever (a capella mix)
Sail On, Sailor (backing track)
Old Man River (vocal section)
Carl Wilson
The Lord's Prayer (stereo remix)
Carl Wilson - Coda

Amazon.com

Once a bustling suburb on L.A.'s southern flank, Hawthorne and its middle-class values informed an innocent, distinctly SoCal vision of youthful hedonism and produced Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Irony being what it is, Hawthorne's centerpiece mall eventually decayed into a boarded-up economic disaster area while the Wilson family home was bulldozed to make room for--what else?--a freeway. But the Beach Boys' gloriously unlikely legacy remains, celebrated here in this double-disc anthology of harmony-rich rarities and audio vérité dialog snippets. It's also a credit to the band's manic 1960s work ethic; despite the wealth of similar rarities to be found on the twofer catalog reissue series and the Good Vibrations and Pet Sounds box sets, previously unheard gems continue to emerge. While the surviving members' uneasy relationship likely prevented some more candid session revelations from emerging, the focus here is the arc of the group's musical history.

Skewed heavily--and rightfully--toward the band's first seven years, this chronology offers up charmingly rough early demos ("Surfin'," "Surfin' USA," "Little Deuce Coupe"), edited session highlights, backing tracks ("Fun, Fun, Fun," "Salt Lake City," "Good Vibrations," "Be with Me," "Sail On Sailor"), spectacular a cappella versions ("Kiss Me Baby," "Can't Wait Too Long," "Add Some"), alternate takes ("The Little Girl I Once Knew" with an a cappella break, "Time to Get Alone," "Break Away"), and some modern stereo remixes and edits that add revealing details ("Dance, Dance, Dance," "Heroes and Villains," "Vegetables," "Time to Get Alone"). The crucial latter contributions of Carl and Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine are also showcased on "Let the Wind Blow," "A Time to Live in Dreams," and "Cotton Fields," respectively. The dialog adds some minor perspective but, as always, it's music that carries the day. Hawthorne, CA is a must for collectors and a concise, insightful introduction to a true American musical institution. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews:

Not A Must-Have, But a Lot of Fun.......2007-01-10

Some great tunes in here, with some interesting Beach Boys chatter. Basically a companion to the Good Vibrations box set. Not sure how many times I'll listen to this one, but it's great fun when you're stuck in traffic.

A Children's Song.......2006-09-08

Please release these tracks on the next comp/rarities release!!!

Barnyard
Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
Cabin Essence (Backing Vocals)
Wonderful (Backing Vocals)
Wonderful ("Rock With Me Henry" Version)
Wonderful ("Mama" Insert)
Look (aka "I Ran" and "Song For Children")
Child Is Father Of The Man (Early Version)
Child Is Father Of The Man
Child Is Father Of The Man (Piano Version)
I'm In Great Shape
I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night (aka "Workshop")
Vega-Tables ("Cornucopia" Version)
Vega-Tables (Alternate "Mama Says")
Holidays (aka "On A Holiday")
Wind Chimes (Early Version "Take 5")
Mrs. O'Leary's Cow
Water Chant
All Day
I Love To Say Da Da (Version 2)
He Gives Speeches
Tones (aka "Tune X")
Little Red Book

Essential for the true fans.......2005-10-05

Im sick of all these so called 'fans' that cannot find any value in this collection or dont understand the value in listening to instrumental-only beach boys tracks. This collection is not for the casual fan, for the fan that only has a greatest hits album. This is for us who own ALL the albums, know every part by heart, and have marvelled to the musical genious of Brian Wilson as well as the vocal abilities of the beach boys. This collection is great, although it does get weak in the last cuts of the 2nd CD, when Brian was totally out of the picture. Get this after you have listened to all the original albums from the 60's.

Starting to get a little thin.......2005-03-29

I'm a pretty diehard Beach Boys fan, but much of this goes beyond my interest level. The "Stack o Tracks" style rarities don't hold as much interest for me as they do (as a novelty) on the boxset. Ditto the newly crafted stereo remixes of mono tracks. I'm interested in Brian's creative process..but I don't need to get sessions of every song he did (in other words, I don't consider "Salt Lake City" to be the same caliber song as the stuff on "SMiLe" or "Pet Sounds"). I do like the little spoken "interview" snippets between tracks..they make nice leadins to the rarities here, but I see them as "extra" and not a primary reason why I would buy this.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Brian's early home multitrack experimentation ("Happy Birthday Four Freshmen") and the alternate version of "Little Girl that I Once Knew" (featuring a section where the instruments abruptly drop out for an acappella chorus). The version of "Devoted to You" before the "party noise" overdubs were added is truly touching. The alternate "Time to Get Alone" has a nice acappella coda.

LOWS:
As mentioned before, there's only so many times you're happy to hear an instrumental backing track or session work unless there's something DRASTICALLY different from the official version (example...the COMPLETELY different acappella coda for "God Only Knows" that was on Disc 5 of the box set..or the "Breakaway" demo...). So it's not so much a specific track here but the notion that merely hearing the track by itself..or the vocals by itself..from the official version is a "rarity". I think Capitol needs to rethink focusing so much time and attention on those. I'll likely want to hear the next vault collection BEFORE I buy for that reason.

BOTTOM LINE:
Completism is a sickness. Even though I know there's a lot on here I'll only listen to once or twice, I got it for the OTHER stuff..and in spite of the purchase price, I'd probably buy it again for the same tracks. It's still cheaper than the boots. *sigh*

2 1/2 stars

Some great stuff, but little essential.......2005-03-11

The material on this set is very interesting, and much of it is well worth having, but I speak that as a hardcore Beach Boys fan-- to a more casual fan, this is really extraneous.

Of the 57 tracks on here, 17 of them are spoken pieces, interviews mostly, culled from the archives. While they're interesting and usually sentimental, there's nothing really revelatory in this.

Beyond that, there's a bunch of studio recording session excerpts ("Salt Lake City", "Wish That He Could Stay", "Carol K"/"Little Girl", "Barbara Ann", and "Good Vibrations"). These are all interesting, but if you're not intrigued by the construction process, this will seem largely extraneous. The "Carol K" one I particularly enjoyed, but "Little Girl" is one of my favorite Beach Boys tunes, so this is no surprise.

Additionally, there's several tracks that are isolated backing track-- songs without the vocals, Stack-o-Tracks style-- "Surfin' USA", "Fun, Fun, Fun", "Good to My Baby", "Be With Me", and "Sail On Sailor"). Again, these are quite interesting, but only to someone more interested in the process of the creation of the songs.

Matching a bunch of backing tracks are a bunch of vocal only tracks-- these might be more exciting to the casual fan as we get to hear those great harmonies without any instruments. On some of them, particularly "Kiss Me Baby" and "Forever", there were vocal parts I had never previously identified that were masked by or doubling instruments. There's also a capella mixes for "Can't Wait too Long" (a brilliant short edit), "I Went to Sleep" and "Add Some Music". And two Party tracks, "Barbara Ann" and "Devoted to You" are presented without overdubs.

With the exception of what I'll discuss below, the rest of the material is alternate/extended versions, much of this ("Little Girl", "Time to Get Alone") is really nice and I'm glad to have them, but again, not anything thats exciting.

The exciting material is the couple of new songs presented here-- "You're With Me Tonight" (mixed from previously unused recordings), "Lonely Days", and a great unreleased Dennis gem called "A Time to Live in Dreams". These three alone make this set worth its weight in gold to any fan, but to the more casual listener, and even to less devoted fans, this is really quite unnecessary.

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