Brian Wilson: What He and His Music Mean to Me

I grew up listening to rock 'n' roll, which was half doo-wop, and half Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Elvis.  As the 1960s began to emerge, the Four Seasons in 1962 and the Beach Boys in 1963 carried on with a modernized, popified doo-wop sound.  The Beatles were closer than just around the next corner.  And that was the milieu in which I formed my first group, The Transits, slightly more old-fashioned than the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but covering their best songs.

The Transits sang at the YMHA on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, a stone's throw from Yankee Stadium in early 1964.   "Dawn" and "Rag Doll" by the Four Seasons and "Surfer Girl" by the Beach Boys were at the top of the list of the songs we covered.  As I walked a girl home whom I'd met at the concert, I told her I was tired of being in a group that sang those kinds of songs -- I wanted to be in a group that sounded more like The Beatles.

The Four Seasons would never progress very far beyond their pop doo-wop origins.  But the Beach Boys under Brian Wilson's leadership sure did.  As is well known, The Beatles' Rubber Soul in 1965 inspired the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in 1966 which in turn inspired The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.  While The Beatles were recording and releasing Sgt. Pepper, the Beach Boys were doing the same with their Smiley Smile album featuring "Heroes and Villains" (also released as a single).  So the two groups were not only inspiring one another, they in effect were co-creating across the continents, a musical incarnation of Marshall McLuhan's global village, which he prophetically wrote about in The Gutenberg Galaxy back in 1962.

For a variety of reasons, however, "Heroes and Villains" didn't get the immediate acclaim it so eminently deserved.  It has been one of my all-time favorite recordings since the moment I first heard it, though I can't quite recall where that was.  The harmony in that recording -- like the harmony in the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" adaptation on Pet Sounds -- is in the stratosphere, the ultimate evolution, at least as of now, of multi-dimensional doo-wop.

Brian Wilson did not get the adulation at first hearing that "Heroes and Villains" amply merited.  But I touted it everywhere I could.  My wife Tina and I were thrilled to hear Brian sing it in the Beach Boys reunion tour, at their performance in 2012 in White Plains, NY.  It was a sad night, not only because of course Dennis and Carl Wilson weren't there, but because WFUV disc jockey Pete Fornatale, who had been one of the champions of everything Beach Boys and Beatles on his Mixed Bag shows, had recently unexpectedly passed away.  (Come to think of it, I may have first heard "Heroes and Villains" on Pete's original "Mixed Bag" show on  WFUV back in the 1960s.   Pete, by the way, is the hero of my 2024 novel, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles.)  But it was wonderful indeed to see and hear Brian in person.

I still think The Beatles are the best rock group to ever have written and recorded myriad forms of rock music.  Over the years, I've switched back and forth between the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones as to which is the second greatest rock group in history.  But I think I'm content now to leave it with both of them tied for second place, and every other great group vast caverns below them.

Thank you Brian Wilson, rest in peace.  Your "Heroes and Villains" will always be playing somewhere, and you are its hero.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart: Watch this Documentary, It'll Help.

For as long as I can remember, the Beatles have been my all-time favorite group, with the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys vying for second place.  The Bee Gees were in my top ten, for sure.  But several things in the past few weeks have brought them into vying for second place too, in my heart and mind.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, a documentary named after one of the Bee Gees' great songs (they have so many), which came out last year but my wife and I just saw last night, was one big reason.  It brought home what I already knew, that the Bee Gees, who had such wonderful recordings in the 1960s, like "Massachusetts" (more on that below) and "To Love Somebody" that I loved back then about as much as the Beatles, went on to have an even more successful disco career (with songs that I liked enough, but not as much as their original 60s work), and then went on to record and write all kind of other great songs in the 1980s (with a concert in Australia at the end of that decade that was just nonpareil -- here's a sample -- I gotta say, these two lines from "Heartbreaker" -- "This world may end.  Not you and I" -- are among the best expressions of trueest love in this universe).

The Beatles and the Beach Boys were effectively finished by the 1970s (on the Beach Boys, without Brian Wilson performing and writing new material, they just were a different group).  The Stones continued, but were never quite as good after the departure of Brian Jones.  They had some good songs into the early 1980s -- like "Start Me Up" -- but not as huge in their influence on our popular culture as the Bee Gees' disco phase, the epitome of which was probably in the Saturday Night Fever movie.  So on the basis of just that level of analysis, I now put the Bee Gees in a tie for second place along with the Stones and the Beach Boys.

The Bee Gees of course are known for their harmony.  There are few sounds in this world as appealing and comforting as Beatles' three-way harmony, but the Bee Gees not only came from the same city (so pronounce words the same way) but the same womb.  Their extraordinarily beautiful and tight harmony for all the world often sounds like one person singing three parts.  Three of the Beach Boys -- Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson -- were also brothers.  But the fantastical, whispy, soaring arrangements by Brian took the voices in directions other than the vibrating, magical sound of the Bee Gees.

And then there are the individual voices themselves.  I would say Robin has the best voice of every one of the members of the Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, and Bee Gees.  Listen to him sing "Massachusetts," and tell me that voice literally does not only touch but massage your heart.

Which brings me to one other reason (I'm not going to tell you all of them) that I've come to hold the Bee Gees in even higher esteem.  Listen to this gem of a cover of "Massachusetts" by the Last Band on Earth, a father and his two young teenage kids (a girl and a boy).  Robin's voice and that song are so thoroughly penetrating of the soul, even this cover manages to capture and convey some that.

Back to the documentary, Barry says near the end that he'd rather have his brothers alive and with him, than all the great hits that they made.  I really wish Robin and Maurice were still with us, too.  But it’s also true that the music they made brings me joy every day.

Josh Turner Guitar Covers "And Your Bird Can Sing"

 

And here's Josh Turner Guitar (that's his performance name) and two guys doing a pretty good cover of The Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing".  I first became aware of Turner via his cover of The Beach Boys "Sloop John B" -- not as letter-perfect as The Fendertones, but also pretty good.

Several points about this song and this video:

1. Although John Lennon famously didn't like this song,* and neither does Peter Asher (he wondered why it did so well in one of his listener-selected Top 100 Beatles countdowns in 2017 on Sirius XM Radio), I always agreed with Rob Sheffield that "it's one of his best songs ever".   (I sent Asher an email explaining why I thought the song was so good, and he replied "Very cool!")

*He also didn't like "It's Only Love," another one of his very best songs.

2. In addition to being "so scathing and yet also so empathetic and friendly," as Sheffield says, it's also "packed with tiny musical triumphs".  Sheffield mentions the "girl-group hand-claps that sneak into the song for the middle guitar break".  One of my all-time favorite "tiny musical triumphs" in any song is the minor-to-major chord change in "And Your Bird" on the word "awoken" (1min13sec to 1min14sec in this video) -- just a perfect acoustic coming to life of that word.

3. In the Turner video, I have no idea if this was deliberately staged, but the background works just right: the guy in the red hat kicking a ball and then the little dog on a leash pulling the blonde and brunette birds in masks.  A time-stamp tableau of our age.

Ok - here's Josh Turner Guitar and a different crew doing "Sloop John B" on a bus at the end of 2018

And my reviews of Rob Sheffield's masterful Dreaming the Beatles begin here.

Three Beach Boys Covers: Foxes and Fossils, Hal Eisenberg, The Fendertones

I'm still in a musical frame of mind -- actually, I always am -- but this frame includes writing, so here's my third blog post in two days about exceptional music, in this case, three excellent Beach Boy covers that I've been really enjoying on YouTube.

The first is "Don't Worry Baby" by the cleverly named Foxes and Fossils.  That would be three women who look and sing great, and a number of guys who sing and play, and bill themselves as old, though some are probably younger than I am (I usually feel like I'm 17, unless it's a bad day, and it's more like 19).  I love the velvety harmony and the whole general feel of this video.

Next is "I Can Hear Music," which I just came across the other day, by Hal Eisenberg with "friends and family" in Nashville.  This is not a typical Beach Boys song -- it was written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector (Ellie Greenwich, by the way, produced my group The Other Voices aka The New Outlook for Atlantic Records in 1968) not Brian Wilson, who didn't even sing on the Beach Boys 1969 recording (Carl sang lead, and produced the record).  That makes it a tough song to cover really well.  Hal Eisenberg's is the best I've come across -- I like it even better than Kathy Trocolli's 1996 version with some of the original Beach Boys -- with Hal's evocative lead backed by sweet sweet harmonies.

And last but in no way least is the Fendertones' "Sloop John B".  The Fendertones have done so many Beach Boy covers that they may add up to more songs than the Beach Boys actually recorded.  And this one is a masterpiece, with Scott Totten and John Cowsill (who tour now with the Beach Boys and, yep, that's John Cowsill from the Cowsills) joining the Fendertones in a gracenote perfect rendition of Brian Wilson's stunning arrangement and recording, down to someone singing "I feel so break up" about a third-way into the song, when everyone else sings "broke up," just as The Beach Boys (probably accidentally) did in 1966.

I should mention how much I've always loved The Beach Boys.  They usually are my second all-time favorite group -- the first are the Beatles, and once in a while The Rolling Stones are my second.  The New Outlook sang "Surfer Girl" as one of our regular numbers, when we cut classes and sang in the early afternoon in The Alcove at City College up on 140th Street in Manhattan in the Fall of 1963.  So I'm always looking for good covers, and Foxes and Fossils, Hal Eisenberg, and The Fendertones are among the very best.

Justin Hayward in Tarrytown

Mike Dawes, Justin Hayward, Julie Ragins

photo by Tina Vozick

Tina and I saw and heard Justin Hayward at Tarrytown Music Hall earlier this evening.  The concert, in one word, was splendid.   But here's more:

I often say that The Moody Blues, of which Hayward is still very much a member, is my fourth favorite rock group of all time, behind, in descending order, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys.  To be clear about what I mean by that:  I think the best of The Moody Blues songs - let's say "Nights in White Satin," "Tuesday Afternoon," "Question," "Isn't Life Strange," "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock 'n' Roll Band)," "Your Wildest Dreams," "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," to name just just a few, in no particular order, and there are more - are as good as the best songs by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys.  But I put these groups higher, because they have a lot more best songs - in the case of The Beatles, a lot lot more.

But The Moody Blues are up there, though not everyone agrees.  In 1992, after Tina and I saw The Moody Blues "Red Rocks" Concert on PBS, I queried Rolling Stone if they'd be interested in an assessment of The Moody Blues by me.  I received a snooty reply to the effect that no one was interested in The Moody Blues any more.  (Memo to young writers: That's why I decided to never again query an editor about a potential article.  My philosophy had usually been, before then, to write the article or story first, then shop it around. After 1992, my philosophy has always been that.)

But back The Moody Blues, Justin Hayward was always their stand-out member - being their best songwriter, singer, and guitarist all in one.   Of their songs I listed above, only two of them - "Isn't Life Strange" and "I'm Just A Singer" - were written by another group member, John Lodge.  Hayward has an ear for watercolor detail and an exquisite voice to match.  And he brought of all that to Tarrytown earlier tonight.

He indeed sang all of his songs listed above, and a fair number of new ones.  These were wonderful, too.  You can always tell what a performer is made of when you like his or her songs you never heard before.  I especially liked, among tonight's new ones, "In Your Blue Eyes" and "Western Sky" from Hayward's most recent Spirits of The Western Sky album.

He was joined tonight by Mike Dawes - a young maestro guitarist - and Julie Ragins on keyboards and fine backing vocals.   I suppose I would have rather been at a full Moody Blues concert, but not by an overwhelming margin.  That's because Justin Hayward captures the best of The Moody Blues, and a little something more, with a personal, honest, and charming repartee between numbers.

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones

Rob Sheffield's stand-out chapter on the Beatles vs the Stones in his Dreaming the Beatles is another example of the many candidates for flat-out best chapter in this great book, in this case because Sheffield demonstrates a mastery in discussing the Stones equal to what he does about the Beatles throughout his book.

Just to be clear, I don't agree with every point Sheffield makes or even explores in this book, but I agree with a lot more than I usually do in any book about anything. But to give you an example of one point in which I strongly disagree, Sheffield says in the chapter before the Stones that Magical Mystery Tour is a terrible album.  I agree it's not one of their best, but it's much closer to superb than it is to worthless.

I'm not even sure I hold the Rolling Stones in as high esteem as does Sheffield.  I usually think they're the second best rock group of all-time, but the Beach Boys for very different reasons aren't far behind. But I agree completely that the Beatles are better.

And I agree with and very much like Sheffield's analysis of the Stones vis-a-vis the Beatles, and how the Stones finally broke free of and beyond the competition with the Beatles with their "Jumpin Jack Flash".  I remember the time I first heard that masterpiece on the radio, and I thought immediately that the Stones had done something, at very least, different from what the Beatles had ever done.

So the Stones deserve credit, for, if nothing else, breaking free of the sway of the Beatles, which every band, especially those in England, had to be in the grip of, in one way or another, in those days and even now.  But one point I would also make about the Stones, which Sheffield didn't (at least, not yet), is that the Stones were able to survive the death of Brian Jones and be vibrant and path-breaking as a band which the Beatles could not in the case of John Lennon.  And that's not only because the Beatles had already split apart a decade before Lennon's murder, but because he was essential to the Beatles in a way that Jones never was to the Stones.  (An equivalent blow to the Stones would have been the death of Mick Jagger, or perhaps Keith Richards.)

Which means that part of how we now evaluate the Stones is due to their continuing on to this very day as a band.  In living on into the 21st-century - performing, writing, recording - the Stones thus took their considerable accomplishments in the 1960s and 70s to another whole, unique level.

But Sheffield's still right that the Beatles were and are better.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ....  14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

 
lots of Beatles in here

Love & Mercy: A Review

Someday a movie about the Beatles may be made that's better than Love & Mercy about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, but until then Love & Mercy, which I just saw tonight with my wife, is easily the best rock star bio pick ever made.  Hey, it's the best movie about a musician ever made, period, and that's saying a lot, because Amadeus was none too shabby, not to mention the great movies over the years about greats like Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.

Brian Wilson's life is so big it took two stars to portray him - Paul Dano the younger Brian and John Cusack the older Brian - and both were just superb.  Though Dano looks more like the younger Brian than Cusack does the older, the performances of both were peerless, down to the mannerisms, tones of voice, and little ticks of Brian Wilson.  The music similarly was a seamless web with what was going on inside Brian's head and what we the devoted fans were hearing of the Beach Boys on radio and television.  The recording studio scenes were so realistic I felt like calling out to the engineer and asking him to bring up the bass a little more.

The movie is peppered with memorable phrases, delivered like history come to life, that I've both heard before and heard for the first time in this movie.  Jake Abel as Mike Love - another spot on performance - is there to complain to Brian that he can't make sense out of "sunny down snuff" and Van Dyke Park's masterful lyrics to "Heroes and Villains".  That's one I heard before.   But when a studio musician tells Brian that Phil Spector "has nothing" on Brian, that one was new to me, and I was as pleased as Brian in the movie to hear it (and not because I don't love Spector's music - he's a stone genius too - but I because I just love Brian's more).

Elizabeth Banks put in such a compelling and attractive performance as Brian's life-saving Melinda, that Banks instantly rocketed up to my favorite contemporary actress, that's right.  The sensitivity and strength of her performance made it totally believable that Brian fell in love with her, and she figured out a way to cut Brian lose from his baneful, control-freak, suffocating psychiatrist, well played by Paul Giamatti.

To get back the Beatles, the Beach Boys since the 1960s have been my second favorite rock group, way ahead of the Stones, in third place, and I guess, I don't know, the Eagles or the Who after that. Anyway, I don't want to argue about that.  I just want to say how good it was indeed in Love & Mercy, brilliantly directed by Bill Pohlad, to see Brian finally get more of the credit he deserves, not only for his music, but for making it and bringing it back against almost all the odds of his mental demons and most of the people around him.

See also my review of  The Beach Boys in White Plains

Jersey Boys: Transcending Musical

My wife and I finally got to see Jersey Boys at the August Wilson Theater on Broadway last night, thanks to the tickets daughter Molly gave us as my birthday present.  I say "finally" because The Four Seasons were among my all-time favorite groups.   And a wonderful, one-of-a-kind birthday present it was.

The Four Seasons were a pivotal group in my life - my own group, The Transits, regularly sung "Dawn" and "Rag Doll" in our performances at various spots in the Bronx in the early 1960s, including Poe Park and the corner of Allerton Avenue and White Plains Road under the el.  Their harmony and Franki Valli's falsetto were second to none, and I modeled my own falsetto after his. For a few years, The Four Seasons were right up there with the Beachboys, matching them hit for hit.  But the two groups were soon surpassed by the Beatles, which had easy superiority in lyrics, inventive chord progressions, and even harmony.   And while the Beachboys managed to make their own signal contributions to the psychedelic era, thanks to Brian Wilson, and "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains," The Four Seasons and Franki Valli veered off into a kind of pop with songs like "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," which sounded more like Andy Williams than the Four Seasons I loved, which is to say, hopelessly old-fashioned to me.   But "Candy Girl," "Dawn," "Rag Doll" (breathtakingly glorious harmonies), "Big Man in Town," "Marlena," "Silence is Golden," and "Tell it to the Rain," and their transcendence of the doo wop genre have never been far from my ears in my brain since then.

Jersey Boys was fabulous, not only because it provided superb renditions of many of these songs, but because it told a story - researched and written by Marshall Brickman - which I hadn't known before.  Frank Valli and two of the other Seasons (Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi) had served a little time in prison - they came from a much grittier culture than their polished harmony suggested.   Each member of the group had a strong personality and set of opinions, which often conflicted.   I'd known that Bob Gaudio was the creative writing genius of the group - and had loved his "Short Shorts" with the Royal Teens when I was kid - but I hadn't known he had to fight so hard at first to get into The Four Seasons.  I would have liked to have seen a little more in Jersey Boys about Bob Crewe's creative input as producer of The Four Seasons - I met Crewe one or two times in the 1960s - but overall the play gave due shrift to all the important players in their success.

And the performances were wonderful - especially of the players of each of The Four Seasons, who spoke and sang powerfully.   Especially noteworthy last night was Russell Fischer, understudy for the Franki Vallie role, who rose to the occasion with a stunning portrayal and a full-voiced and falsetto'd splendid rendition of the songs - it's hard to image that anyone could do better in the singing, dancing, and acting.   Andy Karl as Tommy DeVito, bass-man Matt Bogart (who appears as JFK on "Smash" on NBC) as Nick Massi, and especially Drew Gehling as Bob Gaudi were also superb.

The combination of songs and story - highs and lows, personal and professional - make Jersey Boys a musical masterpiece for the ages.

The Beach Boys in White Plains

I was driving by the Westchester County Center a couple of months ago, and saw the sign: "The Beach Boys, May 15".  The sign was simple and timeless and almost seemed unreal.  But its words were true, and so it was that my wife Tina and I were at County Center to see and hear the Beach Boys last night. I was 15 when I first heard The Beach Boys on the radio signing "Surfin' Safari" back in 1962.  I loved the song from the first time I heard it.  And here I was, 50 years later, on 15 May 2012, hearing The Beach Boys singing the same song and loving it even more.

I've always considered The Beach Boys easily one of top three groups in all of rock music.  Second only to The Beatles on most days, third after The Rolling Stones on some days maybe. The thing about the Beach Boys was their harmony - doo wop taken to symphonic, psychedelic heights, music of the spheres that no other group could produce.  The Beatles and The Stones usually had it over The Beach Boys on the lyrical front, but no one could touch their harmonies.

WFUV's Dennis Elsas of Fordham University introduced the group last night.  Pete Fornatale, a champion of their sound since the beginning, and also a Fordham dj, would no doubt have done those honors had he not left this world way too soon a few weeks ago.  Mike Love dedicated a song to Pete during the set - the newest Beach Boy song, "That's Why God Made the Radio," first heard on national radio just this last month.

Mike Love opened the concert with "Do It Again".  This was great opening choice.  As soon as Mike began singing I knew the evening would be remarkable.  And when The Beach Boys joined in with their effervescent popping harmonies, I knew the Beach Boys were truly back on that stage.

Dennis and Carl Wilson are no longer with us and The Beach Boys.  The group did two great numbers with each singing lead - from a recording - anyway last night.  Carl's rendition of "God Only Knows"  with the Beach Boys doing harmony right there on the stage last night was food for the soul.

So The Beach Boys last night consisted of Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and David Marks, and some great back up musicians and vocalists including John Cowsill of the Cowsills.

Brian's voice was amazing in the mid-range.   Jeff Foskett, one of the back-up vocalists but in fact standing right up front on the stage with guitar next to Brian on piano, did splendidly on all the high notes and patented Beach Boy falsettos.   The high points of the three hour concert were pretty much everything,  but among the special delights were Brian's lead and the group's exuberant harmonies on "Heroes and Villains" (a song whose lyrics by Van Dyke Parks equals the lyrical sophistication of The Beatles - "you're under arrest!" -  this performance including the "Bicycle Rider" segment), Al Jardine giving a fabulous lead rendition of "Help Me Rhonda" (brought the crowd to its feet singing the chorus),  David Marks' crackling sharp guitar work on every song (he was part of the group in the early 60s), the car song set ("Little Honda," "409," "Little Deuce Coupe," and "Shut Down,"  segueing right into one another), "Be True to Your School," and, like I said, there wasn't a weak performance in the concert, only great performances and even greater.



The crowd was in the aisles half a dozen times - including in the above video - singing and dancing, including nonstop for the last 4 or 5 songs.  My wife thought the average age of the audience was about 55 - there were little kids and octogenarians there for sure.

It's a strange, wondrous thing to hear music you've loved all of your life come to life again, right before your eyes and ears.   The Beach Boys touring group took the time to get the complex harmonies and musical licks just right - an impressive, even incredible, accomplishment for songs such as "Heroes and Villains" and "Good Vibrations," given the modular way (different sections of the songs in different recording sessions) the songs were first recorded back in the 1960s -  and the band performed with even more vitality than I've seen over the years on television and more recently YouTube.  I usually tell people that I feel like 17 on a good day and 19 on a not-so-good day.  The good vibrations last night - theremin and all - made me feel 15-22 again, and it all felt good.

See also this CNN article about The Beach Boys, in which I'm quoted.

Best Grammys Ever

I don't remember any Grammy Award ceremony being better than last night's - and I've been watching every one of them since the 1960s.

Any one of the following would have been enough to make last night's Grammys extraordinary -

• Paul McCartney's ending medley, joined about halfway by friends (including Joe Walsh and Bruce Springsteen), in full and fabulous form, leading right up to a great rendition of "The End"
• The Beach Boys's "Good Vibrations" - with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnson, and friends.  Like McCartney's medley, this is an intricate, complex song and arrangement, to say the least, and the Beachboys and friends performed it just beautifully and memorably.
• Glenn Campbell, also with a friends, in a poignant rendition of "Rhinestone Cowboy" - heartbreaking, really, since he's suffering from Alzheimer's (Tina and I met him once years ago, after a performance he and Tanya Tucker gave in the Catskills)
• Jennifer Hudson's powerful performance of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (written by Dolly Parton) - a wonderful, also heartbreaking tribute to Whitney Houston
• Paul McCartney's "Valentine" - which sounds like the best song of this kind he's written since "Yesterday"
• Bruce Springsteen's opening "We Take Care of Our Own" - with Stevie, Max, and the E-Street Band.  Another blockbuster, which I hear tell has some Occupy Wall Street inspiration.

LL Cool J was also great as the host (I've gotten to know him on NCIS-LA).  It's taken half a century, but the Grammys finally got it right.

Les Paul Overdubs Through the Ages

Les Paul died today - he was 94. He was known as one of the inventors of the electric guitar, which became the essential instrument of rock 'n' roll. Just as important, he also developed overdubbing and multi-track recording.

You can hear it on his hit records with his wife, Mary Ford (who died in 1977). She harmonizes with herself in the 1951 Capitol recording "How High the Moon," #1 for nine weeks. I love identifying unique times in media history, when something was accomplished, some miracle of communication, that had never been done before. The first time a message was sent at the speed of light (via the telegraph) ... the first time someone looked at a face captured in a photograph, not as an artist might have rendered it but as it literally was ... those kinds of things. Harmonizing with your own voice may have been a more minor, but no less profound and usually more beautiful kind of extraordinary invention. It just couldn't have happened without the technology. It was never heard in a purely natural world.

And that, too, changed the course of rock 'n' roll. The Beachboys, the Beatles, all the great harmony groups overdubbed to their own voices, and used more sophisticated multi-track recording techniques (8 tracks, in the case of the Beatles on Sgt. Pepper) to keep all the voices uniformly present and clear.

I've been teaching about Les Paul and his impact in my "Into to Communication and Media Studies" and "Intro to Mass Media" courses for more than 30 years. I've always remarked how good it was that he was still alive. This Fall I'll have to say, the late Les Paul. But his music will never be late. Because through the other miracle of recording - that of any recording of sound - we'll always be able to hear it, whenever we like...

Obama Does a Little Better in Second Debate, Moves a Lot Closer to the White House

John McCain did ok in tonight's debate. Barack Obama did better. McCain needed to score a knock-out punch in the debate in order to reverse his skid in the polls. Given that he only did ok, and Obama did better, I'd say tonight's debate was a significant defeat for McCain, and a clear victory for Obama.

In particular -

Obama hit back hard on McCain and the Republicans' persisting, false allegation that Obama wants to raise taxes - for any American earning under $250,000, and for most small businesses, that is plain and simply untrue.

Obama also hit back on McCain's claim that Obama makes threatening statements to our potential enemies in the world - Obama reminded McCain about his "bomb, bomb Iran" refrain (McCain's version of the Regents' and Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann").

Obama was also crystal clear on his differences with McCain on health care, and how Obama's policy would both respect current health care arrangements for Americans who want to keep them, and at the same time offer health care to those who currently cannot afford it.

McCain did improve his body language and facial expressions from the first debate. But Obama has never looked better - more Kennedyesque, cool and comfortable under pressure.

McCain's best moment was when a Petty Officer in the audience extended his hand and McCain shook it. Clearly McCain is more at ease in this Town Hall format than the traditional stand-behind-the-podium. But Obama looked at ease, as well.

I wasn't thrilled with Tom Brokaw's performance as moderator - he interrupted the candidates too many times. But he's not running for office.

Obama and McCain are, and in tonight's debate, Obama came a big step closer to the White House.