Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece
by Domenic Priore
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Book Summary Information
Author: Domenic PrioreForeword: Van Dyke Parks
Foreword: Brian Wilson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-03-10
ISBN: 1860746276
Number of pages: 200
Publisher: Bobcat Books
Book Reviews of Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece
Book Review: A masterpiece of pop music scholarship!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's difficult to heap enough praise on Domenic Priore's book about SMiLE. This is a detailed, multi-leveled analysis of SMiLE-- every aspect of the southern California music scene is analyzed, especially every detail that relates to Brian Wilson's failed attempt to get SMiLE off the ground in 1967. Some reviewers have suggested that Priore strays from the topic too often. Not so. He is simply laying out a solid case for his reasons why SMiLE was created, then sabotaged in 1967. There are two recent excellent books that are comparable: "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina" by David Hajdu, and "Birth Of The Cool : Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant Garde" by Lewis MacAdams. What these books have in common with Priore's is that you feel you are getting a real picture of the whole scenerio because of the way the authors fit all the historical pieces together.
If I were Beach Boy singer Mike Love, I would not be happy about the release of this book. Priore interviews people with close connections to Brian and the band and reports on evidence (such as Love's verbal attack on "Surf's Up" right in front of the cameras as they were recording Brian's solo performance of the track for a TV special about the importance of popular music) to make the case that Love was little more than a musically shallow, abusive control freak who would stop at nothing to destroy SMiLE, even if it meant destroying Brian in the process. There's even better evidence than this in the book, but I'll leave it to the truly curious to read all the gory details.
It's no small thing that Brian Wilson wrote the forward for this book. SMiLE lyricist Van Dyke Park is interviewed extensively and writes his own forward in which he states "...Priore has given an accurate and detailed account of the creation of this celebrated work."
Heaping insult on injury, Priore even tags the remaining band members with the dreaded "conservative" political label for doing campaign rallies in support of George Bush (Sr.). The very thought of a band that was once stood at the brink of the counterculture supporting the heartlessness of the U.S. right wing (bash the poor, scapegoat the minorities) is nauseating. However, considering the way the band, or at least Mike Love, helped to sabotaged SMiLE, it makes a kind of sick, sad sort of sense.
After SMiLE, The Beach Boys would go on to record some mediocre albums, and despite a few pieces reflecting the band's growing interest in inner peace and meditation, they would come nowhere close to the peak experience of SMiLE.
Like the fans described in Priore's book, I'm one of those who came to SMiLE through cassette tape excerpts circulated by fans I met on the Internet. Not having been a Beach Boys fan during their heyday, I quickly saw that SMiLE was one of the most amazing works of pop music from the psychedelic era. The book documents the turn of events that lead Brian to re-recording, from scratch, the SMiLE song cycle in 2004, with Van Dyke Parks back as lyrical collaborator. The triumph of the album, despite Brian's aged vocal cords, reveals that when we lost SMiLE in 1967, we lost not only that album but the possibility of a whole series of works of equal brilliance, since the band retreated to standard rock fare and eventually to Beach Boys early 60s nostalgia.
Mike Love can meditate from now until the cows come home, but he'll never have one ounce of the artistic brilliance that Brian exhibited in the creation of the psychedelic era's most progressive work, SMiLE. Nor was Love even able to recognize how good it was, attacking both the music and the esoteric lyrics of Van Dyke Parks. We must thank Dominic Priore for giving us an intimate glimpse into one of pop music's most interesting creations, tragically sacrificed because of others short-sightedness. The comfort we get is that the artwork finally saw the light of day, creativity finally triumphed, even if it took almost 40 years for the birth to be complete.
Summary of Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece
Author Dominic Priore, dubbed by MOJO ?the world?s foremost Smile-ologist?, has written the definitive book on the entire experience ? from the original recording to the revival tour and beyond. He has been in the studio with Wilson, as well as on the road for the celebrated European Smile concerts, and the result is the full version of one of pop?s mythic stories. Features forewords by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. Previously published by Sanctuary.History & Criticism Books
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