Equally long-awaited and legendary, music from the „great lost Beach Boys album“ Smile — titled The Smile Sessions — has been confirmed by EMI for a July 12 release via Capitol. Taken from more than thirty hours of tape from the original 1966/67 studio recordings, the songs have been assembled by longtime Beach Boys engineer Mark Linnett and pop historian Alan Boyd with help from Brian Wilson, iconic songwriter the chief creative catalyst for the band. The project has been in the work for years but has never seen completion until now. Wilson recorded a live version of Smile in 2004 with his touring band for the Nonesuch label and Linnett confirms that they’re using Wilson’s album as a „blueprint“ for the original recordings, many of which needed serious work due to their incomplete state.
„When you say ‚album,‘ it presupposes everything was recorded and finished, and that’s not the case,“ Linnett tells Billboard. „We have gaps where we are missing some vocal parts. But all the music was recorded, which is heartening.“ All of the vocals were recorded by the Beach Boys, usually at the same time around the same mic, including the lead vocal.
The Smile Sessions will be available as a standard double CD or download and as an elaborate deluxe box set which will include four CDs, two vinyl LPs, two vinyl singles and a 60-page hardbound book written by Beach Boys historian Domenic Priore.
:sonne:
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