Wouldnt It Be Nice | Page 2

visionary like Van Dyke Parks, making music so powerful that he himself was afraid of it (he attempted to destroy the tapes to "Fire" because of the rash of fires that broke out in LA after it was recorded), it's easy to see how legends could get started.
Make no mistake, Orange Crate Art is not, and was never intended to be, Son of Smile. It is an album that evokes another time, a time when music was something that you brought home and played in your own parlor on the piano or the guitar, not something you sat back and listened to passively. There are no new Brian Wilson songs here, though there is still much for his fans to love, namely his tragic, joyous, weary, and innocent voice, in its full range of expression.
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"I had nothing to do with any of the music at all," Wilson readily admits. "It was all Van Dyke. He did the arrangements first and then I went in there and did the vocals, with him teaching me."
Wilson's need for control in the studio is legendary. There are stories of him working all day to record the Beach Boys' vocals--their only contributions to the records, since the music was all laid down by hired hands at Wilson's direction. Then, late at night, Wilson would re-record all of their parts himself after everyone else had left. This new role reversal was not easy.
"It was weird. I felt like I was at the mercy of somebody. It was kind of scary, but I did what I could."
Even though Orange Crate Art is not a rock and roll record, Wilson's faith in Parks and in the songs helped get him through. "I've never heard music that I like any better than that. I'm really amazed. It's what I call good music. We worked together on it, on and off, for two and a half years, and we finally consummated the thing. It was really a very big experience for me to work with Van Dyke--obviously. He's great musically."
Wilson has always been bursting with songs and arrangements, but has also had qualms about his own voice--the one thing Parks wanted from him. "I was paranoid, a little paranoid about it. But I think it's a good tool. It makes people feel good."
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In many ways Parks is Wilson's opposite. He's small, soft-spoken, very adept with language and comfortable with interviewers. Wilson will sometimes erupt outward with nervous energy, leaping off the couch, throwing his whole body into playing the grand piano in his front room. Parks seems to curl inward, seems almost frail at times.
Both appearances are deceiving. Wilson is tremendously vulnerable, and his favorite adjective is "scary." Parks, on the other hand, has a quiet inner strength and an unflinching honesty that, like his music, almost seems of another era. When he talks about the songwriter Billy Ed Wheeler, he says he is "bright and beautiful and strong and correct in everything he says and does." He admires songs which show "humor or affection and propriety and charm."
He deplores the "loss of privacy" that damaged the relationship between Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, and is proud that "my relationship with Brian has been, I would like to think, very proper." Even though he's kept his distance from Wilson over the years, Orange Crate Art was "something that was correct to do. My most intensely personal relationship with Brian is visible on this record."
Parks lives in an older Hollywood neighborhood, and answers the door wearing a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt that sets off his graying hair and mustache. Sitting near his piano, he talks about the genesis of Orange Crate Art.
"What motivated me to make these efforts was that I like Brian Wilson. I admire him. We are old enough now that time is obviously precious. It is our only enemy as we go forward. It was time for me to reinvent my relationship with Brian. I found the failure of our collaboration of sorts--when I worked for Brian on Smile some thirty years ago--to be a tedious thing.
"It seemed probable that I would be doing my last record for Warner's when Lenny Waronker announced his departure. I don't know many other people there, I certainly don't know the A&R people, and I really thought this was my last solo bullet. To make it count to me on personal terms, I knew who I would like to be with in pursuing this. Brian had established me in this business by letting me work for him. It was time to show some gratitude. I just put two and two together, and that's how it started."
There were musical reasons as well. "I can't do the things with my voice that I want to write. I don't have a falsetto break. I