Back again for more Laptop Sessions! It’s been a while, but now that the planning is finally done for our annual Christmas/New Year’s party, I’ll be back doing more sessions more often! So, today, I’m actually putting four new videos online, as these were salvaged from my last laptop’s hard drive before it died. Props to me, though, because I uploaded these to my web space before the hard drive crashed! 🙂
“Lay Lady Lay” is an oddity. If you listen to Dylan’s Greatest Hits/Best Of compilations, you’ll notice that this song stands out from the rest because of, dare I say it, his good voice! For the album “Nashville Skyline” (one of my favorites), he decided to try a new style of singing and playing. Chris and I put a new spin on this song with a guitar solo, and I hope everyone likes what we’ve done with it, especially because it took about 34 takes!
Stay tuned for part 2 of today’s 4 part Laptop Sessions extravaganza!
Here’s a great tune from the Beach Boys, originally sung by the legendary Carl Wilson (written mostly by Brian). Good Timin’ is one of those gems that clocks in at just over 2 minutes. But, so do many of the Beach Boys’ hit songs. Of course, most of those I’m talking about came out in the early 60s. “Good Timin'” is from 1980, off of the “Keepin’ the Summer Alive”. (**EDIT: no it’s not! It’s from “L.A. (Light Album) in 1979! But the whole original post is about “Keepin’ the Summer Alive”, so I’ll keep the rest of the original post intact. 😃). It’s not the best album of all time, but it holds some serious sentimental value with me.
You see, every year on the last day of school, we would get picked up from school in my dad’s 1990 Camaro. He’d pull up to the school, blasting “Keeping the Summer Alive”. It was the sure-fire way to know that summer was here! So, I associate this album with being extremely happy and that great times were ahead. So, even though I know “Keeping the Summer Alive” isn’t the Beach Boys’ best album, I still love it. I’ll be doing many acoustic cover songs off of that album in the future.
“Good Timin'” just sounds like a classic Beach Boys song. I can imagine that they were all very proud of this track when they were finished. Plus, the song has a great message. I end up singing “Good Timin'” to myself quite often. And nothing feels better than when you’ve got good timing on something- it could even be a well-timed joke. When the timing clicks, you can’t help but feel good about yourself.
One note about “Keepin’ the Summer Alive”- it’s the last album Dennis Wilson appeared on for the Beach Boys, but he’s hardly on it. In fact, the credits only say he played percussion on the song “Endless Harmony”! I always thought he had the line, “Goin’ on!” in the raspy voice (in the song with the same name), but it turns out it was just a 350 pound Brian that sang that line. It’s such a shame that Dennis didn’t get to contribute, whether it was his fault or not. He had such a great contribution to “L.A. (Light Album)” the year before with songs like “Baby Blue” and “Love Surrounds Me”, plus an amazing lead vocal on “Angel Come Home”, written by his brother, Carl. I’ll probably be recording acoustic versions of those songs, too, as they could use the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song treatment!
I love this period in Beach Boys history, as they were making great music from every one of the band members, not just Brian. I hope you’ll agree and that you’ll enjoy tonight’s Beach Boys cover song.
Here’s one plenty of people should know: the classic and beautiful “Warmth of the Sun” by the Beach Boys, written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. The story goes that both Brian and Mike were together the night that President John F. Kennedy passed away. It must’ve been quite a night in America- I can only imagine it. But, in songwriters’ darkest hours come some great material. Most of the great songs you hear are a result of heartache- it’s usually due to losing a loved one. But, Brian Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys were creative in their songwriting and made their feellings for the passing of their President known in song. Sure, they tailored it into a love-lost song (“The love of my life, she left me one day…”), but you can tell the sentiment in the song, especially considering the night they wrote it.
“The Warmth of the Sun” is a beautiful song in all ways- the chord changes are just great. Brian Wilson always had a knack at creating chord progressions that were familiar, but had a great twist. The bass line always moves in the opposite direction of where you expect it to go. In addition to great music (and the instrumental track, which I’m pretty sure was played by the Beach Boys band members themselves), this song has AMAZING harmonies. Brian Wilson’s voice simply soars in this song. With the addition of the dead-on background vocals, you’ve got a pretty perfect song. I’m just glad I found a way to put a solo acoustic performance together and record it with just an acoustic guitar for a cover song music video.
This video is fulfilling a request I received in my first week of doing the Laptop Sessions. I waited until now because I knew I had to get this one right. I had to practice the chords (not too easy, and this is my own interpretation- I didn’t even use a book), plus get the intricate tune correct. There’s so many subtleties to this tune and NO ONE was writing pop music like this in 1963. Talk about ahead of their time.
Please visit my website at http://jimfusco.com for more great music–original songs! One of the main ideas behind doing all of these cover songs for the Laptop Sessions is that if you like the style of music that I do live performances of, you’ll also love my original music, too! I really think that’s true- my original songs aren’t just throwbacks or anything like that. They’re unique songs that put a modern twist on my favorite influences, including The Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Beatles, and the Moody Blues. I hope you enjoy tonight’s Beach Boys cover song and I hope you’ll stay tuned for more. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @jimfuscomusic so you always know the latest on my songwriting endeavors, too!
Here on this edition of The Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog is a version I’m really proud of. My roommate and I did this version of the classic Beatles song “And I Love Her”. I think having two people perform the song (even though there’s only one vocal) really helps because it allowed me to play the solo and the little guitar riff at the beginning and end.
You know, I think “And I Love Her” would’ve been the perfect song to do on my “gut-string” (nylon, basically) guitar. But, there’s no way the sound of the solo would’ve risen above the steel-string guitar we used for the rhythm part. So, I was forced to use my steel-string acoustic guitar, as well.
One interesting aspect of “And I Love Her” is the key change in the middle. It’s almost indiscernible because the key change happens during the guitar solo. That made the second half of the song harder to play, of course. I noticed this same phenomenon in the Beach Boys’ #1 Hit, “I Get Around”. The same exact thing happens- the key changes in the song as soon as the guitar solo starts. The only difference? “And I Love Her” actually goes back to the original key at the end! Now, that’s a good piece of songwriting there.
I love this Beatles song, it’s fun to sing, and really shows how great the Beatles were, even at the beginning of their popularity. I know there are a lot of people that prefer the later Beatles work over their early stuff. But for me, the early Beatles music was something magical. These guys knew, from a very young age, exactly how to write a hit song. And, even for songs that weren’t necessarily hits, like “And I Love Her”, they were able to write an impressive tune that was as good (or better) than anything else at the time. In the Beach Boys, you had Brian Wilson writing all of the songs (Mike Love helped with lyrics, of course) for the first five or six years. It was only later in 1968 that the rest of the band members (especially Dennis Wilson) started contributing and showing their own genius as songwriters. But with the Beatles, you had both Paul McCartney and John Lennon at the top of their game right from Day One and that continued throughout the Beatles’ 8-year run. It was only an added bonus to get classic songs by George Harrison and Ringo Starr in there.
One funny thing: In the Beatles, obviously Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the big-shots. But, for me, post 1970, I prefer the solo music of George Harrison and Ringo Starr over almost anything that John and Paul did during their solo careers. You know that old phrase, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”, right? I think John and Paul were much better together than apart. I think the same goes for the members of the Beach Boys, including Brian Wilson.
By the way, sorry I missed Original Wednesday this week- I’ll make sure to post TWO videos next Wednesday! And stay tuned for more Beatles cover songs each and every week here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!
