Persistence pays off: Beach Boy Al Jardine spills the beans on ‘A Postcard from California’ and ‘SMiLE’
Founding Beach Boy Al Jardine delves into debut solo album A Postcard from California, tracking vocals at Big Sur with Neil Young, why he originally left America’s favorite band, and Murry Wilson, the perpetually pissed off early band manager and abusive father of Brian Wilson, in a free-spirited interview excavated below. The contented, unassuming Southern Californian also shocked fans as well as Capitol Records executives by announcing the excavation of SMiLE, a Holy Grail for sixties pop aficionados controversially abandoned for nearly half a century.
The rhythm guitarist and unabashed folk aficionado joined the Beach Boys in 1961 and sang, adapted, or wrote “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Heroes and Villains,” “Cotton Fields,” “Lookin’ at Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)”, “California,” “Honkin’ Down the Highway,” “Peggy Sue,” “Come Go with Me,” and “Lady Lynda.” He has inexplicably not shed any tenor vocal deterioration compared to his erstwhile band mates. Jardine sounds like a 30-year-old trapped inside a septuagenarian’s body. It’s uncanny.
A down-to-earth, accessible gentleman genuinely interested in spending time with fans, Jardine retains a burning creative passion, whether studio tinkering, staging Pet Sounds worldwide with Beach Boys mastermind Brian…