Inside Tracks #6: The Beach Boy & the Boy Choir, "Love and Mercy" 20 Yrs Apart: Brian Wilson 1988 & Libera 2008
The Legend meets Libera in a surprising, but worthy, setting in 2007. The lads pull out all the harmonies for one of his solo diamonds in his presence...then, hit the studio with it in 2008.
Brian Wilson released “Love and Mercy” in 1988. It was the lead track on his self-titled solo album (his first…on Sire/Warner Bros. Records), and the Brian-penned song was released as an eventual non-charting single on July 1 of that year. Co-producing with Brian was Russ Titelman, Brian’s friend since the 1970s, when Russ was a staff producer at The Beach Boys’ label at the time, Warner Bros. Records.
In fact, Brian and Russ go all the way back to the mid-’60s, when the two wrote “Guess I’m Dumb” together. After The Beach Boys rejected it (for proposed inclusion on their The Beach Boys Today! album, released March 8, 1965 on Capitol Records), Brian gratefully tossed it to a busy L.A. session guitar player named Glen Campbell for doing him a favor:
Glen had actually replaced Brian in the touring Beach Boys (following Wilson’s well-chronicled nervous breakdown) from the previous December to about the time the Boys went into the studio for Today!.
In fact, recording for Glen on “Guess I’m Dumb” began in October 1964, and had to be put on pause until the early spring while Campbell did his Beach Boys turn on the tour. Recording came to a close on March 8 (the day Glen laid down his vocal track), and the single was released on June 7, 1965, and failed to chart.
Campbell, once in an interview: “Brian said, ‘Glen you want to sing it?’ I said, ‘Sure I do.’ Because I kind of liked it. It was a great track and the guys already had some background on it.”
This expansive and informative “Inside Tracks” Edition covers Brian’s “Guess I’m Dumb,” as originally recorded by Glen Campbell, and also features covers by Brian’s backing band for decades, The Wondermints, and Jules Shear, the singer/songwriter/recording artist, and creator of MTV’s “Uplugged” series:
Back to “Love and Mercy”
All this to say two things 1) the communal threads in not only The Beach Boys’ world, but more importantly, Brian’s, are long and treasured. 2) It’s been true and necessary for decades that Brian’s troubles have been measurably salved and soothed by working with friends, and the people he knows and trusts…love and mercy.
Influenced by Jackie DeShannon’s 1965 hit (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David), “What the World Needs Now is Love,” Brian once characterized his “Love and Mercy” as a semi-autobiographical song that exemplifies his own “Jesus Christ complex” (or Messiah complex), or in other words, his compulsion to “give love to people.”
“‘Love And Mercy’ is probably the most spiritual song I’ve ever written,” Brian told longtime Beach Boys chronicler, David Leaf, in the re-released album’s liner notes in 2000. Brian continued, “We wanted people to be covered with love, because there’s no guarantee of somebody waking up in the morning with any love. Mercy would be a deep[er] word than love.
“I would think love is a gentle thing and mercy would be more desperate, ultimately a more desperately needed, thing in life. Mercy – a little break here and there for somebody who’s having trouble.”
So when we were doing ‘Love And Mercy,’ I said to Brian, ‘Do ‘God Only Knows’ in here.’--Co-Producer, Russ Titelman
From the 1988 Sire Records press release (written by the aforementioned Leaf): “Like everybody involved in this record, Russ [Titelman] is a fan of Brian’s Beach Boys work, and what he “loved most on those records was this beautiful counterpoint: Bach-like singing on ‘God Only Knows.’
“So, when we were doing ‘Love And Mercy,’ I said to Brian, ‘Do ‘God Only Knows’ in here.’ And he’d go out in the studio and off-the-cuff, off the top of his head, come up with these parts and lay them down! He would double ‘em, and it would sound like the Beach Boys. I was always pushing him to do that; it’s his signature. Once he got going, I tried to stay out of the way because he was just doing his stuff, as brilliant as ever.”
More from the 1988 Sire press release: “In putting Russ’ work in perspective, (president of Warner Bros. Records) Lenny Waronker believes that ‘Russ did a real good job of helping Brian realize the beauty of his music, helped it stand up. Brian hasn’t done this in a long time, and he needed help with the technology. And where it needed some small fixing, Russ was able to show Brian how to do it in a simple way.
“What I remember most was what Russ said to me early on: I got a call one night from the studio. Russ was so excited. He just kept repeating, ‘There’s nothing to do here. It’s all Brian! All I have to do is help him in a few areas, but it’s his thing.’ Russ sounded so thrilled, telling me that watching Brian work was like magic, a producer’s dream.”
Libera is the Latin singular imperative of liberare, meaning “to free.”
The Kennedy Center Honors-2007
Libera is an all-boy English vocal group founded in 1995 by the late Robert Prizeman, who passed away September 8, 2021. Libera performs concerts in many countries, including the UK, the US and throughout Asia, and often makes recordings for their own album releases on EMI Classics Records and other projects.
Many members also sing in the parish choir of St. Philip's, Norbury, in South London. The group usually consists of approximately 40 members between the ages of seven and 16, including new members who are not yet ready to fully participate in albums or tours. The group recruits from a variety of backgrounds in the London area, and does not require its members to belong to any specific denomination.
As part of the Kennedy Center Honors (that aired on CBS-TV, December 26, 2007) that celebrated, among others, Brian Wilson, Libera (with dozens of boy choristers from local Washington DC schools) followed Lyle Lovett and Hootie and the Blowfish covering Beach Boys songs.
After a brief greeting from soloist, Joshua Madine, Libera gifted (and surprised) Brian with “Love and Mercy,” which they recorded in the studio the following year for their New Dawn album:
And once again, I follow the leader and get lost in a shit load of music for about a good hour! I never had a Spotify account until I started following your leads. I usually just listen to my iPod (yes, I still have one of those), because it has over 10,000 songs. Obviously I can't give that up. I trade music with my brother.
I enjoyed reading this, Brad. I'll have to check the album out. I'm not a huge Beach Boys fan (OK, not really at all) but I'm always fascinated by pieces about Brian and his songwriting and studio wizardry, and this one got me interested. Thanks!