"Sunflower"

At the end of the 1960s The Beach Boys popularity was at its lowest ebb. Looking to move on from their dated image as they left their original label Capitol Records after the release of their final single on the label the aptly titled "Breakaway" composed by Brian Wilson with his father Murry.

For most of 1969 the Beach Boys attempted to attract a new record label despite Brian Wilson's erratic behavior to either consciously or sub-consciously sabotage their prospects. Big names such as Polydor, MGM and CBS all passed on the opportunity to sign the group.

In November of 1969 they were finally signed to Reprise Records, a division of Warner Brothers thanks to endorsement from Warner artist and lyricist on the aborted SMiLE album, Van Dyke Parks who had been at Warner since shortly after departing the SMiLE project back in 1967.

The Beach Boys proceeded to work on a first album for the label at Brian Wilson's home studio at his house on Bellagio Road in Bel-Air. They assembled a fourteen-track acetate tentatively titled Sun Flower to Warner chief Mo Ostin who rejected the initial track listing insisting on material "More worthy of their storied history". Their second assembly of the album now re-titled Add Some Music after the song Brian and Mike Love had written with their friend Joe Knott called "Add Some Music to Your Day" which was released as a single in early 1970 as the groups first release on the new Brother/Reprise label. The Brother Records name was revived for this occasion for the first time since early printings of Smiley Smile back in 1967. This assembly was also rejected by Ostin. after one further rejection in May of 1970. A final master of the album now re-titled Sunflower was finally approved in July 1970 for release on August 31st, 1970.

Opening track "Slip on Through" was the first of four songs contributed by middle brother Dennis Wilson who had recently been the subject of media attention due to his unfortunate association with cult leader Charles Manson who had recently been convicted for orchestrating the Tate-LaBianca murders in august of the previous year. Thankfully none of that darkness is reflected in this upbeat album opener produced by Dennis and written with Dennis' longtime collaborator Gregg Jakobson. Dennis plays piano and Leslie Guitar on the track and also sings lead and supposedly plays cowbell with all the other Beach Boys on backing vocals. Younger brother Carl Wilson also adds rhythm guitar with Jack Conrad on lead guitar, The Dragon Brothers, Daryl on bass and Dennis on drums and congas form the songs rhythm section while John Audino and Terry Terran add trumpets.

Second Song "This Whole World" was written and produced by Brian Wilson along with Carl Wilson who also worked as supervising producer on the entire album and also adds lead vocals and acoustic guitar to this song. Brian (with Mike Love) sings the lead on the opening and backing vocals through the rest of the song as well as playing piano. Brian claimed the song was inspired by the songs of former Brill Building songwriter Carole King who in the next year would establish herself as a solo artist with her landmark "Tapestry" album. The instrumentation on the song includes Wrecking Crew members Jerry Cole and David Cohen on guitars, Jack Conrad on bass, Ray Pohlman on six-string bass and Gene Estes on chimes and glockenspiel. The Dragon Brothers also contribute, with Daryl on electric harpsichord, chimes and tubular bells and Dennis on drums.

The third song on the album is the aforementioned "Add Some Music to Your Day" which features vocal contributions from the whole band who also play all of the instruments on the track. The song would usually be featured as the opener for the second set during the 2012 Beach Boys 50th Anniversary reunion tour in which the five surviving members of the band would sing their vocals surrounding Brian at his piano while the falsetto parts were filled out by longtime Beach Boys/Brian Wilson Band touring member, the late Jeffrey Foskett who would also play acoustic guitar with the rest of the touring band contributing the instrumentation.

Second Dennis Wilson songwriting and production contribution "Got To Know the Woman" which Brian Wilson once joked "Sounds like a Dennis title" is an R and B style tune.

Next is Bruce Johnston's "Deirdre" which he produced and wrote (supposedly written with Brian though Johnston implies the song is 95 percent his work.) The instrumentalists on the track include Beach Boys Touring Band members Ed Carter on guitar and Daryl Dragon on vibraphone along with Wrecking Crew members, Al Casey on guitar, Joe Osborne on electric bass. Jimmy Bond on upright bass, Larry Knechtel on piano, John Guerin on drums and Frank Capp on tambourine. The strings on the song were arranged by Michael Colombier and the song also features three trumpets, one flute, three French horns and three trombones but whoever played these instruments were uncredited and thus their names have sadly been lost to the mists of time.

"It's About Time" is a Carl/Dennis co-production and a co/write between Carl, Dennis, Al Jardine and Bob Burchman. The lead guitars on the track are played by Carl with Al providing rhythm guitar. The Dragon Brothers, Daryl on tack piano and organ and Dennis on congas, cowbell and timbales add much to the energy of the song along with Jimmy Bond on acoustic and electric basses and the legendary Earl Palmer on drums.

Opening Side two is the Bruce Johnston penned and produced "Tears in the Morning" on which Johnston sings lead and is backed vocally by Mike, Brian Al and Carl. Carl also contributes guitar to the track along with Ronald Benson on guitar and mandolin, Daryl Dragon on vibraphone, Ray Pohlman on bass, Hal Blaine on drums, Accordionist Carl Fortina who had played on the two most famous songs on Pet Sounds and would later contribute to the track "Outside the Wall" on Pink Floyd's legendary concept album The Wall in 1979 which ironically also featured Bruce Johnston as background vocals arranger. A string section also plays on the song.

Next is the reverb-soaked "All I Wanna Do" written by Brian and Mike and produced by Carl (Not to be confused with the Dennis song "All I Want to Do" from the previous album 20/20) It is one of the best lead vocals of Mike Love's career with all the other Beach Boys adding backing harmonies and Carl on 12 string lead guitar, rocksichord and even an electric sitar with Wrecking Crew members, Hal Blaine on drums, Jimmy Bond on acoustic and electric basses, Al Casey on rhythm guitar, Gene Estes on shaker and Mike Melvoin on piano along with engineer Stephen Desper contributing Moog Synthesizer.

Next is Dennis Wilson's signature Songwriting contribution (with Gregg Jakobson) and production for his entire Beach Boys career. Sung with a sweet vulnerability by its composer who also plays piano and tambourine on the track over a haunting acoustic guitar played by younger brother Carl who also contributes Rocksichord and backing vocals along with older brother Brian and Cousin Mike on harmony backing support. Bruce Johnston also plays piano on the track as well as Mike Anthony on electric guitar, Jimmy Bond and Lyle Ritz on basses, Daryl Dragon on vibes, Gene Estes on drums, Frank Capp on tympani, Orville "Red" Rhodes on pedal steel guitar and Paul Beaver on Moog synthesizer along with Jay Rosen, Shari Zippert, Roy Tanabe and Spiro Stamos on violins. Years later another person with the surname Stamos would attempt to re-popularize the song but we will mercifully deal with that later.

"Our Sweet Love" written by Brian, Carl and Al and produced by Carl, Brian, Al and Bruce, features Carl on lead vocals, electric guitar,clavinet and sleigh bells and Brian on backing vocals and piano, Hal Blaine is credited as having played drums and castanet. Though not credited to anyone, there is a very audible maraca or shaker that is to this writer (and percussionists) ears is up way too high in the mix almost to a distracting degree. The instrumental bed is rounded out by a string section playing arrangements by Michael Colombier. It started out as a song called Our New Home" which had been written for the "Friends" album two years earlier.

"At My Window" written by Brian and Al and produced by Al with lead vocals from Bruce with Brian and bird sounds accordion and tambourine sweetening it along with beautiful harmonies at the end.

Final track "Cool Cool Water" was an evolution of what was the "water" portion of "The Elements" suite on the would be SMiLE album originally titled "Love to Say Da Da". The chant in the middle was directly lifted from the beginning of the track which would years later receive final lyrics from Van Dyke Parks to become the song "In Blue Hawaii" for 2004s Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE. However this first re-working which ended Sunflower was quite ahead of it's time and set the tone for the follow up album Surfs Up and it's lead off track Mike and Al's "Don't Go Near The Water".

Sadly, though Sunflower was critically received very well including by Village Voice critic Robert Christgau who described it as "Far more satisfying than SMiLE ever could have been." Sunflower was unfortunately the worst selling Beach Boys album up to that point. In the years since it's reputation has gotten better and is considered as much as a statement for the group as Pet Sounds was for Brian at the height of his powers.