{"id":20586,"date":"2021-03-03T05:30:46","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T10:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20586"},"modified":"2021-03-04T08:29:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T13:29:13","slug":"always-finish-what-you-started-van-dyke-parks-on-orange-crate-art-part-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/03\/always-finish-what-you-started-van-dyke-parks-on-orange-crate-art-part-2-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Always Finish What You Started: Van Dyke Parks on ‘Orange Crate Art’ (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"Parks recalls how the germ of the project came about in or around 1990. \u201cI had a piano exercise, and it was fun for me,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause I am a pianist, most of my songs derive from the keyboard.\u201d Seeking a name for the exercise, he came up with \u201cOrange Crate Art.\u201d But the exercise didn\u2019t evolve into song form for quite some time. \u201cIt took me about two years to come up with the words,\u201d he admits. Parks chose to follow the \u201cwrite what you know,\u201d philosophy. \u201cThat\u2019s what I was taught; it\u2019s Literature 101,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The central theme of what would become the suite of songs on Orange Crate Art<\/i> would be a celebration of California, Parks decided. And he had a visual totem to inspire him: \u201cthe propagandist art that brought the railroad barons, through eminent domain in dividing and conquering the Indians with their guns, germs, and steel,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Parks made a demo recording of the title song and brought it to Warner Brothers Records president Lenny Waronker. He says that he felt at the time that the record would be his last for Warners: \u201cI could sense it, because I had been replaced by arena rock many years ago,\u201d he recalls. \u201cNo one was interested in exposition the way I was.\u201d But he wanted his final LP for label to be one that mattered. \u201cI had an opportunity to do a record album, and I was going to make it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

He remembers playfully telling Waronker, \u201cLenny, the only problem I have with this particular song is I\u2019m not sure how to pronounce \u2018orange,\u2019 whether I should do it in the Floridian way or as they do in California. Is it an or-ange<\/i> or is it an ornge<\/i>?\u201d Parks suggested that the one person who could settle the matter was Brian Wilson. \u201cThat\u2019d be wonderful,\u201d Waronker replied. \u201cIf you can get him out of bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was<\/i> in bed,\u201d Parks emphasizes. \u201cAnd probably chained there, from what I hear! I don\u2019t know; you hear the worst stories.\u201d Nonetheless, Parks made the trip to see his old friend and collaborator. He vividly recalls the scene he encountered. \u201cBrian was alone in a room watching television, but it wasn\u2019t on. [So] I figured his agenda was just as flexible as mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s own take on the entire Orange Crate Affair<\/i> is characteristically ambivalent and confounding. His recollection of how the project came about is at odds with that of his collaborator. \u201cI was just getting back to work when Van Dyke called me,\u201d he writes in a brief liner note essay for the reissue.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how the project started, it did begin. And it happened quickly. Wilson came into the studio and cut his vocal parts \u2013 \u201ca lead voice and four background parts,\u201d Parks says \u2013 in just five hours. \u201cAll of it,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cI just dictated the parts one voice after the other; I pretended like I was a Beach Boy, that I knew anything about harmony.\u201d With characteristic modesty, Parks asserts that he\u2019s not talented. \u201cBut I work hard. And on the spot, yes, I did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the prospect of working with Wilson was a daunting one. \u201cI could not presume to dictate a lyric to him,\u201d Parks says. \u201cAnd yet, this was my dilemma: I had to tell the man what we were going to think!\u201d he says. But Parks says that for his part, Brian Wilson took direction without comment. \u201cHe accepted it all cheerfully, and somehow, I realized that he welcomed the opportunity to be in a studio again.\u201d He believes that the Orange Crate Art<\/i> project was one in which he and Wilson both found refuge. The album was a kind of safe space for Brian, he suggests. \u201cIt was an album for Van Dyke Parks on Warner Brothers; who could care?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Parks says that he felt he owed Brian Wilson a \u201cdebt of honor,\u201d and that Orange Crate Art<\/i> represented a kind of payment against that debt. \u201cAll of a sudden, Brian was participating!\u201d He readily admits that the idea of bringing Wilson into the project scared him. \u201cI\u2019m just a common guy,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a hedgerow in Hollywood, not important.\u201d But because he viewed the album as signaling his own departure from the record business, it represented a last opportunity to acknowledge that debt. It would be a way to honor Wilson \u201cthe way he had brought \u2013 or attempted to bring \u2013 honor to me with Smile<\/i>,\u201d Parks says.<\/p>\n

With that never-finished 1966 album, Parks and Wilson had sought to create a mythical landscape of their own, a kind of Americana that celebrated the coming of the railroad to the West and other grand themes. The songs on Orange Crate Art<\/i>, Parks suggests, create \u201can alternate universe to Smile<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s ostensibly about California, the album draws inspiration from sources far beyond the Golden State. \u201cMovies is Magic,\u201d for example, is based on Parks\u2019s wife\u2019s family in Memphis. \u201cElvis was very impressed with my sister in law,\u201d he says. \u201cHe sat in his Cadillac Eldorado \u2013 with leopard skin upholstery \u2013 in front of her family’s mansion.\u201d Parks says that he took the story from Memphis and put it in California. \u201cEverything is highly derivative from personal observation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One\u2026 Parks recalls how the germ of the project came about in or around 1990. \u201cI had a piano exercise, and it was fun for me,\u201d he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51,64],"tags":[416,1622,2306],"class_list":["post-20586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","category-reissue","tag-brian-wilson","tag-omnivore-recordings","tag-van-dyke-parks","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","cat-64-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20586"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20612,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20586\/revisions\/20612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}