{"id":642,"date":"2011-11-10T04:45:15","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T09:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=642"},"modified":"2011-11-10T04:45:15","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T09:45:15","slug":"the-van-dyke-parks-interview-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/11\/10\/the-van-dyke-parks-interview-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The Van Dyke Parks Interview, Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Never exactly a household name, in 2011 Van Dyke Parks<\/strong> is nonetheless getting some well-deserved notice. A renowned arranger in the 1960s Los Angeles pop scene, Parks lent his creative approach to a number of highly-regarded (if not always million-selling) sides by artists including Sal Valentino<\/strong> (formerly of the Beau Brummels<\/strong>) and The Mojo Men<\/strong>. The latter\u2019s baroque-pop cover of Stephen Stills<\/strong>\u2019 \u201cSit Down I Think I Love You\u201d was a highlight of the Lenny Kaye<\/strong>-curated Nuggets<\/em> 2LP set in the 70s, and remained a highlight even when Rhino later expanded Nuggets<\/em> to 4 CDs worth of goodies.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Nuggets<\/em>, Parks\u2019 shadow looms large over the 2009 entry in that box set series, Where The Action Is! <\/em>Los Angeles<\/em> Nuggets 1965-1968<\/em>; his \u201cCome to the Sunshine\u201d is a representative sunshine pop gem. And Parks made ends meet by doing a good bit of session work in that era as well, appearing on tracks by\u00a0Paul Revere and the Raiders<\/strong> and many others in the L.A. scene.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not as if he faded from view — or gave up \u2013 after the sixties. While he\u2019s perhaps most legendary for his involvement with the Brian Wilson<\/strong>\/Beach Boys<\/strong> album-that-never-was (until in 2011, it was<\/em>), SMiLE<\/em>, Parks continued to work his arrangement magic for artists as diverse as Phil Ochs<\/strong> (the great-but-not-what-it\u2019s-advertised-as Greatest Hits<\/em>), and more recently, Joanna Newsom<\/strong> and Rufus Wainwright<\/strong>. His solo albums have enjoyed critical success, but Parks\u2019 music — drawing as it does from an unusually wide array of styles \u2013 was perhaps never destined to move the masses.<\/p>\n

With the November 2011 release of the fabled SMiLE<\/em> album, Parks\u2019 name is more frequently being raised in music-centric conversations. Most likely to capitalize on that inevitability, a compilation of Parks and Parks-related projects called Arrangements Volume 1<\/em> was released in fall of this year. Highlighting his solo work and contributions to the work of others (including Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat<\/strong>, Ry Cooder<\/strong> and Arlo Guthrie<\/strong>, to name but four), the single-disc set is a fine introduction for the uninitiated into the world of Van Dyke Parks.<\/p>\n

Parks is a quintessentially American artist, and his music \u2013 often but not always built around the piano \u2013 is decidedly rooted in pre-rock forms. One is more likely to discern shades of Stephen Foster<\/strong>, Meade \u201cLux\u201d Lewis<\/strong>, Tin Pan Alley and show tunes than anything like, say, Jerry Lee Lewis<\/strong>. His lyrics tend toward the droll and personal. In short, the music of Van Dyke Parks is an acquired taste, but one well worth acquiring.<\/p>\n

Van Dyke doesn\u2019t often mount concert tours, so when I received word that he would be joining the Fleet Foxes<\/strong> tour for three-dates-only in October, I jumped at the chance to see him. While his music is quite different from the breathy chamber pop of the Fleet Foxes, the pairing made sense (and they\u2019re huge fans of Parks\u2019 work, having personally appealed to him to do these dates). The morning after the show at Asheville NC\u2019s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, I met with Parks \u2013 no surprise: he\u2019s a witty and delightful conversationalist — over coffee. We enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion, one that ran more than twice the duration of his performance the night before. Here are some highlights from that meeting.<\/p>\n

\n

After we settle in with our coffees, Parks tells me about one of his most recent \u2013 and unlikely \u2013 projects. \u201cI worked at Capitol Records studios for a guy called Skrillex<\/strong>. I had never heard of him, and I don\u2019t know what he does, really,\u201d he admits. \u201cWhat he is, is a DJ. And I don\u2019t know what a DJ does, and I don\u2019t think I care! It\u2019s stuff that I don\u2019t understand; it seems vapid to me. It\u2019s very shallow, it\u2019s not musical, and,\u201d he pauses for emphasis, \u201cthere\u2019s every reason to detest it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey take music and chop it up,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey do what they damn well want; they\u2019re just one trench past music critics.\u201d I smile uncomfortably. Parks then quotes Oscar Wilde<\/strong>: \u201cCriticism is the highest form of autobiography.\u201d I laugh and admit that I see a lot of truth in that statement. \u201cIf you look at a DJ,\u201d Parks continues \u2013 and I mistakenly thought he had changed the subject! \u2013 \u201che is doing much the same thing, at a different level. So I was very wary of [the project].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d he continues, \u201cI went and met this guy \u2013 I can\u2019t tell you he was having a good hair day, and I couldn\u2019t really tell if he was going or coming \u2013 but he was very<\/em> energetic. And the preparation for the session was highly abstract. There would be, maybe, a minute with no harmonic information, [and I\u2019d think,] \u2018What chord is this? Stuff like that matters to an arranger!\u2019 I was left out in freedomland,\u201d Parks chuckles. \u201cAnd I want to tell you something: it was probably the most imaginative musical experience I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning our conversation to his spot on the Fleet Foxes tour, I note that a quick and unscientific look around the audience the night before suggested that the overwhelming demographic was the 18-25 year old range. Surprisingly, when presented with Parks\u2019 music — him on digital piano and voice, accompanied by upright bassist Jim Cooper<\/strong> \u2013 the young crowd responded enthusiastically. \u201cYou don\u2019t see the opening act get a standing ovation very often,\u201d I tell him.<\/p>\n

Parks agrees that the billing with Fleet Foxes made some sense. \u201cIn their music, I hear choral arranging that reminds you of Beach Boys stuff. They\u2019re genre hoppers; they go from one influence to another. Their influences are eclectic\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Parks pauses for a moment: he clearly has another thought. \u201cYet \u2018eclectic\u2019 was initially a condemnation: it\u2019s a big word that kind of paints people pink.\u201d (\u201cDilettantism,\u201d I suggest, and he agrees.) \u201cThe idea is that they\u2019re criminals, somehow, for not sticking to one box. But of course, eclecticism can be very demanding on an audience. It can be mannered, pretentious; it can be unfitting, in fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d he continues, \u201cmusic is globalizing. And this new generation of musicians couldn\u2019t care less about how acceptable that is. They\u2019re just driving their herd of admirers forward, with all kinds of influences, mixed in all sort of arrays that we would have never expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSo,\u201d Parks says, tying it all nicely together as he tends to do, \u201ca nutty old guy like me — that is, someone who is unafraid to follow his own madness and confess it publicly \u2013 is a pretty conservative creature in the face of what\u2019s new.\u201d Pressed on the sequence of events that actually led to his joining the tour, Parks admits, \u201cIt\u2019s beyond me. I just take it as good circumstance. I wanted to take the chance and see what happened. And last night, we found acquittal,\u201d he says, clearly pleased. He says that the Fleet Foxes\u2019 \u201ckindness toward me was validated by the crowd\u2019s response.\u201d Conceding that approval might be \u2013 pardon the phrase \u2013 fleeting, Parks admits, \u201cI don\u2019t have any trapping of high fashion in music. I\u2019m sixty-eight years old, and the generation gap is an athletic one to jump across. And it takes a lot of work on the part of both the performer and the audience. But I like<\/em> that uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Part Two<\/a>, Van Dyke Parks and I will discuss his studio history, live performance, 9\/11 and — wait for it — <\/em>SMiLE.<\/em><\/p>\n

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