Studying California almost always requires the examination of contrasts. The songwriting careers of Brian Wilson and Dave Alvin, two youths raised in the L.A. working class suburbs of Hawthorne and Downey, respectively, begin about 15 years apart, their perspectives defined by the specifics of time and place. Wilson, in the Beach Boys, captured innocence, youth and sunshine in the early '60s; Alvin, in the late '70s and '80s in the Blasters and as a solo artist, reflected on loss, specifically the promises and culture of the Golden Gate state. Played side-by-side Sunday at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Southern California sounded like two very different places.
After a week of California classical perspectives in the West Coast, Left Coast series, Disney Concert Hall played host to the pop flip side in "Songs of the Sun" with Alvin taking the theme to heart and personalizing his statement. Wilson, backed by most of his band on acoustic instruments, gave a shortened version of his standard show.
Wilson's 11-song set was filled with glorious, raise-the-roof harmonies, a celebration of girls, cars, teen angst, surfing, an a cappella cover of the Four Freshmen's "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" and, for one pensive five-minute stretch, the Wilson-Van Dyke Parks masterpiece "Heroes and Villains."
Alvin's eight-song set, which included an impromptu "Surfer Girl," was more stark and reflective, the sounds of sighs and pain rising from Greg Leisz' slide work on an assortment of stringed instruments. In Alvin's world, the waterway is a dry river, the radio plays oldies for separated friends and lovers, and the great hangout is but a memory, having burned down years ago. And in "Downey Girl," his recent tribute to his hometown's first celebrity, Karen Carpenter, Alvin uses biography to pose personal questions about pride and character, the sort of soul-searching Wilson and Tony Asher achieved on "God Only Knows" that Wilson sang with his usual crack-in-the-mettle persona.
Memory, more than the here and now that made Wilson a champion teen chronicler, supplies the depth in Alvin's folk and blues-based tunes.
Where Wilson succeeded by taking the Hollywood dream and applying it to the local landscape and rock 'n' roll, Alvin stays inland and assumes the roots of the Southern refugees who made their way west a generation before his birth. One side of the California dream Wilson and Alvin describe is freedom in all its manifestations. On the other side, it's a steady paycheck.
The Living Sisters -- native Angelenos Inara George and Eleni Mandell with Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark -- play light folk with angelic three-part vocals, a reminder of the debut album of the Roches from 30 years ago. "You Make Me Blue," a song by George, daughter of the late Little Feat leader Lowell, shared the alchemy used by Wilson and Alvin, mixing doo-wop with folk music for glorious effect.
Opener Harper Simon shares considerable musical DNA with his father Paul, a resolutely non-California sound. His winsome personality, combined with deft finger-picking guitar style, strong wordplay and engaging melodies, made for an impressive four-song set. The reason for his inclusion on the bill, though, is a mystery.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Live: Brian Wilson and company in the 'Sun' Dave Alvin, Harper Simon and the Living Sisters help the Beach Boys legend make 'Songs of the Sun' concert
Talk about California dreaming. . . .
At the end of Sunday's "Songs of the Sun" concert, part of the L.A. Philharmonic's West Coast, Left Coast festival celebrating regional culture, headliner Brian Wilson invited the rest of the night's performers back to the stage for a multi-generational singalong on a couple of his signature hits, "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Fun, Fun, Fun."
Out trotted singer-songwriter Harper Simon, who had opened the evening, the ad hoc female harmony trio the Living Sisters -- Inara George, the daughter of Little Feat founder Lowell George; jazz-pop singer-songwriter Eleni Mandell; and Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark -- and veteran Southland roots-rock singer, songwriter and guitarist Dave Alvin.
One bit of wishful thinking for aficionados of Southern California pop music went unrealized: that of a more substantive musical meeting between Wilson, the melodic and harmonic genius behind the Beach Boys, and Alvin, the heart and soul of the Blasters, one of the great L.A. bands of the '80s.
Yes, Alvin added his voice (off-mike) and hand claps to the two iconic Beach Boys hits of the '60s, songs born of this region's surf and car cultures. But it could have been an even more symbolically ideal collaboration had he strapped on a Fender electric guitar -- the locally produced embodiment of the sound and spirit not only of the Beach Boys but also of rock 'n' roll itself -- to handle parts originally played by Wilson's late brother Carl.
That nit officially picked, "Songs of the Sun" nevertheless was an illuminating night of appropriately casual and largely acoustic music-making rooted in the exquisite vocal harmonizing that is central to Wilson's music and that of the Andrews Sisters-cum-Roches-inspired Living Sisters. Those harmonies also can be found in the folk-country narrative storytelling tradition that Alvin has embraced over the last 30 years.
Simon started off with four songs delivered much as he would have done them in his appearances at the Silverlake Lounge, which he referenced early on. "Berkeley Girl" most directly connected with the night's geographical focal point, with its nods to those nexuses of indie-rock, Silver Lake and Echo Park.
Alvin came next with a 45-minute set that he opened with a short homage to another under-sung Southland singer-songwriter, John Stewart, whom he saluted with a verse from the title track from Stewart's paean to the Golden State, "California Bloodlines." That segued into Alvin's "California's Burning," a more caustic look at what's happened to the state once regarded by much of the nation as the Promised Land.
His sweet ode to Karen Carpenter, "Downey Girl," was complemented by steel guitar ace Greg Leisz, playing dobro. "Dry River," his unromanticized account of growing up near the concrete banks of the San Gabriel River, led nicely into "King of California."
He topped off his set with "Ashgrove," his celebration of the long-defunct folk-blues club, and a rare latter-day reading of "Fourth of July," reconfigured into a slower, more haunting folk-style rendition than the version he recorded after he'd left the Blasters and joined X.
George, Mandell and Stark, dressed in complementary silver, gold and blue lamé mini-dresses, warbled sweetly during their 15 minutes on stage, mostly as an interlude between the centerpiece sets by Alvin and Wilson.
Wilson stuck largely to cornerstone Beach Boys material but did it in a relatively unfamiliar way. He placed more emphasis than usual on the vocals because of reduced instrumentation, just two acoustic guitars, bass, piano and occasional keyboards, rather than his full-scale 10-piece band.
There was an exquisite a cappella nod to one of his primary influences, the Four Freshmen, and a timely version of "Little Saint Nick." That led to an audience singalong on "Help Me, Rhonda" and "Good Vibrations."
It was the perfect climax to a near-perfect evening.
randy.lewis@latimes.com
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