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Credit: Far Out \/ Album Sleeve<\/p>\n
Mon 5 October 2026 0:30, UK <\/p>\n
If I were to make a list of all the legendary names that Van Dyke Parks has played, performed or recorded with, I\u2019d hit my word count before I was even able to write much else about him so here\u2019s a condensed list of names of artists that you\u2019ll have heard his work with: The Beach Boys<\/a>, Randy Newman, Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Nilsson, Little Feat, Fiona Apple, Carly Simon, Bonnie Raitt, Judy Collins and Bob Dylan. <\/p>\n Just like Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, or Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner, Van Dyke Parks is one of the most unheralded geniuses in modern music history. A multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and orchestral arranger, Parks even has timeless film scores and songs to his name, including things as iconic as \u2018The Bare Necessities\u2019 from The Jungle Book. <\/p>\n And the extreme versatility, ingenuity and adaptability that Van Dyke Parks could bring to every session not only made him an obviously attractive collaborator to other similarly ranging and ambitious writers, but also comes through in his own unusual solo works, as well. <\/p>\n But sometimes his work with other people could overlap or intrude upon the time he could have been spending making more of those solo works, or more of a name of his own, instead. <\/p>\n Having collaborated with an array of session musicians in expanding on even Phil Spector\u2019s Wall of Sound production style with the heralded Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson was beginning to withdraw more and more <\/a>from his Beach Boy bandmates and soon turned to Van Dyke Parks to help with his next project, Smile.<\/p>\n Conceived as an album that would not only build on that success, but which would also examine the American land and soundscapes, reject the rising rock trends and invading British pretenders and\u00a0wrestle back this American music from the influence<\/a>\u00a0of The Beatles and Beatlemaniacs. Wilson began to suggest that Smile was to be a \u201cteenage symphony to God\u201d, and soon such grand and sprawling ambitions led to similarly grand and sprawling sessions. Over 80 of them, where the pair cut more than 50 hours of sounds that would need to be moulded together and trimmed down to a more manageable amount of music.\u00a0<\/p>\n Perhaps sensing the project was getting away from everybody involved, Parks parted ways with Wilson and Smile in order to focus on the recording of his own debut album, Song Cycle, which itself ended up navigating a similar series of themes and sounds as the unfinished album he was leaving behind did. <\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n And, though he was leaving Wilson behind to take up work on his own album, Parks was bringing some of the Beach Boys\u2019 frontman\u2019s legendary perfectionism and fastidiousness to his own work, as well, meaning that Song Cycle had a similarly long studio gestation. <\/p>\n Inspired by watching Wilson work \u2013 painstakingly re-recording take after take, spending day after day and week after week on a single sound, syllable, line or lyric \u2013 Parks has described his own studio practices as being like \u201cthe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Having employed the services of over 50 musicians and taking over seven months to finalise recordings, Song Cycle cost Parks\u2019 Warner Bros label almost $80,000 in fees, making it one of the most expensive albums ever made at that point.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n On hearing the final mix, Ostin felt the record had been both worth the outlay and worth the wait, saying later that on hearing it he \u201cthought we had the next Beatles\u201d. The Warner Bros marketing department said something similar in their publicity materials, and compared the debuting artist to Dylan, as well. <\/p>\n
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