Who is Bob Burchman? He co-wrote a song on The Beach Boys 'Sunflower'...

I might e-mail the Californian artist guy. It would be pretty cool if he turned out to be some regular bloke, who's life happens to have brushed past and contributed to *genius*.

Had a quick look in Brian Wilson's 'autobiograohy'. It barely mentions Sunflower, except to say that Elton John popped in when they were recording and played Brian a bunch of songs. He was amazed apparently.

If anyone has any then speak now...

Ned otm about his life before and after, I think it's fascinating to think that his life somehow ran parallel to something that damn amazing.

The Beach Boys story is strangely full of "unknowns" who collaborated with them all-too-briefly (Roger Christian, Tony Asher, David Sandler, Jack Reiley, Steve Kalinich). Maybe there's only so much arguing an outsider could take...

I will post the answers that I get back. Initially, he seems like a really nice guy.

Harvey, that's really cool. Did you write it up? I'd love to read it. The more I think about this there's a really interesting story to be told about The Beach Boys' (not just Brian's) collaborators.

As for who might be interested in publishing your Burchman piece, I think it's really limited to the various online Beach Boys communities, unless he has some skeletons in the closet (although I believe a print fanzine called -what- 20:20? has recently been set up. Will try to get contact details to you). Not wishing to diminish its value, but, as with my Sandler piece, I think "peripheral" hits the nail on the head.

Ned, cheers for the advice.

I suppose I'll see how it turns out and work from there.

Re Beach Boys fanzine, it is indeed called 20/20, and the editor (Brian Davies) can be contacted on irwelloceanblue@hotmail.com. Good luck.

Aside from the general interest I'd have in hearing this little moment, White says the version has lyrics that are far superior. As suspect as his judgement was (was "California Feeling" REALLY the best song Brian had written since "God Only Knows"?), in a world where people go well out of their ways to cover unofficial versions of Beach Boys songs (see that version on Smiling Pets of "Good Vibrations"), this one strikes me as something of a Holy Grail.

I wrote the basic lyric for the song "It's About Time" on July 2nd 1970,when I was 24 years old. I met Dennis Wilson a short
time before then, perhaps in May or June of that year,
through one of my closest and dearest friends from
Junior High and High School, Barbara Charren, who
would soon become Dennis's wife, and mother of two of
his children, Michael and Carl. Barbara had met
Dennis one night while she was working the cash
register at Hamburger Hamlet restaurant in Westwood
Village, here in L.A. I was living in Hawaii with my
wife and newborn son at the time when Dennis and
Barbara started dating, and so it wasn't until we
returned to Los Angeles that I finally got to meet
'the new boyfriend'. I must admit that I was not a
huge Beach Boy fan at that time. My musical leanings
were more toward Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, James
Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Smokey Robinson and
The Miracles, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Joni
Mitchell. And I had had the impression from watching
early Beach Boy film footage, that Dennis was a bit
too cocky and not the world's greatest drummer. So I
was not really expecting to like Dennis all that much,
when my wife and I invited Barbara and him over for
dinner to meet. But the truth is I liked him. He was
quite charming, low key, and very funny. We sat on
cushions around a low Japanese style table in our
living room eating some sort of asian vegetarian
cuisine, as I remember. At one point in the evening
Dennis mentioned to me that Barbara had told him what
a good poet and lyricist that I was, and asked me if I
would recite something for him to hear. I recited two
or three lyrics that I were fresh in my mind, and
Dennis was blown away. "Wow! I wasn't expecting
that", he said. He went on to tell me that he was
working on a track for a new Beach Boy album, and that
he wanted me to come down to the studio and write the
lyric for this piece. Within a week I was at Brian
Wilson's Bel Air estate/studio to hear the work in
progress. Dennis ran off a cassette tape copy for me,
making me promise not to let anyone hear it. I took
it home with me and listened to the track a few times
to get a feel for what the music was saying to me.
Then I drove to shady spot in Benedict Canyon here in
L.A., parked my car and began writing, as I played and
replayed the track over and over on my portable
cassette player. The lyric literally took me 20
minutes to complete. It came in a flash. I don't
think I've ever written a lyric that quickly since.

just want to point out that is Gregg Turkington on lead vocals (ie, Carl's parts)... yes, "Neil Hamburger" doing a note for note rendition of the pet sounds version of "good vibrations".

Wow, it's just like the time he met Manson.