VAN DYKE PARKS appreciation thread...

The 33 1/3 book on "Song Cycle" is superb. Just finished it and can't wait to read it again.

Yeah, it's so good. The anecdote about the greyhounds cracks me up

Can anyone confirm/deny that Van Dyke Parks did the arrangements for Dillard and Clark's "Why Not Your Baby?"

The 33 1/3 book on "Song Cycle" is superb. Just finished it and can't wait to read it again.― Lawanda Pageboy (Capitaine Jay Vee)

I am already reading it for a second time!:)

Oh I didn't know about this one. Who wrote it?

VDP's "list of collaborative work" is very accurate in that it meticulously records the exact, official credits he's received. It is inaccurate insofar as album credits are inaccurate. According to the official records, no, he did not.

I haven't read "Song Cycle" but I've started on the 33 1/3s again (on Nation right now, yay); I'll pick that one up.

xp that is, "no he did not arrange Dillard and Clark"

BTW, "Arrangements vol. 1" is *just* *great*. Love esp. the Sal Valentino tracks, the arrangements burn and twist like a distant anthill. Bonnie Raitt's "Wha' she go do".

yeah, it is great -- wonder when vol. 2 is coming?

Who wrote it?

The book about Song Cycle is by Richard Henderson

haha, was just looking for that ad. hilarious. though it sounds like small potatoes, even for back in the day? maybe not. dunno what that would be inflation-wise these days.

― tylerw, Friday, April 16, 2010 11:29 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Looks like about $235,918.54 in 2010 dollars. A chunk of change!

got the 33 1/3 for Christmas and it is one of the better ones I've read from that series.

I love "Song Cycle" but yeah every time I try to play it for someone it becomes apparent just how weird it is. I think my favorite VDP song is "G-Man Hoover". Sad that youtube doesn't have a video i can embed...

Can anyone confirm/deny that Van Dyke Parks did the arrangements for Dillard and Clark's "Why Not Your Baby?"

― ghosttaster, Friday, April 13, 2012 7:34 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would also like to know this. my favorite gene clark song btw.

He played piano with Clark in 1966 and would work with Dillard on the "Popeye" soundtrack, but he didn't arrange "Why not your baby", it's not on his CV and it doesn't sound like him

...but I can't find any info that suggests otherwise.

I'd read that he DID arrange it on his official website back when it had a list of his outside work... Strange.

Saying it doesn't sound like him is kinda weird, tho - everything the guy arranges doesn't have to sound like Song Cycle and it's possible they just told him to do the strings rather than the whole session, which sounds like a normal Dillard & Clark arrangement. But I don't know for sure, obviously.

The list from his old website isn't *official*-- it was compiled by a guy named Gerhard. Furthermore, it doesn't have the D&C song on it.

I could post the list, I saved it to disc, but it's long

I coulda sworn.... it was ridiculously long iirc, so I'll take your word for it.

http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/videos/?id=M4993&type=A

April 9th 1 hour live show streaming at Kennedy Center website

https://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=13395

i'm going to this! it was a bit more exciting when it was 'mystery special guests' rather than those two guys, but still, exciting!

Baaaaah why didn't I notice that show that sounds *amazing*

The horse's mouth has just confirmed that he did not write that arrangement but that he did dig Dillard & Clark the most.

the horse's mouth! van dyke is the cool uncle i wish i had.

pretty fabulous live thing here: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/07/152218499/van-dyke-parks-on-mountain-stage

I might be wrong but didn't he "creatively disown" 'Clang Of The Yankee Reaper'?

Seriously? I love that one.

yeah i think that's a cool record! haven't heard him say anything about it that I can recall.
for real, the npr show is really nice, everyone should listen to it.

Checking it out. Still sad I couldn't make it to his gig with a string trio in St Louis.
(I saw Mission of Burma at a local gig that night instead, so not complaining too much)
(except there were hardly enough people at the Burma gig)

Here's something I don't understand: why does Discover America, which is, sure, a covers album, why does it begin with somebody else's recording? On one hand I think it's rebellious and fun, and a nice 'tip of the hat' to the beginning of Vine Street (somebody else's song segueing into somebody else's song). But it confounds me that Track 1 is just, well, somebody else's record.

Because he's trying to educate the rest of us dullards in the world about Trinidadian music I would assume? Also it's a great track! One thing I've never understood about that album is why he credited the tracks written by Trinidadian artists to Van Dyke Parks, I know he explains in the sleevenotes that all royalties from the tracks went to the writers but why not list them? Was it a publishing thing?

Haven't listened to "Clang of the Yankee Reaper" in years, but I remember it being a bit too Trinidad and not enough VDP, apart from the title track... and "You're a Real Sweetheart". I can't imagine him disowning it though, why would he? I doubt he had record company pressure, he seems to have been able to record whenever and whatever he wants throughout his career... a rarity! (Post punk bores like me like to point out that "Clang of the Yankee Reaper" is one of the albums Mark Perry

... is posing with on the front cover of "The Image Has Cracked"

IIRC it's in the final pages of the Song Cycle 33 1/3 book, where he surveys the discography.

Ahh, I haven't read that one, oddly enough. Tom, your explanation makes sense, and I get that tune in my head All The Time.

so at my count, with these singles, VDP is at 11 songs. as a whole, it's seriously a GREAT album (if he'd put it out as such). as good as anything he's done! FOR REAL.

one of them is a solo re-do of "all golden" but it's awesome, so ...

Yes, these are all good. I like the packaging and the "available on iTunes or as a 7-inch" thing, he's a hip geezer.

yeah i've just bought the mp3s, tho the 7 inches look quite nice.

nice fall morning tripping to song cycle. i didn't know about these new singles, exciting!

Took a bit of work but I'm really enjoying Discover America now.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/van-dyke-parks-discover-america-round-37-toms-selection/

i got some deluxe CD reissue of that at a used record store--but i can't find any trace of its having existed online. it's a legit european release, maybe it was recalled or only released in a limited edition or something.

anyway it is good but yeah it really takes some getting used to esp if you know many of the songs from other performances as i do.

I don't think I knew any of the original versions - certianly not well enough to recognise them - how different are they in terms of arrangement, performance? I'm assuming they probably didn't have orchestras, for a start, but VDP used stuff like steel drums on some of the tracks. How faithful are they, I guess?

VDP + Scott Walker = Bob Drake

I don't think those are Bob's parents really.

Uncles, perhaps.

arrangements are odder and more strident than originals in most cases, but VDP's voice is also very much an acquired taste. me, i haven't really acquired it per se, i just sort of put up w/ it. anyway arrangements + his singing give songs a kind of arch, vaguely ironic flair that at first kind of irritated me. but at some point on most of the songs the weirdness kind of gels at some point.

have folks heard his arrangement of that bonnie raitt calypso song. at some level it could probably be considered a horrid misstep--almost a kind of blackface routine, w/ ms raitt adopting an outsized patois and the arrangement cranking up the steel drum. but it kind of works. at least, it's interesting to hear her stretch out a bit.

I love that song "G-Man Hoover". So awesome. The vocals on it are so great, too.

Oh wait i said that already early this year.

Rat-ta-tat.....TAT
Rat-ta-tat.....TAT

http://bellaunion.com/2013/02/van-dyke-parks-to-release-songs-cycled-on-may-6th/

his new album Song Cycled is out on May 6. it's a collection of all his recent singles

er, Songs Cycled