Customer Reviews

Long Promised Road: Songs of Dennis & Carl Wilson

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This CD captures a night of great songs by a band that does them justice. I was on the scene that night and was so glad when the CD came out. Except for a few minor "tweaks", you hear what the "small but enthusiastic" audience heard at a pub in Marina del Rey (near LA). Adam Marsland's Chaos Band featuring Evie Sands and Alan Boyd had just returned from a tour of the midwest, and this performance gave the "home folks" a chance to see the road show. A special treat for me was having a recording of "Don't Look Back (Don't Look Down)", an Evie Sands original that I'd enjoyed at gigs but couldn't hear on the car stereo. Then there's the 21st Century version of "I Can't Let Go", which makes her 1965 track sound just a bit tame. Some of the songs (especially those written by Dennis Wilson) are real rockers, then there's "Carry Me Home", originally composed during the Vietnam War, but never officially released. Now it's finally on a disc, and, sad to say, still timely in view of world events. At the performance, the crowd was quiet, and no doubt tears came to many eyes.
"Long Promised Road" showcases a superb band playing music they know and love, for an audience that knows and loves it. Join the magic!

Adam Marslands Chaos band brings to life the songs of Dennis and Carl Wilson in this set of "lesser known" and greatly underappriciated songs that were originally released on Beach Boys LP's through the years. The painstaking arrangements and stellar performance make this set a MUST have for anyone that loves the Beach Boys AND anyone that appriciates outstanding live performance! The live recreation of harmonies in this set virtually unalterd by studio re'do's unlike other live sets give the listener an appriciation for rehearsal and execution! The talent in AMCB is deep and broad. Beginning with Marsland himself. The frontman of the band brassy at times and tender at others shows a broad range of talent from singing ROCK N ROLL hard to warm and loving when the music dictates and this recording is ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC!!! Not ego. Evie Sands lends her spectacular voice and guitar playing to every song giving even the roughest treatment that touch of class it deserves. Alan Boyd a chap who has had access to the Beach Boys vaults over the last few years adds his chameleon like voice to the arrangements which together with the whispy yet etherial background vocals of bassist Theresa Cowles and the steady fill ins of keyboardist/vocalist John Perry, combine for a mix that stirs this listeners soul! The versitle drumming of Kurt Medlin cant be overlooked either. Whether its the boogieque beat of WHATS WRONG or the syncopated beats of the dreamy MOONSHINE he is spot on througout!. This is LIVE music at its best!!!

Beautiful and painstaking recreations of these Carl and Dennis Wilson tracks (live!). I have listened to this CD over and over again - it gets better every time! If you are a Beach Boys fan then this CD is a 'must have'. Your collection won't be complete without it!
Conrad.

Covering the songs of Dennis and Carl Wilson was a great idea on the part of Adam Marsland and his band (including 60s soul/pop legend Evie Sands). The "other" Wilson brothers too seldom get their due as songwriters. But I don't know many bands that would have made a LIVE recording of the tunes (this is tough stuff, folks), and turned in such great performances to boot !

There's a great mix of material here - 9 Dennis Wilson tunes, 5 Carl Wilson tunes, and 6 original tunes written or made popular by Adam Marsland and his band members. The show starts with a selection of the bandmembers' tunes (Evie Sands' "Don't Look Back" and Alan Boyd's "Meanwhile" are standouts). Then they turn to the Wilsons' songs, ripping into DW's "River Song" and "Moonshine" (from the recently re-released DW solo album "Pacific Ocean Blue"). The singing and playing is excellent throughout, and it's clear the band is having a great time. Other highlights include "Long Promised Road," a long-underappreciated song from the Beach Boys' "Surf's Up" record; a rockin' "Keepin the Summer Alive"; and a previously unreleased DW track, "Wouldn't it be Nice to Live Again," featuring Evie Sands' gorgeous lead vocal and the band's rich, spot-on harmonies.

A great piece of work from start to finish, and well-worth owning !

Well worth buying for multiple reasons.First of all because it is a great live album of convincingly performed songs written by both members of Adam Marsland's Chaos band as well as of course Dennis and Carl Wilson.So just for the performances alone it is definitley worth checking out.The second reason is because this tribute album is like a map for finding some of the still buried "Wilson Treasure" if one is so inclined.When this tribute album was released the new "Pacific Ocean Blue"/"Bambu" Legacy edition(2008)had still not been released,so obviousley that release is where X marks the spot for songs such as "River Song" and "Moonshine",etc. Song's such as Carl Wilson's "The Trader" can be found on "Holland" and most of the others for that matter can be found on Beach Boys album's anywhere from "20/20" all the way up to thier self titled 1985 release(Carl's "Where I Belong")That leaves me with the final two scattered pieces of treasure from this album;"Carry Me Home" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again".Both of these songs were written by Dennis Wilson and I find them to be the high point of this performance.Evie Sands and Adam Marsland nail the vocals on these two songs.When I first heard "Carry Me Home" it blew me away and I knew their had to be an original version somewhere and it didn't take me long to find a version of it on the internet.It is a duet between Blondie Chaplin and Dennis Wilson who's vocal on this song despite the quality of the recording is HAUNTING.The fact that a song that good can stay unreleased after all these years is pretty depressing to me.The final piece of missing treasure,"Wouldn't it Be Nice To Live Again", I still Have yet to hear the original version(and believe me I've looked).Alan Boyd has in an interview said that Dennis's version of this song is the strongest vocal he ever did.Steve Desper who was the engineer for this song has said it is the best unreleased Beach Boys song in existence.Someone needs to be putting together a Dennis Wilson anthology.Who knows how much material is just chillin inside the vaults!Mike Love and Bruce Johnston need to put the whole thing to rest and acknowledge the fact that the name "Wilson" holds much more artistic significance than "The Beach Boys" ever will.Anyone with knowledge of these songs that is not working to get them released should be ashamed of themselves.That is just my humble opinion though and I could be wrong.In close I would just like to give credit to the musicians involved in this project and thank them for introducing songs to me that I didn't even know existed.Who knows there might be more.

An excellent album, and a must for anyone interested in Carl and Dennis Wilson, The Beach Boys, or great music in general. I was lucky enough to seen Adam and the gang perform most of this stuff live in the heart of Covington, KY.

I only got to see Larry Norman twice when he toured Austraia, and both times the singing and playing was great - and he had a real attitude. I always liked his trilogy LPs and some of his later stuff (when he got off the sopbox or let the chip on his shoulder slip) was really good. But, you had to admire him for charting his own course and avoiding the shlock that is mostly what 80s-00s Contemporary Christian Music turned out to be. This posthumous collection is way more than a "best of"or "greatest hits"and is a really good way to remember him.