Minor Questions not related to The Beach Boys

nts1drums, I've been thinking...

I'd say Joshilyn Hoisington is the best person to ask, as her sphere of interest extends much further than just (!) the Boys. More importantly, she has a keen interest in (and wide knowledge of) session musicians in general and out of anyone here should be able to point you in one or other direction.

Well, I do my best.

This brings up an interesting sort of perspective about the nested unsungness of the string players even within the unsung session players.  The orchestral players get so much less recognition.  People like Hal, Larry Knechtel, Carol, Steve Douglas, Joe Osborn, Tommy, etc -- they've achieved a certain level of visibility in music circles, if not fame.  But the string sections and orchestral musicians get a lot less love.

Another factor here is that because of the Beach Boys relative importance, they've been bootlegged really extensively, and people like McParland and Slowinski have really gone after getting the documentation through official channels.  For whatever reason, an act like Simon and Garfunkel have not had such rabid documentation mongers in their corner.  Is there even like, an official backing track to Bridge Over Troubled Water?  

Anyway, if an AFM sheet isn't out there (and it's probably not, unless it's a Beach Boys sheet, or some of the ones on Denny Tedesco's site, or one of the other random ones that's made it out of the Local 47's archive, it's not possible to know the exact make-up of a string section.  I think the place to start would be to look at similar instances or make connections through people.

So in the case of Aquarius, you can see that on Stoned Soul Picnic (whose AFM is on Tedesco's site www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/afmcontracts/5thDimension_StonedSoulPicnic.pdf last page) used Sid Sharpe to contract the strings, and he probably went after similar people for Aquarius.

As for Bridge, that's tricky because from what I can tell, the S&G documentation is pretty sparse.  But, since Jimmy Haskell and Ernie Freeman were involved in the string arrangements, there's no reason to think that it would not be a pretty orthodox line-up of the usual suspects.  Not sure if it was a Sharpe, session, but it certainly could have been.

Hi nts,

I sneered at Supertramp for years until I had the opportunity to listen to several of their albums on the trot and I was converted! 

As for "From Now On", everywhere I've looked apart from Wikipedia, Helliwell gets the credits for melodica. The problem is, the back cover of the LP credits Helliwell with "Wind instruments and vocals" and Davies with "Vocals and keyboards". So it depends on how one defines a melodica!!! Maybe reviewers have been jumping to the wrong conclusion, particularly if "It's Raining Again" is definitely Davies. So I'll stick my neck out and give him my vote.