There’s Brian and his Beach Boys, most obviously. Then there were Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young, those Eagles, and my own personal favorite Turtles, Byrds, Mothers of Invention and possibly even Runaways. Not to mention Lindsey Buckingham’s Big Mac.
“He knew how to produce records very well. He had a very strong spirit for recording music. He was a great producer.”
When no less an authority on making records as Brian “No Pier Pressure” Wilson spoke those words, he was paying tribute not only to a dear friend and respected contemporary, but to a man whose contributions to the creation of American West Coast music is somehow seldom ever given their rightful place alongside the achievements of, say, Phil Spector or Wilson himself.
Part 5 can be found here
By the early 1960’s there wasn’t a teenager whose life didn’t revolve around music and his or her favourite radio stations and disc jockeys. A lot of the music irritated your parents, the DJ’s were full of energy and yelled everything, and the local commercials extolled the wonders of teen dances, drive in restaurants, acne cream, and (in California at least) the local Sunday Drag Races. We were all about music, dating, cars, and being cool, at least cool for whatever teen sub culture we wanted to be a part of. The music defined us, the trappings proclaimed us, and the accoutrements expressed our status. We were as conformist and as deeply shallow as every teen culture has been since the beginning of youth culture…lookin’ lame and proud as hell about it.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 