Richard Henderson - Van Dyke Parks Song Cycle

SONG CYCLE
Praise for the series:

It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized
that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric
Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher
in the Rye or Middlemarch The series is freewheeling and
eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic
personal celebrationThe New York Times Book Review

Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes
just arent enoughRolling Stone

One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planetBookslut

These are for the insane collectors out there who appreciate
fantastic design, well-executed thinking, and things that
make your house look cool. Each volume in this series
takes a seminal album and breaks it down in startling
minutiae. We love these. We are huge nerdsVice

A brilliant series each one a work of real loveNME (UK)

Passionate, obsessive, and smartNylon

Religious tracts for the rock n roll faithfulBoldtype

[A] consistently excellent seriesUncut (UK)

We arent naive enough to think that were your only source
for reading about music (but if we had our way
watch out). For those of you who really like to know everything
there is to know about an album, youd do well to check
out Continuums 33 1/3 series of booksPitchfork

For more information on the 33 1/3 series,
visit 33third.blogspot.com

For a complete list of books in this series, see the back of this book

Richard Henderson

2010
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright 2010 by Richard Henderson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henderson, Richard, 1954
Song cycle / Richard Henderson.
p. cm. (33 1/3)
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-4315-0
1. Parks, Van Dyke.
Song cycle. I. Title.
ML410.P166H46 2010
782.42164092dc22
2009053557

Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand
Printed in the United States of America

This little book is for Nell.

No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth, have a perfectly corking time for a few years.

Don Marquis, The Almost Perfect State

The compensation for the loss of innocence, of simplicity, of unselfconscious energy, is the classic moment its there on record. You can play it any time.

George Melly, Revolt Into Style

I like to think its just popular music that isnt so popular.

Van Dyke Parks

Taking it from the top:

Im grateful for the congenial prodding of Dr. David Barker in Continuums New York office, who commissioned this book. At regular intervals, he would fire a flare over the dark waters to determine if my Song Cycle monograph was still afloat. His patience, lenience, help and understanding have been nothing less than essential to my efforts.

Song Cycle was first released over forty years ago and, as such, exists on the pale cusp of recall in the minds of many who were aware of its first appearance. Impressively, and fortunately for me, several among those intimately connected with this album made themselves available for interrogation. Bruce Botnick, Doug Botnick, Stan Cornyn, Bernie Grundman, Lee Herschberg, Danny Hutton, Joe Smith, Lenny Waronker, Guy Webster and Steve Young were generous with their time and recollections of a charismatic young Southerner named Van Dyke Parks who turned up in their midst during the turbulence that was the mid 60s; their accounts are intrinsic to the form and mien of the book you now hold. All of these men have achieved much in the four decades since Song Cycles release, but their shared affection both for this record and especially for its creator is undimmed by times passage, and is all the more affecting for being so.

Anyone with an interest in the golden age of Los Angeles pop music in the twentieth century is beholden to Barney Hoskyns, the author of Waiting for the Sun and Hotel California; I am but the latest in a long line of scribblers to admit as much. Hoskyns has done justice to the musical legacy of Southern California, his accounts informed in equal measure by passion and exhaustive legwork.

The following authors Andrew Hultkrans, Ric Menck, Andy Miller, Ray Newman (whose Abracadabra! is a defining single album monograph), John Perry and Hugo Wilcken have helped my cause with the respective examples set by their own books, each one lending vibrancy and a sense of renewal to music Id thought was well past the sell-by date. Ian MacDonald, author of the most even-handed and incisive appraisal of The Beatles recordings, left a legacy of trenchant observation, instructive to anyone interested in dancing about architecture. Mr. MacDonald is no longer around, sad to say; I should have enjoyed thanking him in person.

Gene Sculatti, editor of The Catalog of Cool and producer of Luxuria Musics Atomic Cocktail program, provided research materials and a reliable margin of reference throughout the gestation of this project. Gene, as an editor at Billboard, was the first person to offer gainful employment when I was a stranger in the strange land of Los Angeles. Eternally swinging and too cool for school, he is still my editor.

Kees Colenbrander was kind enough to forward a copy of his documentary, shot for Dutch television, Van Dyke Parks: Een Obsessie Voor Muziek, one more sterling example of Europeans doing right by aspects of American culture that Americans themselves cant be bothered to look after. Michael Leddy, whose Orange Crate Art blog is a VDP-friendly zone, was additionally helpful with research. How differently might history have played out, were Mike Love to have read Leddys appreciation of those troublesome lyrics for Cabinessence.

For their insights and encouraging words, I would like to thank: Michael Brook, D. J. Henderson, Erella Ganon, Stephanie Lowry, Cliff Martinez, Jeff Mee, Dan Meinwald, Ilka Normile, Tamara Teemoney Palmer, Sharon Heather Smith and Tom Welsh.

Dan Turner and Tom Nixon made the critical introductions, for which I remain grateful.

Finally, I am much indebted to Sally and Van Dyke Parks for their hospitality and neighborly disposition with respect to my nagging errand. Van Dyke fielded a great many questions with patience, wit and relentlessly impressive recall. He also pried open several doors on my behalf, stuck his foot out to ensure that they stayed open, shared items from his archives and cooked a number of stellar meals into the bargain. I can only hope to reciprocate in kind with this, a valentine to one of my favorite recordings. Most folks could die happy if theyd made a