Van Dyke Parks

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Van Dyke Parks
On the cover of his 1968 debut albumSong Cycle
On the cover of his 1968 debut album
Song Cycle
Background information
Born January 3, 1943
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Genre(s) Americana
Occupation(s) Composer, Performer, Instrumentalist, Arranger, Producer, Lyricist
Instrument(s) Vocals, Piano, Harpsichord, Synthesizer, Accordian, Celeste, Organ
Label(s) Warner Bros., MGM
Website VanDykeParks.com
Van Dyke Parks also refers to a place in Leighton Buzzard.

Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American composer, arranger, producer, musician, singer, and actor. Parks is recognized for his collaboration with Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys on the album, Smile (including the song "Heroes and Villains"). Parks has created a distinct musical legacy and influence through his own albums, and through his work for other artists and behind the scenes in the music industry.

Contents

[edit] Early career

As a child, Parks attended the American Boychoir School. He began his career as a child actor. Between 1953 and 1958 he worked steadily in films and television, including the 1956 movie The Swan (which starred Grace Kelly). He appeared as Ezio Pinza's son Andrew Bonino on the NBC television show Bonino. Parks had a recurring role as Little Tommy Manacotti (the kid from upstairs) on Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners.

Parks originally studied the Clarinet, but had moved to the piano before his study (where he majored in music) at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1960 to 1963.

Parks played in the folk group The Greenwood County Singers with his brother, Carson Parks.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Parks then worked as a studio musician and songwriter for Warner Brothers, writing hits for many artists such as Harpers Bizarre ("High Coin"). He became known for his brilliant lyrical wordplay and sharp imagery. He also performed on several important recordings by The Byrds, whose producer Terry Melcher was a close friend of Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson, and this connection led to the meeting of Parks and Wilson in 1965.

[edit] Smile

In 1966 Brian Wilson commissioned Parks to write lyrics for the Beach Boys' next LP, the ambitious but ill-fated Smile. Parks and Wilson collaborated on songs for the album. Members of the Beach Boys strongly opposed Smile, notably Mike Love who negatively called Parks' lyrics "Acid Alliteration".[citation needed] The combination of resistance from the group and their record company, and Wilson's growing mental health problems and spiralling drug use, led Parks to quit the project in early 1967. It was shelved a few months later. Several Wilson/Parks songs from the Smile sessions later appeared on the Beach Boys' replacement album Smiley Smile, including "Heroes and Villains" and "Wind Chimes." Other songs slated for Smile, including "Cabinessence" and "Surf's Up," were compiled by Carl Wilson and included on subsequent LPs.

Smile soon acquired legendary status as one of the great lost works of the rock era. In 2004, Brian Wilson, having returned to touring and recording, made a surprise announcement that he was going to re-record the work using his current touring band. He contacted Parks, and the duo finished incomplete parts of the album. Wilson and his band recorded and released "Smile" to enormous critical acclaim, earning Wilson a Grammy award for the Best Rock Instrumental Performance for the piece "Mrs O'Leary's Cow" (aka "Fire").

[edit] Solo Music Career

In 1968, Parks released his first solo project, the critically acclaimed album, Song Cycle, a "head trip" of orchestral textures and traditional Americana-meets-psychedelic pop song structures. Song Cycle established Parks' signature approach of mining and updating old American musical traditions, including ragtime and New Orleans-style jazz, with wry, literate and insightful lyrics, and is also notable for the inclusion of a cover of the Randy Newman song "Vine Street". Although universally praised by critics, the album sold extremely poorly.

Four years later, Parks' many travels to the West Indies inspired his second album, Discover America. Among other things, Discover America was a rich tribute to the islands of Trinidad and Tobago and the native Calypso music. Parks was clearly at home re-arranging and re-producing obscure songs and calypso classics. The laid-back tropical feel of the songs and production made Discover America a fan favorite. This direction was continued in the 1976 release Clang of the Yankee Reaper.

Parks' 1984 album Jump! featured songs adapted from the stories of Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit. Jump! solidified Parks' reputation as a pop songwriter with an intellectual yet innocent, upbeat sensibility. The album features a Broadway-style reduced orchestra plus Americana additions like banjo, mandolin, and steel drums. Parks composed the album but did not arrange or produce it. Martin Kibbee contributes to the lyrics.

Following Jump!, in 1989 Van Dyke Parks released the ambitious Tokyo Rose. This concept album focuses on the history of Japanese / U.S. relations from the 19th century to the "trade war" of the time of its release. The songs are pop tunes with an orchestral treatment including Japanese instruments and old Parks Caribbean favorites like steel drums. The listener journeys from old Tokyo to the Wild Wild west on songs such as "Tokyo Rose", "Cowboy", "Manzanar" and "White Chrysanthemum". The album did not sell well and was not widely critically noticed.

In 1995 Parks teamed up again with Brian Wilson to create the album Orange Crate Art. Parks wrote all of the songs on the album, except "This Town Goes Down At Sunset" and George Gershwin instrumental "Lullaby", and the vocals were done by Brian Wilson. Orange Crate Art is a harmonic tribute to the Southern California of the early 1900s, and a lyrical tribute to the beauty of Northern California. The songs are rich and lavishly orchestrated by Parks.

1998 saw the release of Parks first live album, Moonlighting: Live at the Ash Grove, and showed a love of the work of nineteenth century American pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The live ensemble features an all-star cast including Sid Page as concertmaster.

[edit] Work for other Artists

Parks has produced, arranged, or played on albums by artists including U2, Silverchair, Randy Newman, The Byrds, Cher, Rufus Wainwright, Sam Phillips, Ringo Starr, Frank Black, Keith Moon, Carly Simon, T-Bone Burnett, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Victoria Williams, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Case, Gordon Lightfoot, Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, Ry Cooder, Joanna Newsom, The Everly Brothers, The Thrills, Arthur Goldstein and Archie Blue, Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle, Scissor Sisters, Laurie Anderson, The Mighty Sparrow, The Esso Trinidad Tripoli Steelband, and Susanna Hoffs/Matthew Sweet's covers collection.

In 2006 he collaborated with singer Joanna Newsom on the orchestral arrangements for her sophomore album, Ys released 14th November 2006. He and David Mansfield are co-credited with the music for the 2006 mini-series Broken Trail.

He also composed orchestral arrangements for the fifth Silverchair album, Young Modern, on three songs (one confirmed to be "If You Keep Losing Sleep"). Johns and Parks travelled to Prague to have the orchestral arrangements recorded by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The album's title "Young Modern" is a reference to a nickname Parks has for Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns.

[edit] Music in film and television

Parks has also scored a number of motion pictures, including Sesame Street's Follow That Bird, Jack Nicholson's The Two Jakes and Goin' South, Casual Sex, Private Parts, Popeye (with Harry Nilsson ), and The Company. Disney also hired Parks to arrange Terry Gilkyson's Academy Award nominated song "The Bare Necessities" for the 1967 feature The Jungle Book. Parks had 4 songs featured in the 1986 direct-to-video Disney film, The Brave Little Toaster. He worked closely with David Newman on the film's score as well. In 1987 he also provided several complete songs for the direct-to-video Disney film The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars. He composed the theme song for Rudy Maxa's Savvy Traveler radio program on NPR.

The HBO Family series Harold and the Purple Crayon, is narrated by Sharon Stone with music and lyrics written and sung by Van Dyke Parks.

[edit] Other career

Though he has done so with far less frequency in recent years, Parks has occasionally taken small TV and film roles, including appearances in Popeye, The Two Jakes, and the Twin Peaks TV series.

Parks has also published a series of children's books ('Jump' (with Malcolm Jones), 'Jump Again' and 'Jump on Over'), based around the Br'er rabbit tales, illustrated by Barry Moser, and loosely accompanied by Parks' own album Jump!. The books also contain sheet music for selected songs from that album.

Another of Parks' enduring legacies is the pioneering audio/visual department he set up at Warner Bros. records in 1971. This department was the earliest of its kind to record videos to promote records.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Singles

  • "Number Nine / Do What You Wanta", 1966, single 45
  • "Come to the Sunshine / Farther Along", 1966, single 45
  • "Donovan's Colours, Pt. 1 / Donovan's Colours, Pt. 2" 1968" single 45 (under the pseudonym George Washington Brown)
  • "The Eagle and Me / On The Rolling Sea When Jesus Speak to Me" 1970, single 45
  • "Occapella / Ode to Tobago" 1972, single 45

[edit] Solo Albums

[edit] Compilation Albums

  • Songs on Hal Wilner's Kurt Weill Album, Warner Bros Records, 1985
  • "On the Rolling Sea When Jesus Speaks to Me" on On the Rolling Sea: A Tribute to Joseph Spence, charity tribute album 1994

[edit] Other Albums

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Books

  • Jump
  • Jump Again

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

  • Pirore, Dominic, Smile, Omnibus Press

[edit] External links

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