Taking a look at the list of studio albums by The Beach Boys from “Pet Sounds” to the early 1970s, you can see that, after “Pet Sounds” topped the chart in the UK, they declined in their homeland America (at least in terms of chart success), while they still sustained high popularity in the UK.
Of course, it's not really fair to compare just by chart success, but after “Pet Sounds”, the widely acknowledged masterpiece, The Beach Boys failed to renew their public image of a surf rock band and ended up being considered outdated in the US, whereas in the UK, after the shock of “Pet Sounds” and the single “Good Vibrations(Capitol/1966.10/US #1 UK #1)”, they consolidated their reputation as progressive pop band.
There are abundant followers of The Beach Boys in the UK: Tony Rivers And The Castaways (a band considered to be “British Beach Boys”), Billy Nicholls (who released the album “Would You Believe”, “an answer to Pet Sounds from the UK”) and Roy Wood (“Brian Wilson of the UK”), to name a few. Among them, however, I reckon that Adrian Baker is a unique figure, in that he eventually became an actual member of The Beach Boys.
On January 18, 1951, Adrian Baker was born in London. In later 1960s, he became a member of The Pebbles, which was a pop band in Essex formed in 1966 by a singer Brian Johnson, playing mainly in college circuits (members of the band, apart from Brian, varied from time to time). In '68, with Adrian Baker on lead guitar, the band released two singles, “Peter The Painter Man” and “C'Mon Marianne”, from EMI. Around this time, the band shifted to harmony-heavy style, to accommodate Adrian's musical preference.
By the time Roy Morgan (drums) joined the band in 1969, their activities had expanded to the whole UK, and they released three singles with songwriting and production by Ken Howard/Alan Blaikley (who had contributed to Dave Dee Group, Honeycombs, The Herd and Lulu). The first single, “Stand Up And Be Counted(Deram/1970.7)”, charted in Australia and New Zealand, but the subsequent singles, “Goodnight Ma (Don't Turn The Light On) (Parlophone/1971.4)” and “First Time Loving (Sadness of A Summer's Afternoon)/Party” (Parlophone/1971.10, the B-side was written by Adrian) had no impact, in spite of push by pirate radio stations, such as Radio Luxemburg and Radio Caroline.
Although they continued to record at BBC and playing at venues, in the era of glam rock and progressive rock, they couldn't get any contract at all. In the summer of 1972, Johnson, with then-band member Martin Kemp (vocals), released a Howard/Blaikley single “This One's For You (With Dedicaton)/This One's For You (Without Dedication)”, from Jonathan King's UK label under the alias “Mark and John”. However, pirate radio stations, who were big supporters of the band, had already been combated by the government by then, and this ended up being the last single of The Pebbles.
In 1974, four members of The Pebbles (except Adrian Baker and Roy Morgan) released two singles, “Little Boy Blue/Tragedy Queen” and “Good Time Funny/Who D'ya Think You Fooling” at the Cube Records under the name “Angel”, with the songwriting and production by Andy Scott And Micky Tucker of the Londoner glam rock band Sweet, with whom they had played together in the 1960s. “Little Boy Blues” is a catchy glam rock tune with harmonies in the style of Sweet, a la “The Ballroom Blitz”. “Good Time Funny” is notable, in that Sweet themselves later went on to re-record the song with a different title, “Fox On The Run”, which turned out to be a huge hit in 1975. Angel soon disbanded later in 1974.
Having seen his ex-bandmates' activities, Adrian released this solo album, “Into A Dream”, from Magnet in 1975, with full backup by Roy Morgan (drums/percussion), ex-member of the Pebbles, as the arranger and co-producer. (In 1974, Adrian and Roy had put out the library album “Disco Beat”, from the label Studio G) Except for the smash hit “Sherry” (a Four Seasons single written by Robert Gaudio) and “I Feel Fine” (written by Lennon-McCartney), the songs are all written by Baker/Morgan. It's an Adrian Baker album in name, but it's virtually a collaborative work with Morgan, just as “Disco Beat” from the previous year.
On this album, Adrian utilized his versatility, playing lead guitar, bass, clavinet, piano, organ, mellotron, glockenspiel and singing all the vocal parts himself. As guests, Glen LeFleur(drums), Larry Steele(clarinet), Delisle Harper(bass) and Bobby Stignac(conga) from British soul-funk band Gonzalez and Ken Freeman(string synthesizer) joined the recordings. The brass arrangement is written by Gerry Shury who had written for numerous UK disco-pop records, such as "Sugar Baby Love" by The Rubettes, and the ones by Biddu Orchestra, Real Thing and Supercharge.
With homage to vocal groups Adrian had been influenced (such as The Beach Boys, Four Seasons and Little Anthony and The Imperials) and nod to contemporary soul/disco-pop musical style, you can see the artists' satisfaction with the album, where they did everything they wanted to do - this is a loveable listen.
In 1979, Adrian and Roy made yet another library album “Voices In Harmony”, from Bruton Records. The band "Gidea Park", with Adrian as the leader, released “Beach Boys Gold”, a medley of Beach Boys' songs, from Stone in 1978, then performed on “Top of the Pops” on October 28, 1978. Using the same method as Adrian, “Shocking Beatles '45” by Stars On 45 became a big hit around the world two years later in 1981. In the same year, Gidea Park released the album “Gidea Park” from Polo label, with Beach Boys medley on Side 1 and Four Seasons Medley on the flip side. Adrian went on further to record solo albums, such as a library album “Industrial Video (Bruton Music/'83)” and the self-released “ABCD ('86)”.
Adrian joined the touring band of The Beach Boys briefly as the guitarist and falsetto singer in 1981, with Mike Love recognizing his talent. In 1983, when The Beach Boys were in the low activity phase with Brian Wilson leaving the tour, he took part in Mike and Dean, a duo Mike formed with Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean, and Endless Summer Beach Band, which stemmed from Mike's backing band. In 1992, Adrian eventually became the regular member of The Beach Boys on the album “Summer In Paradise”, on which Mike took the initiative (he was later replaced by Matt Jardine, but soon came back and stayed in the band until 2004.)
Mike's 1996 solo album “Catch A Wave” is recorded as his side project “California Beach Band” for promotion, where Mike sang leads over the backing tracks Adrian had recorded. Adrian also appears to have played a central role in Mike's unreleased album “Mike Love Not War”.
References: Sinko Music “The Beach Boys Complete: Revised Edition”
2017.6 Masaru Konishi
