KOMA Radio Spot

August (Brian Wilson)

Music & Lyrics: Brian Wilson
Arrangement: Brian Wilson

Producer: Brian Wilson
Engineers: unknown

Personnel:
Brian Wilson – harmony vocals
Bruce Johnston – harmony vocals

Recorded to 1″ 8-track:
March 24, 1966 / Columbia Recording Studios – Studio A

Initial Release:
1993 Stereo Mix – Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys (Capitol Records, 1993)
2016 Stereo Mix – Graduation Day 1966: Live at the University of Michigan (Capitol Records, 1993)

Vocal Guide
– harmony: Brian>Bruce>Brian>Bruce>Brian>Bruce

 

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Back in early 1963, Brian composed a short a cappella harmony ident for the radio station KOMA, of Oklahoma City. What better way to curry favor with the jockeys? Hell, beyond airplay advancement, Brian was a huge radio worshipper, and probably just would’ve been thrilled to hear his work integrated into a show he liked.

The piece consisted only of the words “Wonderful KOMA,” beginning with two voices in octaves and blooming out to six parts, each syllable ushering in a new chord, steeped in lush modern harmony. Around February that year, Brian and Bob Norberg recorded two takes of the arrangement in their Crenshaw Boulevard apartment. By bouncing back and forth between the two adjacents channels on a ¼” two-track reel, Brian sang all six of the parts as Bob ran the gear, routing the mic through a guitar amplifier for a spring reverb effect.

The Beach Boys recorded real studio versions of this arrangement at Western 3 on October 25, 1963, but altered for various other stations. Intending to pass them out with “Little Saint Nick” (which seems to have been a scheme of Murry’s), the group double-tracked custom a cappella idents for KFWB, KEWB, KDWB, KAYA, and disc jockey Murray the K. The first three were adaptations of the old standard “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” but the latter two used variations of Brian’s KOMA arrangement, instead changing the words to “Wonderful KAYA” and “You’re listening to Murray the K.” A little bit different – they start on a unison melody line and end up at five parts – but for the most part the same harmony structure, stacked Brian, Al, Carl, Dennis, Mike. These idents were pressed to a test dub opposite an early mix of “Little Saint Nick,” though it is unclear if they were ever submitted to the stations or aired.

Little ideas of Brian’s have a strange way of coming back around. In the middle of the Pet Sounds sessions, two and a half years later, something compelled the head honcho Beach Boy to go into Columbia Studios and record a new version of that same harmony workout. This time, “Wonderful KOMA,” back to the station he’d originally created it for.

On Thursday, March 24, 1966, wedged between two “Here Today” sessions, the new “K.O.M.A. Radio Spot” (as titled on the track sheet) was committed onto the end of the reel containing all of the eight-track Pet Sounds material. Handwriting and brief tape chatter suggest Bill Brittan was one of the engineers, maybe with Ralph Valentin. It isn’t known if the Beach Boys recorded anything else that day.

This version almost returned to the One Freshmen stacking approach of the early apartment demo, albeit with the addition of a useful guy Brian didn’t know back then: Bruce Johnston. He and Brian sang all of the parts, three each in a revised version of Brian’s original six-voice vocal arrangement, doubled to fill up six of the eight tracks.

For Bruce, this would’ve been a more familiar experience than singing in a harmony quintet or sextet, since his whole background in the CBS trenches had been as one half of several dense, multitracked vocal arrangements on records by the Rip Chords and Bruce & Terry. Given his street cred, it makes sense that Brian would select Bruce to tackle this extracurricular project with him.

The duo started with the highest two vocal lines on track 2 – Brian on top, then Bruce – which they doubled on track 3. Brian counted them in; the basic master appears to have been a first take, unless rewinding occurred to save tape. The luxurious vacuum tubes and limiters in Columbia’s arsenal pump the vocals up with a thick, professional sheen.

Next, Brian and Bruce sang the lowest parts, doubled onto tracks 5 and 6. Brian took on a fairly comfortable baritone line here, but Bruce sings a growly bass undercarriage to the whole arrangement that stoops to an F2, quite out of character, at least for the way his voice was usually used within the Beach Boys. Bruce proves an able deep voice here, and he had sung a bass-ish vocal hook in the Rip Chords’ smash “Hey Little Cobra,” self-described as “like Pee-wee Herman singing bass.”

Lastly, the middle parts were added onto tracks 7 and 8, these notes only coming in at “KOMA.” As before, Brian took on the higher of the voices with Bruce below.

At the end, once all six harmony parts are on tape, one of the engineers can be heard pushing the talkback and uttering, “Whoa, beautiful.”

“Like it?” asks Brian.

No mixdown of 1966 vintage is known to exist, though it’s quite likely that Brian would’ve dubbed the session’s work to mono and cut some discs for himself. Nothing further is known; we have no evidence that this ident aired on the radio or that Brian submitted it to the station.

 

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Sources

Based on original research by John Brode, Will Crerar, Joshilyn Hoisington and Craig Slowinski.

Tapes and documentation from Capitol Records and Brother Records.