American Spring - Spring...Plus (Reissue, Remastered) (1972/1989)

This 1971 album by Brian Wilson's then wife Marilyn and her sister Diane Rovell (both ex-The Honeys) is a pure pop masterpiece, somewhere between the country pop of Bobbie Gentry and a less polished version of The Carpenters. And, of course, there's a generous hint of The Beach Boys too as it was co-produced - and many of the songs co-written - by Brian (other members also lend a hand here and there). Featured here is one of Brian's most brilliantly strange songs, the atmospheric and Moog-heavy Sweet Mountain, and there's also a gorgeous version of Dennis Wilson's Forever. On this edition there are also bonus tracks in the form of a couple of excellent post-LP singles (but sadly not the still unreleased track Snowflakes). So basically, it's a mystery that it's not better known, and a scandal that it's currently unavailable...

Marilyn Rovell married Wilson and became part of the extended family that constituted the Beach Boys operation during those years, from the mid-'60s onward. It was Diane Rovell who got her and her sister back into the singing business, while hanging around the Wilson kitchen with Marilyn and her brother-in-law. And the result was Spring, a harmony duo of the Wilson/Rovell siblings, produced by Brian and every bit as contemporary as any act working in 1970, doing lost treasures from the Carole King songbook and rewrites and rearrangements of Brian Wilson (and Mike Love) tunes (most magnificently, "This Whole World"), plus renditions of Rita Coolidge and Leon Russell repertoire and standards like "Tennessee Waltz." They didn't last past the one album and the sessions that went into it - the group wasn't a full-time or even an ongoing commitment, just something to have fun with and to see where it took them, which may be why it took them so far. The record, like the group, became one of the great lost chapters of the Beach Boys' post-psychedelic history, and a stunning musical document in its own right. Released by United Artists, it died on the vine and became a choice collectable within just a few years. Various CD reissues have enhanced its exposure and raised the demand for the recordings.