Van Dyke Parks

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Van Dyke Parks (2010)

Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943 in Hattiesburg , Mississippi ) is an American musician , composer , songwriter , record producer , arranger and actor .

biography

Van Dyke Parks was born into a wealthy family. As a child he appeared in Hollywood films, for example in 1956 in The Swan with Grace Kelly. He was also represented as Peter in a 1958 Heidi film ( A Gift for Heidi ). The gifted boy also learned to play the piano.

Musical career

In the early 1960s, Parks played with his brother Carson in the folk band The Greenwood County Singers . He moved to Los Angeles, where he worked first as a studio musician and later as a lyricist and composer for Warner Bros. His first assignment was the arrangement of the Sherman Brothers -Liedes The Bare Necessities , the park in 1963 for an early version of the Disney film The Jungle Book made . Parks had a lyrical streak and knew how to write clever and, above all, complex text structures. This made him very well known in insider circles. Parks worked as a studio musician on some of the Byrds' recordings . The producer of the Byrds, Terry Melcher , had good contacts with the Beach Boys and introduced Parks to their musical head, Brian Wilson , in 1965 .

1966 hired Brian Wilson Parks as a copywriter for his new project entitled Smile (see Brian Wilson presents Smile ). The album was not completed, however, among other things because the Beach Boys singer Mike Love criticized the lyrics by Parks. Over time, only individual pieces from the extensive work have been released on various Beach Boys records. Here Van Dyke Parks was already at the height of his ability as a songwriter with surreal and associative-pictorial texts. The lyrics to Heroes and Villains or Surf's Up can be seen as examples of this style. For many years there have been legends about Smile . In 2003, Wilson finally contacted Parks to finally finish the album, and they completed the work. In October 2004, Wilson recorded the album with his band and released it. The album became a worldwide success and at the same time the greatest commercial success for Van Dyke Parks.

Solo albums

In 1967 Parks recorded his first solo album, Song Cycle . With its peculiar arrangements and highly complex lyrics, the album found so few buyers that Warner Brothers finally gave the records away. The 1968 debut album Randy Newmans, produced by Parks, suffered a similar fate : The album was praised by critics, but ignored by the public. However, Van Dyke Parks became so well known in the music scene that he was soon working for other stars as a session musician, arranger and producer.

On his second record, Discover America, Parks indulged in Hollywood sounds. He appears as a gentle revolutionary who looks at America from the perspective of a foreigner - to ask the question: "How does a person imagine America whose country has been colonized from America?" For most of the tracks on this album, Parks' wife is Durrie Parks falsely stated as the composer so that the creators would receive royalties: Since they did not belong to the American collecting society, the money raised was paid into a public trust account and passed on to them. However, all of the songs on the album were adapted and arranged by Van Dyke Parks. This record was not a success either.

His next record, Clang of the Yankee Reaper, was perhaps his most accessible. On it was a brass version of the chorale A solid castle is our God from Luther (erroneously referred to as Johann Pachelbel's canon ). The sales figures remained meager. With his rather thin, bright voice, Parks certainly didn't have the potential of a great singer. That's why guests like Danny Hutton or Kathy Dalton often took over the vocals on the following albums.

Other works

In the meantime, Parks took over the new department “Visual Arts” at the record company Warner Brothers, which was supposed to develop concepts to put the company's artists “in the right light”. Parks produced music videos for Ry Cooder or the "Esso Trinidad Steel Band" here - long before MTV .

Jump! was the name of the next orchestrated work in 1984, which set the story cycle "Uncle Remus" by Joel Chandler Harris , which is widely known in America, to music . An illustrated book edition of the stories adapted by Van Dyke Parks appeared in three volumes as Jump! - The Adventures of Brer Rabbit (1986), Jump Again! - More Adventures of Brer Rabbit (1987) and Jump On Over! - The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and His Family (1989).

After a break of several years, Toyko Rose followed in 1989 , an album on the Japanese-American relationship in the 20th century. It followed a long time without his own publications, because Parks earned his living with studio work and especially with film soundtracks. It was there that he could best implement his unusual musical ideas. Parks has worked as producer and arranger for U2 , Sam Phillips , Ringo Starr , Silverchair , Carly Simon , T-Bone Burnett , Toad the Wet Sprocket , Victoria Williams , Bonnie Raitt , Gordon Lightfoot , Fiona Apple , The Everly Brothers , Sheryl Crow, among others , Bruce Springsteen , Joanna Newsom ; the Beach Boys also used his services in the following decades.

Another collaboration with Brian Wilson came about in 1995. The result was the album Orange Crate Art . It varied the West Coast sound with the sophisticated and unusual arrangements and complex texts typical of Van Dyke Parks.

In 1998 he released the live album Moonlighting: Live at the Ash Grove . The recordings were made at a concert on September 7, 1996 at the Ash Grove Club in Los Angeles, where Parks performed with a band and a string group. Pieces from his entire career can be found here in new arrangements, supplemented by new material.

Parks was last seen in Germany in 2003 at the RuhrTriennale Festival together with Loudon Wainwright III .

In 2007 Parks worked again with Brian Wilson on Wilson's new studio album That Lucky Old Sun (A Narrative) , which premiered in London in September 2007.

In 2011, Parks started his own record company, Bananastan. So far 6 singles and 3 CDs have been released.

Film music

Furthermore, Van Dyke Parks has made a name for himself as the composer of numerous soundtracks in Hollywood with films such as:

1978 Goin ( Goin 'South ) with Jack Nicholson , 1986 Club Paradise with Robin Williams , 1990 The Two Jakes - The Two Jakes again with Jack Nicholson in the character role as private investigator JJ Gittes known from Roman Polański's film Chinatown . 1995 Wild Bill with Jeff Bridges , 1997 Private Parts with Howard Stern , 2003 The Company - Das Ensemble with Neve Campbell , or 2007 Dark Matter with Meryl Streep .

Discography

Singles

  • 1966: Number Nine / Do What You Wanta
  • 1966: Come to the Sunshine / Farther Along
  • 1968: Donovan's Colors, Pt. 1 / Donovan's Colors, Pt. 2
  • 1970: The Eagle and Me / On The Rolling Sea When Jesus Speak to Me
  • 1972: Occapella / Ode to Tobago
  • 1972: John Jones / Riverboat
  • 1975: Cannon in D / Tribute To Spree
  • 1984: Opportunity for Two / Many a Mile to Go
  • 2011: Wall Street / Money Is King
  • 2011: Dreaming of Paris / Wedding in Madagascar
  • 2011: Hold Back Time / Amazing Grace (Variations)
  • 2011: Black Gold / Aquarium
  • 2012: Missin 'Missipi / The Parting Hand (Variations)
  • 2012: The All Golden / Sassafrass
  • 2014: I'm History / Charm School

Studio albums

  • 1968: Song Cycle
  • 1972: Discover America
  • 1976: Clang of the Yankee Reaper
  • 1984: Jump!
  • 1989: Tokyo Rose
  • 2013: Songs Cycled

Live album

  • 1998: Moonlighting: Live at the Ash Grove

Compilations

  • 1996: Idiosyncratic Path - The Best of Van Dyke Parks
  • 2011: Arrangements: Volume 1
  • 2013: Super Chief: Music for the Silver Screen

Collaborations

Filmography (selection)

movie theater

watch TV

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Henderson: Song Cycle / Van Dyke Park. Continuum, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-2917-9 , p. 37. On the background also Jerry Zolten: The Beatles as Recording Artists. In: Kenneth Womack (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-86965-2 , pp. 33-61, here p. 35.
  2. ^ Films with the music of Van Dyke Parks in the two thousand and one film dictionary
personal data
SURNAME Parks, Van Dyke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician, composer, songwriter, record producer, arranger, and actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Hattiesburg , Mississippi