Recording “Good Vibrations” was a famously complex and lengthy process, and Hal Blaine’s session notes reflect this. He remembered it as one of the great Beach Boys hits, noting, “this was a song that took so many sessions I don’t know if we even knew how many.” Brian Wilson’s meticulous production meant that sometimes sessions were incredibly short, with Blaine recalling, “some days we’d go in and run 4 bars and Brian would say ‘thanks everybody’ and send us home.” This iterative approach, while demanding, ultimately contributed to the song’s groundbreaking sound and success.
From the session logs
Hal Blaine’s Drumming on “Good Vibrations”
Hal Blaine played drums on The Beach Boys’ 1966 hit “Good Vibrations.”
“This was a song that took so many sessions I don’t know if we even knew how many.”
— Hal Blaine
Source: Hal Blaine’s own session database, in his words.
More from the archive: ask anything about Hal — who he recorded with, the sessions, the stories — at halblaine.com, the archive of 5,829 of his session memories.
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