Brian Wilson started working on his country album called Cows in the Pasture album in 1970 after he called the Beach Boys’ former manager Fred Vail, to a Los Angeles hotel proposing the lead vocal position to him. Ironically, Frail had no singing experience but Wilson was bent on producing the song as he deemed fit.
They included 14 tracks in the album versions of Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely,” Hank Williams’ “You Win Again,” and Burt Bacharach’s “There’s Always Something There to Remind Me” as a part. Sadly, Wilson lost interest in its continuation due to a tumultuous personal life at the time.
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Vail recalled his conversation with Wilson during an interview with Rolling Stone, saying he asked Wilson if he had “written any country songs” and he responded in the negative. “I said, ‘Do you have any idea who you’d like to use as musicians?’ He said, ‘Well, no. I’ve only worked with the Wrecking Crew for the most part. You find the songs. You select the musicians,” Vail told the outlet. “We’ll go into Wally Heider’s Studio. We’ll start working on the album.”
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Vail recorded scratch vocals back then and got the tapes a decade back when the Beach Boys’ team found them unlabelled in their studio. A Nashville music businessman named Sam Parker reached out to Vail to finish the album and involve guest vocalists as well. “The idea was to take this kind of Johnny Cash approach. Late in his career, when he didn’t have the twang he used to have, they reinvented his voice with a sort of spoken-work approach. That’s sort of what Fred is doing in the studio,” Sam explained.
‘Cows in the Pasture’ comes out next year
Cows in the Pasture is set for release next year alongside a four-part docu-series on Vail’s life. On learning of the update, Wilson expressed how proud he is of his former partner. “Fred always loved country music, and he was a big rodeo guy,” he said. “He’s a hell of a guy, one hell of a promoter, and I’m glad his album is coming out.”
Vail was only in high school when he would help book shows for The Beach Boys and then sing to the local country station during the group’s airport pickups, hence why Wilson thought him fit for the job. “I was really, really proud of this record, and even though it sat in the can for decades, literally, I always was thinking, ‘Man, that’d be great to get back into the studio and finish this thing.’ And now that’s happening,” Vail gushed.