Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks ( born January 3, 1943 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, United States) is a successful musician, composer, songwriter, music producer, arranger and actor.
- 3.1 Cinema
- 3.2 television
Biography
Van Dyke Parks was born into a wealthy family. Even as a child he appeared in Hollywood films, he played in the 1956 film The Swan with Grace Kelly. He was also represented in 1958 in a Heidi film (A Gift for Heidi ) as Peter. Furthermore, the highly talented boy learned to play the piano.
Musical career
In the early 1960s played with his brother Carson Parks 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 songwriter for Warner Bros. parks had a lyrical vein and knew how to write clever and especially complex text structures. This made him very well known in insider circles. Parks worked on some recordings of the Byrds as a studio musician. The producer of the Byrds, Terry Melcher, had good contacts with the Beach Boys and made parks in 1965 with their musical head, Brian Wilson, known.
In 1966 undertook Brian Wilson Park as a copywriter for his new project titled Smile ( see Brian Wilson presents Smile). The album was never completed, inter alia, mainly because the singer of the Beach Boys, Mike Love, the lyrics of parks criticized. From the extensive work of only a few pieces have been published on various plates of the Beach Boys over time. Here, Van Dyke Parks was already at the height of his abilities as a lyricist of songs with surreal and associative and pictorial texts. The lyrics to Heroes and Villains or Surf's Up may be regarded as an example of this style. Many years legends grew up around Smile. 2003 Wilson had the idea to finally finish the album, so he contacted Van Dyke Parks, and they began to complete the work. In October 2004, Wilson took on the completed album with his band and released it. The album was a worldwide success and at the same time also the biggest commercial success for Van Dyke Parks.
Solo albums
1967, the park on his first solo album Song Cycle. With its peculiar arrangements and the most complex texts, however, the album took so few buyers that Warner Brothers finally gave away the plates. The same fate was told in 1968, the debut album by Randy Newman, which was produced by Van Dyke Parks.
The critics praised the album, the audience ignored it. However, Van Dyke Parks was so well known in the music scene, he soon worked for other stars as a session musician, arranger and producer.
On his second plate Parks Discover America reveled in Hollywood sounds. It occurs as a gentle revolutionary who viewed this album America through the eyes of a foreigner. True to the motto: " How does a person presents America, whose country was colonized from America? " On most attributions of this album is Van Dyke Parks ' wife Durrie Parks indicated as a composer. The works, however, were not composed by her. It is to calypso compositions. As their creator no members of the American collecting society were, however, Durrie Parks was employed as a composer, so that the composer received royalties. The money was paid into a publicly accessible escrow account and passed on to the composer. All songs on the album were, however, adapted and arranged by Van Dyke Parks.
But this record was not a success. His next work Clang of the Yankee Reaper was perhaps the most accessible of all his records. It was among other things a brass version of the hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God to hear of Luther (erroneously referred to as canon by Johann Pachelbel ). But that did not help the sales figures on the jumps. With its rather thin, clear voice Parks possessed not sure about the potential of a great singer. Therefore took on the following albums often guests like Danny Hutton or Kathy Dalton singing.
Other works
In the meantime, took over the park by the record company Warner Brothers, the new department " Visual Arts", which was to develop concepts, make up artist of the company " the right light " to. Parks produced here - long before MTV - Music video for Ry Cooder or the " Esso Trinidad Steel Band ".
Jump! was 1984, the next orchestrated work which set to music the widely known in America story cycle "Uncle Remus " by Joel Chandler Harris. An illustrated edition of the adapted by Van Dyke Parks stories 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 several years break followed in 1989 Toyko Rose, an album that had the Japanese- American relationship in the 20th century on the topic. There was a long time without their own publications, as Parks earned his money with studio work and especially with movie soundtracks. There he could best realize his unusual musical ideas. As a producer and arranger worked parks including 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, Bruce Springsteen, Joanna Newsom; the Beach Boys attacked in the following decades back on his services.
Another collaboration with Brian Wilson came in 1995. The result was the album Orange Crate Art It varied the West Coast sound with the typical Van Dyke Parks sophisticated and unusual arrangements and complex texts.
In 1998, he released the live album Moonlighting: Live at the Ash Grove. The pictures were taken at a concert on September 7, 1996 at the "Ash Grove Club" in Los Angeles, where farms with a band and a string section occurred. Pieces from throughout his career can be found here in new arrangements, supplemented by new material.
In Germany, the park was last seen in 2003 at the Festival Ruhr Triennale together with Loudon Wainwright III.
2007 Van Dyke Parks began to work again with Brian Wilson. They worked together at Wilson's new studio album That Lucky Old Sun (A Narrative ), which premiered in September 2007 in London.
2011 Parks founded his own record label Banana Stan. There have been published 6 singles and 3 CDs.
Film Music
In addition, Van Dyke Parks has established itself as a composer of numerous soundtracks made a name in Hollywood with films such as:
1978 Goin ( Goin 'South ) Jack Nicholson, 1986 Club Paradise ( Club Paradise ) with Robin Williams, 1990 The trail leads back - The Two Jakes ( The Two Jakes ) again with Jack Nicholson in the character role as a private detective JJ Gittes known from Roman Polanski's Chinatown. 1995 Wild Bill (Wild Bill) with Jeff Bridges, 1997 Private Parts ( Private Parts ) with Howard Stern, 2003 The Company - The Ensemble (The Company) with Neve Campbell, or 2007 Dark Matter ( Dark Matter ) with Meryl Streep.
Discography
Filmography (selection)
Cinema
TV
- 2001: The Time of the Butterflies (In the Time of the Butterflies )
- 2001: Rated ' Me Nicholas ( Call Me Claus)