Hello folks, I talked at length last night with Jan Jansen, the fellow who runs the official website for Van Dyke Parks: http://www.songcycler.de (The Music Of Van Dyke Parks) This guy happens to live in the same town as I do – Berlin, Germany. We came up with a few unanswered questions:
I noticed that the biography at that website mentions his keyboard playing appears on a Grateful Dead album. (His list of studio credits was verified with Parks himself. He remembers playing with the Dead at some sessions). A cross-check with www.deaddisc.com didn’t give any answer as to which album he might have played on. Has anyone ever heard of that ? Maybe his keyboard parts just ended up not being used for the album. And number two: Jan mentioned a Beach Boys documentary commercially sold on VHS, including movie footage of the Beach Boys/Grateful Dead collaboration of 4/28/71 – only half a minute or so, but still: moving image of both bands on the same stage. He is certain in that but didn't have the video at hand. Can anyone confirm or deny? A great weekend to everybody. Hanno
