The buzz around the re-release of Pacific Ocean Blue is reaching a crescendo with a number of press releases that seem to indicate that it is really happening and any official barriers to the re-release have now been surmounted. Extra tracks recorded for the un-released solo album Bambu (note different spelling to what we all expected before) are also expected to be added.
Here is a press release I was sent
A LONG OUT-OF-PRINT ‘BURIED TREASURE’RETURNS IN A DELUXE PACKAGE!Â
BEACH BOY DENNIS WILSON’s
PACIFIC
OCEANÂ BLUE: Â LEGACY EDITIONÂ Â
“Everything that I am or will ever be is in the music. If you want to know me, just listen.â€Â – Dennis WilsonÂ
30th anniversary 2-CD set includes (disc one) original 12-song album plus previously unreleased bonus tracks, and (disc two) additional rare tracks,including later sessions for the unfinished follow-up Bambu album Arrives in stores May 13, 2008, on Caribou/Epic/LegacyÂ
           Eternal Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s 1977 solo album, the first solo album by any Beach Boy – out-of-print and unobtainable for more than a decade except as a pricey collectors item or bootleg – will return to circulation on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, and the 25th anniversary of its creator’s untimely death in 1983, at age 39. The double-CD PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE: LEGACY EDITION arrives in stores May 13th on Caribou/Epic/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINÂMENT. A vinyl edition of the LP will also be released at the same time, on the Sundazed label.
           As of this writing, complete component details of the PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE: LEGACY EDITION package are still being finalized, as the tape vaults of the Beach Boys and Caribou Records continue to be combed for new treasure. Initial plans call for disc one to include the original 12-song LP sequence: 1. River Song • 2. What’s Wrong • 3. Moonshine • 4. Friday Night • 5. Dreamer • 6. Thoughts of You • 7. Time • 8. You and I • 9.
Pacific Ocean Blue • 10. Farewell My Friend • 11. Rainbows • 12. End of the Show.
 In addition, disc one will contain previously unreleased bonus tracks that have never appeared on any bootleg product.
           Disc two of PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE: LEGACY EDITION will be a godsend to Dennis Wilson and Beach Boys devotees around the world – especially those who have been aware of the Bambu album he had hoped to release as a follow-up, but never completed. The tape archive is the source for over a dozen bonus tracks, all previously unreleased, from the original Pacific Ocean Blue and Bambu sessions. Bambu has been referenced as “Bamboo†in numerous articles on Dennis and the Beach Boys, but paperwork that accompanied the sessions now reveals the artist always intended for the album to be titled Bambu.
           All unreleased tracks have been mixed by Wilson’s original engineer John Hanlon (the Beach Boys; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Jayhawks; R.E.M; Gillian Welch) with Gregg Jakobson (original co-producer and co-writer) and Jim Guercio (producer and owner of Caribou Records).
           Liner notes for PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE: LEGACY EDITION will come from a variety of Beach Boys scholars. David Leaf is the author of the Brian Wilson biography
Beach Boys and the California Myth (1978), and the follow-up, Beach Boys: Spirit of America (1985). He has annotated nearly 30 Beach Boys-related reissue projects, including the Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of the Beach Boys (1993) and The Pet Sounds Sessions (1997) box sets, which he co-produced. Leaf is also an award-winning television producer, director and writer of more than 50 entertainment-related biographies and specials, including An-All Star Tribute To Brian Wilson (TNT, 2001), and Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of SMiLE (Showtime, 2004). Additional essays will feature by Jon Stebbins (author of Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy), Mojo magazine contributing editor Ben Edmonds, and David Beard (editor of the Beach Boys fanzine, Endless Summer Quarterly).
           The set’s full-color booklet will include extensive discographic information and memorabilia. Among these are the images taken for the original LP package by photoÂgrapher and lifelong friend Dean Torrence (of Jan & Dean), thought for decades to be lost but later uncovered in the Sony Music archives.
           Long considered one of the Rosetta Stones of Beach Boys iconography, Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue has been a collectors item virtually since the day it was released. The LP edition, although it sold as well as any Beach Boys title at the end of the 1970s, was out-of-print in the catalog by the early ’80s, when the group’s Caribou Records deal with Epic ran out.Â
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. Thanks, Heather!
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