The Castaways-Girl Don't Tell Me 1966

[cudaj2]

Goddamn! Heavy metal Beach Boys and Brilliant! Thanks for posting and great girl back up singers to!

[naderchaser]

To "garageband66"......who is the girl in the dark hair with dark eyes that spins 360 degrees in this vid? Just curious.....where did that pic come from?? Thanks... BTW..does anybody else kind of hear that this version, in some of the chord differences from the original Beach Boy song....kind of what I would describe as a "haunting" quality to it? Hard to explain. It's cool to me, but kind of....weird I'm saying?? Joel in Tucson

[garageband66]

@naderchaser Just a random picture i got from my flickr account. I think she was a response to college girl days or something like that. I usually do random searches by lyrics in a song and see what pops up and she did. Don't get to put these up much and very rarely to I get to respond to comments. There is another girl that spins at the end and she is a famous page3 model Keeley Hazell.

[lovemetu]

@garageband66

I used to watch this group when I was a teenager in the mid sixties, they were known then as ''Tony Rivers and the Castaways''

They used to play at Brays Grove school youth club in Harlow ,Essex. They were great live and used to mainly do the Beach Boys and Four Seasons songs !!

[lovemetu]

@garageband66

Also Tony Rivers went onto ''Harmony Grass'' not Harmony Gold.

Lovely to hear them again after all this time !!

[Serendiphany]

Good stuff, Maynard, Mikey liks it!

[thecountofbasie]

New to me...prefer the Beach Boys, but this is a fine version...thanks for the share

[h8jf1]

Thanks for this. My fav BB song done perhaps even better. A touch of the 4 Seasons at the end. But, missing Brian Wilson. Still this is an excellent version and thanks for posting.

[milowent]

@h8jf1 no joke on the four seasons nod at the end ...

[bellaimages]

Love the pictures of all these gorgeous women! Yummy!

The song is the bomb too!

[eoj2495]

Soundz like the beach boyz played at the wrong speed!!! :{

But....Still like 'em..

[naderchaser]

Surfed in on a whim. I've never heard this version before....and really dig it! Funny how something recorded in around '66 can be NEW to somebody...and move 'em from deep inside and give so much enjoyment. Pretty weird concept, if you care to think about it. And as for the ladies in the vid.....whew! Nicely done.  Joel in Tucson

[denniswilsonfan]

nice version, but unlike alot of people I like the beach boys singing beach boy songs.

[susub75]

@davidparadais Sí, es de Brian Wilson e hoy es el cumple de Brian Wilson (el 20 de junio). Amo Brian Wilson y amo tambien su musica.

[Dirojan8]

It's unsusual for The Beachboys to release a record with just a single lead voice instead of the mult-harmonies found on the other records. Tony RIvers and the Castaways version sure makes up for thier mistake. It Rocks!!

[hatchibombatar]

I do think the faster tempo improves the song - and the castaways give it a bit more energy than the BBs.

[SIGNALSTAT]

Cool song love the hot women even better.

[onezitman]

liar liar castaways are from minnesota..great post

[kinksbeatlesstones]

Why does this song make me think of The Dandy Warhols? I love all the 60's revisionist bands that were influenced by this band and others

[DSVOP]

Cool share, dude...I love this tune, and Tony Rivers deserves a Star on an American broadwalk.

Love and Peace, Hugs and Stuff, Keep The Faith.:-)

[utahstgeorge1]

all i can say is thanks for the great post i really mean it

[Libido229]

Wow this surpasses the original and that"s nothing modest. LIked the spinning bimbo at the end .

[garageband66]

That bimbo is someone's wife/mother. Just so you know. Thanks for viewing.

[spacepatrolman]

The lead vocals isnt as good as carls original but they did a good job with pseudo beach boy background vocal parts then they start quoting the 4 seasons falsetto to walk like a man like the beach boys did on sufers rule .

[plfdjack]

NICE version!

[garageband66]

Carl Wilson heard this version before its release and he was quite thrilled according to Tony Rivers.

[loveoldsongs]

@garageband66 This song reminds me a lot of "Salt Lake City" by the Beach Boys! I loved the "SLC" song, because I live in UT anyway. We had just moved there when I first heard that song, and there was a reference to Lagoon in it! Lagoon is a big amusement park that is located right outside of SLC, and the Beach Boys apparently played there at one time. So the song made a real nice tribute to the state and by extension, our amusement park!

[manluvsthe60s]

they did more than liar liar!!! They do a great job on this one!!!

[garageband66]

Wrong Castaways my friend.

[manluvsthe60s]

were these castaways the ones who did the original Gilligans Island theme song from the 1st season? I only know of two Castaways groups. Let me know please. thanks my friend

[garageband66]

I thought a folk group did the original version of the TV theme song. There are the LA Castaways that did Liar, Liar and Tony Rivers and the Castaways from the UK.

[finylvinyl66]

Castaways were from Minnesota.

[garageband66]

Not the same band.

[dmullsr]

The Gilligan's Island theme 1st season was by the Wellingtons

[MrMaxxmo]

@manluvsthe60s A three-man folk group called "The Wellingtons"sang the theme for Gilligan's Island....

[userdan54]

Excellent cover. To their credit, Tony Rivers and The Castaways provide a lush, suburban Southern California sound to 'Girl, Don't Tell Me'. However, it does make one wonder how this gem would have sounded if Brian Wilson had decided to polish it into a 45 single. Compare 'Help Me Ronda' on The Beach Boys Today to 'Help Me, Rhonda' the #1 hit. Still, The Castaways version sounds very all-American. Not a bad feat for a British band.

[garageband66]

True it would have been nice (no pun intended) to see what Brian could have done to improve on the original but honestly I think it would have been close to this.

[caraphyllis]

Love this! Very creative, rocking cover.

[garageband66]

Yes it is/was.

[regentv980]

not bad,infact quite good,but not a patch on Carl

[garageband66]

No The Beach Boys version is up there but this one is very striking vocally.

[tonyrivers]

Hi regentv980- interesting comments-quite good!!!

Well -- back in about '66-Carl Wilson asked me to let him hear our version so I took the record to his hotel played it for him in his room- he loved it-good enough for me!!!

TR

[tonyrivers]

One other point worth noting-the record was produced by Andrew Oldham (Rolling Stones original producer) and engineered by Glyn Johns (for those that don't know him- he went on to produce THE EAGLES!!!!!) all in all a good team effort I think!!!.

TR

[MortalTodd]

Thanks for uploading all of these classics. I wish music on the radio was still this good these days. Being from the younger generation myself, it's not hard to say that there is only a small margin of exceptions when it comes to well written music in this day and age.

[garageband66]

Well it is refreshing to hear someone of the younger generation acknowledge the music of yesterday as compared to today. I really feel as a part-time musician I can say the problem lies in that most bands today do not know how to play, arrange, or compose music. I know because I have sat in with many bands on short notice. They know nothing about chord progression, theory and the basic elements of music. Another reason is that the labels aren't intrested in quality, just quantity.

[tony6129]

rslitman, The song Liar was recorded by former members of Tony Rivers and the Castaways on an album called 'From Scratch' by Capability Brown. The song was written by Russ Ballard

[IDLERACER]

If it's of any interest, Brian Wilson tagged that same "Walk Like A Man" riff on to the end of "Surfers Rule" (on the "Surfer Girl" album) three years earlier. The chorus of this tune was heavily inspired by "Ticket To Ride." Somebody in the Beach Boy's camp thought enough of this song to stick it on the flipside of "Sloop John B" some seven months after the "Summer Days And Summer Nights" album was released.

[garageband66]

I'm sure the head honchoes at Capitol Records had an input on that. The folks at Capitol didn't even want Pet Sounds they were looking for more traditional BB songs. It's probably less to do with thge BBs input and more about familiarity and the bottom line.

Brian felt a need to compete directly with the lads from the pond and it's part of the reason for his eventual breakdown

[Robpoorsoul]

It's unusual for the Beach boys to record a song with just a single lead voice instead of the 4-part harmonies on their other songs. Tony and the Castaways version sure makes up for the Beach boys' mistake. It rocks!!

[garageband66]

Brian re-recorded Help Me Rhonda (the single) before a rival version by The Hondells could be released. This one must have slipped by Brian's intrest.

Tony Rivers and The Castaways did an outstanding job and really made this one their own.

[etypebob]

Hi Garageband66...Good job, Great song... Thanks for this.

[garageband66]

Thanks for viewing; hope all is well!

[tonyrivers]

Hi,

Pleasantly surprised to see this on youtube! I'm Tony Rivers from Tony Rivers & The Castaways (not the US Castaways who came later). A couple of points worth mentioning perhaps, we became Harmony Grass not Harmony Gold - - VERY different from that. The end part of this was Andrew Oldham's idea. He found the song, produced it, I arranged it, hence all the harmonies, which the Beach Boys didn't use at all on their version. I got the chance to play this to Carl Wilson.

Tony Rivers.

[lordritchie]

Thanks for the info, this was always my favorite Carl song and you guys did it great.

[garageband66]

Thanks for the additional information and sorry about the typo on the Grass/Gold thing. Too many late nights; I guess.

[rslitman]

Which Castaways did "Liar, Liar"?

[garageband66]

The US Castaways that Tony refers to. Tony Rivers and the Castaways were a UK group. If you like this, I do have more. They also covered Salt Lake City, The Girl from NY City of the Beach Boys plus other non-Beach Boy covers that would do nicely.

[LindaAnne1]

Yes please. It would be good to see/hear more.

[garageband66]

More will be on the way soon.

[LindaAnne1]

Thats great-thanks.

[DaddyBog]

Yes the ending is very 4 Seasons sound alike, thanks for puttting this on for all to hear. DB.

[danbyxl]

Never heard this version before. Always liked the Beach Boys version but they did a good job of covering. Thanks for posting.

[garageband66]

They kept the west coast sound alive in the UK for many years without a lot of commercial success. As I understand it, this was their biggest single.