I'm new to the board and don't know whether this issue has been raised: was the story based in part on Brian Wilson's legendary 1966 "Smile" project? There are some interesting paralells: pop music genius and surreal lyricist too far ahead of their time, tapes that many know about but few have heard, even a protagonist named Wilson.
Coincidence? I think not, but I bet someone in this group knows.
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I never thought of that "Brian Wilson/Eddie Wilson" thing... I guess it could be .. a long shot at that....But didn't Brian Wilson do something with obscure, weird noises cause his brain was all fried from drugs?.. why does the title "pet sounds" or something similar come to mind.. I dunno about that one... It took me years to get my sister to believe that eddies voice was John Cafferty's and infact not EDDIE MONEY!!!! anyone ever heard that comparison before?
Brian Wilson Is Schizophrenic !! Just Thought I'd Let You Know,If you
didn't already know !!
Yes he's schizophrenic but he's also a musical genius...there are several similarities between this film and Smile, as the first poster mentioned. Brian didn't go crazy until after he had abandoned Smile, and the music from those sessions is incredible, completely ahead of it's time.
shareI'm a huge Bri guy, and I kept thinking of him when I watched "Eddie and the Cruisers" again today. Not just that, but the Tom Berenger character seems to be modeled after Van Dyke Parks.
It's too bad there's not much of the "edgy" Cruisers music from "Season in Hell" in this film, because I was really curious as to what direction the band might have taken and what drove Eddie over the edge. As much as I love Springsteen also, I found the blatant ripoff of his style rather distracting. But that's probably a subject for another post.
This is clearly modeled after Brian Wilson, and it's unfortunate that musical innovators are constantly suppressed.
I thought Eddie was supposed to be Jim Morrison; obsessed with Rimbaud, died young and mysteriously, rumored to of faked his death, etc.
shareI'd say a combo of Brian Wilson (hence the name Eddie Wilson, his downward spiral after the rejection of his cutting edge album which is like "Smile") and Jim Morrison
shareIn the movie, "Season In Hell (Fire Suite)" was the name of the song that was so different from Eddie's previous work that the execs and Eddie had a falling out. They hadn't counted on Eddie wearing so many different hats: as producer, composer, and arranger.
Brian Wilson's SMiLE written '66, '67, had a track on it called "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", commonly known as "Fire", one suite in a four part song called The Elements. This was so different from Brian's previous work that Mike Love's hair fell out. He's continued to wear hats virtually non-stop since, thereby protecting us from the UV rays his shiny dome would be sure to inflict. Least he's good for something.
"The smile that you send out, returns to you"
On November 1, 2011 "The Smile Sessions" was released, an approximation of what the completed album might have sounded like, the first disc largely following the template that Wilson's 2004 "Brian Wilson Presents Smile" album presented. Along with this came a sequence of newly arranged surviving recordings and many unreleased session highlights and outtakes. It received unanimous critical acclaim. In 2012 it was ranked number 381 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. In 2013 it won the Best Historical Album award at the 55th Grammy Awards.