A SMILING DUTCHMAN: VAN DYKE PARKS

Published on February 15, 2008 in Favorite Composers. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Welcome the inau­gu­ra­tion of a new series of posts regard­ing my favorite com­posers! Expect more soon.

To begin with, I got chills watch­ing this excel­lent Dutch doc­u­men­tary from 2002 which, sim­ply put, is viewed like you might read a book:

Of course, this lay­out is a Real Talk shoutout from Uncle…

There is a lot of infor­ma­tion I’d like to share about why I adore Van Dyke Parks as much as I do, but Wikipedia explains it quite well. Pretty much, he’s the rad­dest dude ever. Film com­poser, col­lab­o­ra­tor extra­or­di­narie, sick lyri­cist, actor (!), com­poser, arranger…I mean come on! Here’s the short list of awe­some peo­ple he’s worked with: The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson (also: to top it off, a new one this year), Randy Newman, Joanna Newsom, Jon Cale, Loudon Wainwright III. Know those guys but think you’ve never heard his stuff? Well Zac Pennington reminds us that “his first pay­ing job was arrang­ing ‘The Bear Necessities’ for Disney’s the Jungle Book, and work with Harper’s Bizzare”. God damn. A lucky duck, Zac also shares this rad story: “I met him about a month ago. Really nice guy. He said when he was nine, his boy choir per­formed for an audi­ence that included Albert Einstein. Van Dyke was the only kid who knew the German words to “Silent Night,” so he sang it for Einstein, who left, got his vio­lin, and came back to accom­pany the boy. How ridicu­lously cool is that?”

I end with a secret.

4 Responses to “A SMILING DUTCHMAN: VAN DYKE PARKS”

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  • don
    February 16, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    I have been (for what tonight seems to have been a very long time) a fan of the var­i­ous works and tal­ents of Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson, Randy Newman and Ry Cooder.

    Thank you, Jordan, for mak­ing these clips avail­able so I could dis­cern still more aspects of the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of it all (hum­ble credit and acknowl­edg­ment to Douglas Adams, of course).

    Watching the parts of this doc­u­men­tary has been a source of joy for me.

  • Matthew
    February 17, 2008 at 12:40 am

    ALBERT EINSTEIN? WHOA.

    Real Talk!

  • Jordan
    February 17, 2008 at 3:14 am

    Thanks don! I was really moved by the doc­u­men­tary as well. I thought it was really well done, full and rich. Part 6 was cool but I enjoyed them all. Especially when you heard his friends talk about the effect of his music on their lives. So rad! Glad you enjoyed it.

  • alex itin
    February 22, 2008 at 10:17 am

    thanks for point­ing this doc. out.

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