You have to wonder what might have been. After all, Blondie Chaplin’s early-1970s tenure marked a seismic change both musically and visually for the Beach Boys, who saw their lineup integrated and their sound given a sharp new edge.
They’d been dabbling with R&B for a while, notably on tracks like the Carl Wilson-sung “Wild Honey,” but “Sail On, Sailor” was something else entirely – a soulful, yearning groover. Yet it was rooted in the familiar Beach Boys sound, with the addition of signature backing harmonies.
At the time of its release in early 1973, and re-release in 1975, “Sail On, Sailor” might have been mistaken as another in what had become a string of hit collaborations for the Beach Boys – including Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” with Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston; and Chicago’s “Wishing You Were Here,” with Al Jardine, Carl and Dennis Wilson.
But who was this new singer?
Turns out Blondie Chaplin had joined the Beach Boys, in a roundabout way, after Dennis Wilson injured his hand and the band asked Ricky Fataar to sit in. Chaplin was earlier part of a South African R&B combo called the Flame with Fataar, whom Carl Wilson had signed to a deal with Brother Records, and soon Chaplin followed his drummer into the Beach Boys. Carl had produced the Flame’s lone U.S. studio effort, recording it in Brian Wilson’s home studio.
This was no glitzy new collaboration. This was, or at least it seemed, a whole new direction for the band, as Brian Wilson continued his on-again, mostly off-again relationship with his muse.
Co-written by Brian and Van Dyke Parks, with various re-writers including Jack Rieley, “Sail On, Sailor” was meant to be the hit from 1973’s deeply underrated Holland. The rest of the album was recorded in a converted barn at Baambrugge, the Netherlands, save for a pair of songs including “Sail, on Sailor” – which was finished later and tacked onto the project, after Warner Bros. rejected the album for the lack of a radio single.
Unfortunately, nothing turned out right – not for Blondie Chaplin and not for “Sail On, Sailor.”
By ’75, when this song barely cracked the Top 50, Chaplin was out of the band. There apparently had been an altercation with new manager Stephen Love, brother of Mike Love. Chaplin would go on to collaborate with the Band, Paul Butterfield, Gene Clark of Byrds fame, and the Rolling Stones, while the Beach Boys settled into a lengthy tenure as a throwback concert act.
It’s a shame. This song says so much about how the group’s elemental style could be stretched and reformed, and how it might have kept growing. While “Sail On, Sailor” seemed to tell the story of Brian Wilson’s struggles, it must have connected on some level with the well-traveled Chaplin, too: He adds one of his most committed vocal performances.
You could also argue that “Sail On, Sailor” was the last unqualified Beach Boys artistic triumph until the surviving members of the group briefly reformed to finish Brian Wilson’s closing suite on That’s Why God Made the Radio.
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