VDP at WCL

Van Dyke Parks doesn't play a lot of shows or do a lot of interviews, but the songwriter and string arranger who's the only person alive to have worked on both the Beach Boys' Smile and Joanna Newsom's Ys is playing the World Cafe Live upstairs tonight. Steve Klinge's interview with Parks from Friday's Inquirer is here. "Heroes & Villians," which Parks wrote with Brian Wilson, is below.

UPDATE: Parks' show at the WCL was quite the charming affair, with the white haired 67 year old gentleman on piano and vocals, accompanied by three string players from opening act Clare & the Reasons who Parks referred to as "young moderns." It was the last date of Parks' first-ever tour, and the Southern-born longtime Southern Californian was in a jolly mood, even when doing songs about the Exxon Valdez, or his late brother,  a onetime University of Pennsylvania quarterback who died in Vietnam, or his late friend Steve Young, the Texas songwriter who Parks recalled visiting with in L.A. in 1964 and seeing a picture of George Wallace drawn with a Hitler mustache on the wall.  "That's how I knew I met a kindred spirit," he said.

Parks comes off as a sort of baroque Randy Newman, an erudite and engaging presence, a masterful song arranger and piquant storyteller. Gratifyingly, the room was packed. "A lot of people came a long way in hopes that I might have improved," Parks said. "Sorry." And he was clearly buoyed by the experience of finally touring: "I am absolutely astonished by what I learned about myself and the world around me," he said before bringing Clare Manchon on for "Heroes & Villains." "I was not disappointed."

Previously: Brubeck's Back