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Van Dyke Parks
Biography
In a field where the term "genius" is handed out freely, Van Dyke Parks is the real article. As a session musician, composer, arranger, lyricist, and singer, he's contributed significantly to several decades' worth of inimitable masterpieces credited to other artists, as well as generating two or three masterpieces of his own. Born in Hattiesburg, MS, in 1941, he was a musical prodigy and attended the American Boychoir School in Princeton, NJ. He studied the clarinet and also worked as a child actor, on-stage and on television, co-starring with Ezio Pinza in the 1953 comedy series Bonino, and also working in movies, including Grace Kelly's final film, The Swan (1958).

He remained dedicated to music, however, and studied at the Carnegie Institute and majored in music at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1964, a year after graduating, he was signed to MGM Records as a recording artist, releasing "Come to the Sunshine," which had some local chart action in Phoenix, AZ, and threatened to do something nationally without succeeding. (It did promise enough to require that Parks put together a band to back him on-stage, whose members included a young Stephen Stills.
Selected Discography