The Beach Boys & The Surf Craze

Welcome to Rock & Roll Flashback.  I’m Bill Price, and we’ll be looking back at some of Rock and Roll’s greatest artists, songs and stories.  Today on this edition of Surf’s Up, I’ll be focusing on the Surf Craze of the early 1960's and the role the Beach Boys played in making it a national US trend.

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John. It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then.
Multiple promo videos and photos for Rock and Roll Flashback Podcasts are available on the following social media sites:

https://www.youtube.com/@RockandRollFlashback

https://www.facebook.com/rockandrollflashbackpodcast

https://www.instagram.com/jumpinjohnmcdermott/

Bill and John welcome your feedback and comments, and they can be emailed to rockandrollflashback@outlook.com.
Thank you for listening to Rock and Roll Flashback Podcasts!
Until next time...
Rock On!

Transcript

Welcome to Rock & Roll Flashback!  I’m Bill Price, and we’ll be looking back at some of Rock and Roll’s greatest artists, songs and stories.  Today on this edition of Surf’s Up, I’ll be focusing on the Surf Craze of the early 1960's and the role the Beach Boys played in making it a national US trend.

The Southern California surfing culture began with the introduction of the surfing sport in 1907, by an Irish Hawaiian surfer by the name of George Freeth. By the end of the 1950's, surfing had become a fad, which would create a life style centered on the sport, and would be responsible for launching a new style of music that became known as Surf.
By 1961, Dick Dale and the Deltones were filling the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa,
California, with 4000 attendees. The shows, which were aimed mainly at the surfing
crowd, eventually came to be known as “stomps," and soon became legendary, and
routinely sold out. 

The surfing culture evolved in Southern California in several ways.  First there was the most important item, the surfboard. The boards used in the 1950's and 1960's were much longer as compared to the ones used today.  Then there was the vehicle to transport the boards to the beach. The surfer’s choice was the station wagon of the late 1940’s, which typically had a wooden side trim. The station wagons were referred to as “Woodies”.  Another important aspect was the language that developed within the
Surf culture.  There were terms to describe the surfing conditions, surfing maneuvers, and words describing surfers and non-surfers.  Some examples of surfing terms that were the inspiration for a few surf songs include “Wipe Out” and “Pipeline”.  Surfing  became a way of life, and was portrayed in several beach movies such as “Muscle Beach Party” , “Back to the Beach”, “Beach Party”, “The Endless Summer”, and “Gigit”.

Dick Dale's performances at the Rendezvous helped create the surf music scene in Southern California, and inspire other bands to adopt and play surf music. Groups that later became prominent include Jan and Dean, The Beach Boys, The Surfaris, The Chantays,  The Lively Ones, The Trashmen, The Astronauts and The Marketts.  There were several other bands that were regionally popular in Southern California.  However it was the Beach Boys that were instrumental in making surf music nationally popular in the US.  For additional background on surf music, be sure to check out the Dick Dale story in the Surf’s Up podacst series.

The Beach Boys story begins in Hawthorne, California with the band’s formation in 1961.  The original members consisted of the three Wilson brothers, Brian, Dennis and Carl, their cousin Mike Love and high school classmate Al Jardine.  In later years there would be personnel changes in the band’s lineup.  The Beach Boys were influenced by the older pop vocal groups, 1950's rock and roll, as well as black Rhythm & Blues, and they drew on the various music styles to create their unique sound.

Interestingly, not all of the Beach Boys were surfers.  Only Dennis, the youngest of the Wilson brothers, developed a passion for the sport.  His brother Carl made an attempt at learning to surf, but soon gave it up.  It was Dennis’ interest in the sport that steered the Beach Boys into adopting surf music.  Dennis’ persistent sharing of stories about the surf culture eventually persuaded Brian Wilson to direct the band towards embracing surf music.  This prompted Carl, to emulate Dick Dale’s surf style.

In August 1961 Brian, Carl, Dennis, cousin Mike Love and their friend Al Jardine made an attempt at writing a surf song.  It wasn’t until a few days later that Brian and Mike eventually wrote their first surf song titled “Surfin’”.   Mike Love named the band The Pendletons, as homage to Dick Dale and the Delltones.  They would eventually wear Pendleton shirts that would later become iconic Beach Boy apparel.

On Labor Day 1961, the Wilson brother’s parents were away on vacation.  Their father Murray had left some money for essentials.  However they used the money in order to rent recording equipment to record “Surfin’ ”.  Needless to say, Mr. Wilson was not exactly happy that the boys had used the money for another purpose.  However, after hearing the recording he realized the song’s potential.  He then arranged a demo recording session at the home studio of his acquaintance Hite Morgan where they recorded “Surfin’ ”.  In October, Morgan arranged for a recording session at World Pacific Studios in Hollywood to record additional takes of the song.  Murray Wilson then took the demo tapes to Candix and Era Records, who signed the group on
December 8.  When the single was released a few weeks later, the band found out that they had been renamed.  Initially the record company wanted to rename the group from The Pendletons to The Surfers, but there was a problem.  There already was a band called The Surfers.  So Russ Regan, who was a promoter with Era Records, made the suggestion of renaming the group The Beach Boys.  "Surfin' " went on to become a regional success on the West Coast, and reached number 75 on the national Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Murray arranged the group's first paying performance on New Year's Eve, 1961, at the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance in Long Beach, California.  They were paid 300 dollars.
In their initial performances, the band wore heavy wool jacket-like shirts that were popular with the local surfers.  Later they started wearing the iconic striped shirts and white pants.  Interestingly, it was a style copied from the Kingston Trio.

The next step was getting signed to a major record label.  However, two record labels Dot and Liberty turned them down.  Eventually the Beach Boys signed a seven-year contract with Capitol Records at the urging of producer Nick Venet.  On June 4, 1962, the Beach Boys debuted on Capitol with their second single, "Surfin' Safari" backed with "409".  The release prompted national coverage in the June 9th issue of Billboard magazine, noting that the song had potential.  "Surfin' Safari" rose to number 14 and achieved airplay in New York and Phoenix, which surprised Capitol records.

The Beach Boys' first album, Surfin' Safari, was released in October 1962. It was quite different from other rock albums of the time, in that it consisted almost entirely of original songs, primarily written by Brian with Mike Love and friend Gary Usher. Another unusual feature of the Beach Boys was that, although they were marketed as a surf band, their performances bore little resemblance to the music of other surf bands, which was mainly instrumental and relied on the dominant use of the guitar amplifier’s spring reverb.

In January 1963, the Beach Boys recorded their first top-ten single, "Surfin' U.S.A.", which launched a long and highly successful recording career.  The melody of “Surfing USA” is essentially that of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen”.  For the recording sessions on this single, Brian made the decision to use double tracking which gave the vocals a fuller sound. In March, the Surfin’ USA album reached number 2 on the
Billboard charts.  The success of “Surfin’ USA” thrust the Beach Boys on a national spotlight, and was instrumental in creating the surf trend for a national teen audience.
With surf craze in full swing, several Beach Boys releases followed.  This included 
"Surfer Girl”, “Surfing Safari”, “Catch A Wave”, “In My Room”, ”Surfin’”, ”The
Warmth of the Sun”, and “Wendy”.

Interestingly, on the “Surfer Girl” album, other musicians besides the Beach Boys were used in the recording sessions.  Many of the musicians, (later referred to as The Wrecking Crew) were those used by Phil Spector in his Wall of Sound at Gold Star Studios.

However, the surf craze was not to last.  Brian wrote the final surf song in April 1964.
The band’s musical theme began to change from surf to cars and girls.  This was evident with such songs as” I Get Around”,“Don’t Worry Baby” and “Fun Fun Fun” in 1964, and car songs such as “409”,“Little Deuce Coupe”, ” Shut Down”, “Little Honda” and “Be True to Your School”.  “All Summer Long” from 1964, was later featured in the 1973 film “American Graffiti”.  By 1964 the British Invasion was well underway, however the Beach Boys managed to stay competitive well into the remainder of the 1960's.

On an interesting note, one regional Southern California surf band that also managed to survive the decline in the popularity of surf music was The Crossfires.  They made the transition to Folk Rock and later became The Turtles.  In the mid 1960's they sold millions of records with such hits as “It Ain’t Me Babe”, Happy Together”, and “She’d Rather Be With Me”.  

By 1965 “The Beach Boys Today” album signaled the departure from surf music and a focus on more complex productions.  “California Girls”, “God Only Knows”,” Good Vibrations“ and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” are examples of the evolution in the production of the Beach Boys music, which was primarily due to the efforts of Brian Wilson.

Although the Beach Boys were best known as the premier surf band, the duo, Jan and Dean also managed to achieve success with surf music.  There were numerous other local surf groups that were quite poplar in Southern California.  Another phenomenon that resulted was a category known as Land Locked Surf, which referred to bands that were not located any where near the beach.  In future episodes of Surf’s Up, we will examine some of the regional surf bands of Southern California, The duo Jan and Dean, The Surfaris, and the land locked surf bands.

This has been Rock and Roll Flashback, a look back at the Beach Boys and the 1960's surf craze.