The Beach Boys (music)

A California band that defined in fact virtually invented the “California sound.” Their songs featured close harmonies; upbeat, sun-drenched lyrics; and simple themes of surfing, hot cars, and young, often unrequited, love.

Origins and History

The Beach Boys were the brainchild of Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, brothers who lived in Hawthorne, California. Their father, Murry, a sometime songwriter who encouraged his sons’ musical experimentation, was a volatile man who abused his sons physically and verbally. Brian Wilson blamed his partial deafness (he has only 6 percent of the hearing in his right ear) to a beating he received from his father in early childhood.

In 1961, the brothers formed a band with their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine and began performing while still in high school. They were known first as Kenny and the Cadets, then as Carl and the Passions, and eventually as the Pendletones (after a popular brand of shirt) before settling on the name the Beach Boys.

Dennis Wilson was an avid surfer who thought the popular California sport would make great song material. His enthusiastic urging led older brother Brian Wilson and cousin Mike Love to write “Surfin’.” Like most of the Beach Boys’ musical creations, the song featured Chuck Berry-influenced guitar licks and the close, sweet harmonies favored by Brian Wilson, who was a fan of George Gershwin, Stephen Foster, and early 1950’s groups such as the Four Freshmen. The song was released on the local label Candix in December, 1961. By early 1962, “Surfin’ ” was a regional hit, and the Beach Boys were beginning to garner national attention.

The band (with Murry Wilson as manager) signed a contract with Capitol Records in 1962, and a string of hits ensued: “Surfin’ Safari” (1962), “Surfin’ USA” (1963, the melody of this song was a virtual duplication of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen”), “Surfer Girl” (1963), and “Fun, Fun, Fun” (1964). Three of their songs “I Get Around” (1964), “Help Me, Rhonda” (1965), and “Good Vibrations” (1966) became number-one hits.

Unfortunately, although the Beach Boys’ songs painted a carefree world of endless summer, the band’s real life was as complex as the decade. By 1965, alcohol and drugs were taking a toll on the group’s personal and professional lives. Substance abuse exacerbated the increasingly fragile mental condition of member Brian Wilson, who after a series of nervous breakdowns, informed the band that he would no longer tour.

Although Brian Wilson’s retreat hurt the band as a performing entity, during this period of disintegration, the group, with Brian producing as he had since “Surfer Girl,” created some of its strongest music, notably Pet Sounds (1966) a complex album with an introspective focus that incorporated amazingly diverse instrumentation: strings and horns, soda cans, and barking dogs. The Beatles cited Pet Sounds as the inspiration for their own groundbreaking album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Three subsequent albums continued the musical experimentation, but Brian Wilson’s increasingly erratic behavior (work on the album Smile was halted after he destroyed most of the tapes while in the grip of paranoid delusions) dictated that, increasingly, the other group members had to take over writing and production.

Impact

Blending the close vocal harmonies of 1950’s rock and roll with the dense, eclectic musical layering pioneered by producer Phil Spector, the Beach Boys virtually created the California sound and, in the process, an American icon: the surfer, whose sun-streaked beauty, athleticism, and love of the natural world typified the American ideal of endless summer and endless youth.

Subsequent Events

Dennis Wilson died in an alcohol-related diving accident in 1983. The Beach Boys, in various configurations and mostly without Brian Wilson, continued performing through the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s. In 1988, the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” became a number-one hit, Brian Wilson released a solo album (Brian Wilson), and the Beach Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Carl Wilson died of lung cancer in 1998.

Additional Information

Steven Gaines’s biography of the group, Heroes and Villains (1986), gives a comprehensive closeup of the Beach Boys’ lives and music. Brian Wilson’s 1991 autobiography, Wouldn’t It Be Nice: My Own Story, covers much of the same ground with an inside perspective.