The Beach Boys

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Alexander Shashko

As long as bleach-blond beach bums ride the waves and lonely geeks fantasize of romance, the Beach Boys will blare from car radios into America's psyche. Emerging from Southern California in the early 1960s, the Beach Boys became the quintessential American teen band, their innocent songs of youthful longing, lust, and liberation coming to define the very essence of white, suburban teenage life. At the same time, they mythologized that life through the sun-kissed prism of Southern California's palm trees, beaches, and hot rods, much like the civic boosters and Hollywood moguls who preceded them. From 1962 to 1966, the Beach Boys joined Phil Spector and Berry Gordy as the most influential shapers of the American Top 40. But like the California myth itself, the Beach Boys' sunny dreams were tempered by an underlying darkness, born of their tempestuous personal and professional lives. That darkness sometimes fueled the group's greatest work. It also produced tragedy for the band's members, especially resident genius Brian Wilson, and by the 1980s the band collapsed into self-parody.

The nucleus of the Beach Boys was the Wilson family, which lived in a simple bungalow in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne. At home, brothers Brian (1942--), Dennis (1944-1983), and Carl (1946-1998) were introduced to music by their temperamental father, Murry Wilson, whose rare displays of affection were usually accompanied by the purchase of musical instruments, records, or lessons. Although each son adopted his father's love of music, it was the eldest, Brian Wilson, who embraced it with passion. His two earliest childhood memories were central to his musical evolution and future career. As a toddler, Brian remembered requesting George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" whenever he visited his grandmother's home. He also remembered his father slapping him at the age of three; he blamed the loss of hearing in his right ear in grade school on the incident. Brian was left unable to hear music in stereo for the rest of his life.

As the Wilsons entered high school, they absorbed the music and culture which would later fuel the Beach Boys. In addition to his classical training at school, Brian loved vocal groups (especially the close-harmony style of the Four Freshmen) and the complex ballads of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. But the Wilsons--even the reclusive Brian--were also immersed in the teenage culture of suburban America: hot rods, go-karts, drive-ins, and, most importantly, rock 'n' roll. They listened to Bill Haley and Elvis Presley and above all Chuck Berry, whom guitarist Carl Wilson idolized. By high school the boys were playing and writing songs together.

In 1961, the group expanded beyond Carl's improving guitar, Brian's accomplished bass, and Dennis' primitive drums. The Wilsons' cousin Mike Love (1941--), a star high school athlete with an excellent voice, joined on vocals. Brian's friend from school, Al Jardine (1942--), rounded out the band after aborting a folk-singing career. With that, America's most famous suburban garage band was born, at first hardly able to play but hungry for the money and fame that might follow a hit record.

Their sound came first, mixing the guitar of Chuck Berry and backbeat of rhythm and blues with Brian's beloved vocal harmonies. But they knew they lacked an angle, some theme to define the band's image. They found that angle one day when Dennis Wilson, sitting on the beach, got the idea to do a song about surfing. By the early 1960s, the surf craze in Southern California had already spawned the "surf music" of artists like Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, based around the crashing guitar sounds intended to mimic the sound of waves. Surf music, however, was just beginning to enter the national consciousness. With prodding, Dennis convinced Brian that there was lyrical and musical potential in the surf scene, and in September of 1961 they recorded "Surfin'" as the Pendeltones, a play on the name of Dale's band and in honor of the Pendleton shirts favored by beach bums. By December, the single had climbed the national charts, and the band renamed itself the Beach Boys.

In 1962 Capitol Records signed them, and over the next three years the Beach Boys became a hit machine, churning out nine Top 40 albums and 15 Top 40 singles, ten of which entered the top ten. In songs like "Surfin' U.S.A.," "Little Deuce Coupe," and "Fun, Fun, Fun" the group turned Southern California's youthful subculture into a teenage fantasy for the rest of America and the world. A baby boom generation hitting adolescence found exuberant symbols of their cultural independence from adults in the band's hot rods and surfboards. The songs, however, articulated a tempered rebellion in acts like driving too fast or staying out too late, while avoiding the stronger sexual and racial suggestiveness of predecessors like Presley or successors like the Rolling Stones. In their all-American slacks and short-sleeve striped shirts, the Beach Boys were equally welcome in teen hangouts and suburban America's living rooms.