Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Beach Boys 1: Surfin’ Safari

The legend of the Beach Boys began modestly, with a novelty song about surfing that few could have dreamed would kick off careers that would last decades. Equally unlikely was the band’s name, almost arbitrarily concocted to help sell the one record. Naturally, any follow-ups would have be along the same theme, right?

The Beach Boys were a family affair, led by middle-class musical genius Brian Wilson, with his younger brothers in the band, their cousin Mike Love singing most of the lead vocals, and a friend helping out on guitar. They played basic rock ‘n roll, but with the added bonus of multipart harmonies influenced by doo-wop and the Four Freshmen. Something else to consider was just how young these kids were. Brian had just turned 20; Mike was 21 (and already losing his hair). Lead guitarist Carl Wilson was not yet 16, drummer Dennis Wilson not yet 18, and rhythm guitarist David Marks had just turned 14. And they made a pretty rockin’ little combo.

Despite the strides made by Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis in the evolution of the long-playing record, in 1962 albums basically collected hit singles, their B-sides, and whatever else hurriedly recorded to fill up two sides. The dozen tracks on Surfin’ Safari filled that requirement, but as Brian was determined to make great records that would endure as art, he tried harder than most people under the thumb of a manager—who was also his and his brothers’ father, as well as the singer’s uncle—and the producers more concerned with simple commerce than whether the album was any good. Brian cared about the kids who would buy and listen to his records, because he was one of them.

While Brian wrote and arranged all the music, he had help in the lyrical department, mostly from Mike, and also from one Gary Usher, an aspiring musician who would one day become a producer of note. For now, he would help Brian concoct the vignettes that would support the cover photo of wholesome suburban white boys in search of the next wave, or maybe a beach bunny or five to keep them company on the shore.

The title track is a catchy call to arms, loaded with all the right lingo and namechecks, as good an advertisement for the surfing industry as any. “County Fair” describes a different kind of summer fun, the verses broken up by a carnival barker and a sweet lovely begging her fella to win her a prize. However, “Ten Little Indians” has not aged well, being a nursery rhyme dotted with further racist references, and “Chug-A-Lug” is an ode to the pleasures of drinking root beer. Dennis takes the dreamy lead vocal on a cover of “Little Girl (You’re My Miss America)”, and a hint to their depth of subject matter is “409”, a song about a car with actual engine-revving sound effects.

The indie single that led to their Capitol contract, “Surfin’”, starts off the second side, and it’s clear that Brian had already progressed, just as “Heads You Win, Tails I Lose” shows he hadn’t yet figured out how to write about romance. “Cuckoo Clock” is even squirmier, a lament about the wall adornment that interrupts woo-pitching attempts. Their cover of “Summertime Blues” is very close to the Eddie Cochran original, and “Moon Dawg” was a surf instrumental from a few years earlier, livened up by some Beach Boys dog-barking. Finally, “The Shift” attempts a novelty song about a dress.

Seeing as most of the early Beach Boys albums were less than a half-hour long, their first release on CD had them wisely packaged as “two-fers”, offering two consecutive titles in stereo (when available) with bonus tracks and liner notes. This certainly provided value for one’s dollar when the albums couldn’t always stand alone. Of the extras added from the Surfin’ Safari sessions, “Land Ahoy” would be reworked a year later as “Cherry, Cherry Couple”, and “Cindy Oh Cindy” begins with their overbearing (to say the least) father Murry barking, “Knock it off.”

The Beach Boys Surfin’ Safari (1962)—
1990 CD reissue: same as 1962, plus Surfin’ U.S.A. album and 3 extra tracks

No comments:

Post a Comment