Show Feb 20 2020

Topic for the show: the Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California in 1961. The group’s original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by their vocal harmonies and early surf songs, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era.The band drew on the music of jazz-based vocal groups, 1950s rock and roll, and black R&B to create their unique sound, and with Brian as composer, arranger, producer, and de facto leader, they often incorporated classical elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways.

The Beach Boys began as a garage band led by Brian and managed by the Wilsons’ father Murry. In 1963, the band gained national prominence with a string of top-ten singles reflecting a southern California youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance, dubbed the “California Sound”. From 1965, they abandoned beachgoing themes for more personal lyrics and ambitious orchestrations. In 1966, the Pet Sounds album and “Good Vibrations” single raised the group’s prestige as rock innovators and established the band as symbols of the nascent counterculture era. After scrapping the album Smile in 1967, Brian’s contributions diminished due to his mental health issues. The group’s commercial momentum faltered, and despite efforts to maintain an experimental sound, they were dismissed by early rock critics as the archetypal “pop music cop-outs”.

I’ll be playing most Beach Boy music, and some of the surfin’ music artists like Dick Dale, the Ventures, the Surfaris, Jan and Dean and others.

And the Beach Boys will be in concert this weekend, at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts this Friday night February 21, and other places.

For more information, check the following websites:

• https://www.thebeachboys.com/
• https://www.brianwilson.com/
• https://mikelove.com/