For those of us living in Northwestern Pennsylvania, 2009 can be remembered as the year without a summer. The seeming dominance of below-average temperatures and frequent rainfall prohibited that true summer feeling that accompanies sweaty, scorching afternoons and muggy, sleepless nights.
Despite these quirks in the climate, I always knew that I could get in touch with my inner summer-not with a trip to Atlantic City, but through picking up good vibrations from my favorite Beach Boys CD or LP.
It might be a cliché to describe the music of the Beach Boys as the de facto soundtrack of summer, but I find it impossible to associate the rich harmonies, twangy guitars and overall innocence of the music with any other season.
At this point you might be thinking, "Well no s--t." Sure hit songs such as "Fun, Fun, Fun," "The Warmth of the Sun" and "All Summer Long" are right on-the-nose with the summer imagery. However, lyrics alone don't totally account for the inexplicable sense of place, time and err, warmth conveyed by the music gestalt. (A side note: This explains why I find their Christmas album to be a bit self-defeating).
One could easily attribute the Beach Boys' summer vibe to their California origins or their rise to fame in the "innocent" early '60s, but as far as this author is concerned, the Beach Boys could have sung about differential calculus and tax laws and still imbued in the listener the same Panama Jack-scented romanticism and carefree sentiment.
The Beach Boys story has been told often, and I won't repeat what is readily available elsewhere (especially in Peter Ames Carlin's excellent "Catch a Wave"), but it begins and ends with the Wilson brothers, Brian, Dennis and Carl, in the early 1960s.
The progeny of a musically-minded family, brother Brian was wunderkind, gifted with the ability to "see" music and think in six-part harmony. His love of the close-harmony styling of the Four Freshmen, combined with Carl's passion for Chuck Berry riff-age and Dennis' love of the newfangled institution of surfing was grist for Brian's early songwriting efforts.
The Wilsons brought in first cousin and family sing-along veteran Mike Love on lead vocals, friend Al Jardine on rhythm guitar and dubbed themselves the Pendletones. The group recorded the track "Surfin" for a local indie label but were shocked to discover upon receiving copies of the single that the record company re-christened them the Beach Boys.
Despite this change in name, the "Surfin" single propelled the Beach Boys toward a major label deal with Capitol Records, where they quickly established themselves as the foremost surfing band in the country.
Early Beach Boys surf-pop hits like "Surfin' U.S.A.," "Catch a Wave" certainly rocked, but at the same time were fraught with insincerity. After all, Dennis Wilson was the band's only true surfer and Brian hated the beach. It's pretty clear that the boys were mining and exploiting a popular trend for commercial success.
Capitalism aside, however, it wasn't so much about the lyrical content of the songs and the pinstriped Pendleton shirts, as it was about the feeling. The infectious melodies, double-tracked harmonic wash of "ooohhhs" and "ahhhs" and Brian's sweet falsetto ensured that one could get lost in the music even if they lived in Des Moines, Iowa and had no friggin' clue what "shootin' the curl" meant.
Though Brian Wilson was the architect of many pedestrian boogie-woogie surfer songs, his lofty ambition pushed the group into more adventurous symphonic-pop territory as the '60s progressed. Surfing and hot rod anthems of yore were giving way to insecure and introspective ballads like "Please Let Me Wonder" and "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)." The sparse sonic textures of Fender Jaguar guitars through twin-reverb amps were replaced with the multi-instrumental bombast of Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" production techniques.
After Brian Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown in 1964 thanks to the rigors of touring coupled with growing artistic pressures (replaced on the road by Bruce Johnston, who would become a full-fledged band member,) he stopped touring and was free to fully devote his time to writing and producing. This freedom spelled fertility, as he was able to compose the songs that would define his career and establish his place in the canon of great American songwriters.
This era produced the eternal paean to sunbathing beauties that was "California Girls," the transcendent psychedelic love declaration of "Good Vibrations" and the critical apogee that was the "Pet Sounds" album.
I'm going to avoid the usual rapture rhetoric that often accompanies "Pet Sounds," but within its grooves Brian Wilson and lyricist Tony Asher painted a stirring, if occasionally melodramatic portrait of love in all its complexities, from childlike conceptions of bliss ("Wouldn't It Be Nice") to existential pining ("God Only Knows") to disillusionment and loss ("Caroline, No"), all topped off with the group's lush harmonies and the impeccable musicianship of the legendary "Wrecking Crew" of L.A. studio players.
Yet, "Pet Sounds" is by no means an album of love songs, but also songs of alienation and denied self-actualization. However, even with such Prozac-worthy themes present, "Pet Sounds" sounds downright celebratory. Summer-like, if you will.
After the successes of "Pet Sounds" and "Good Vibrations" in 1966 and 1967, Brian Wilson set out to turn the pop music world upside down with a "teenage symphony to God." The brilliant yet eccentric music that followed was destined for an album called "SMILE" that would sadly never see the light of day (the Brian Wilson solo album, despite being great, doesn't count), thanks to the intransigence of certain group members (Mike Love) and Brian's own hallucinogen-fueled eccentricity making things difficult.
Even though the Beach Boys never would reach the critical and commercial heights of the early to mid-60s, the group still managed to release a string of underappreciated atmospheric pop albums from 1967-71. This author's particular favorite is 1969's "20/20", which features the original "SMILE" tracks "Our Prayer" and "Cabinessence," along with the Dennis-sung "Never Learn Not to Love" which was actually written by everyone's favorite pop-culture mass murderin' anti-hero, Charlie Manson.
It could be argued that the mid 1970s marked the point where the Beach Boys truly lost their creative aptitude once and for all. After the compilation album "Endless Summer" sold millions, the temptation to tour based on nostalgia alone was laid bare.
Despite occasional flashes of brilliance, most notably the goofy, yet endearing "Love You" album from 1977, the Beach Boys began increasingly adopting the sand and surf gimmicks of the past, sliding back into insincerity. The summer vibe was still there, but the songwriting was lacking. Multiple line-up changes didn't help either.
The 1980s was a particularly horrendous decade for the Beach Boys, as Dennis Wilson died in 1983, Brian Wilson was brainwashed by the wiles of "therapist" Eugene Landy and worst of all, the group made several guest appearances on "Full House."
But perhaps the lowest of the low was the release of "Kokomo" in 1988. Even though it was the first number one hit for the band in over 20 years, the song wasn't written by a Wilson brother, its video featured John Stamos playing bongos, and it was for the Tom Cruise movie "Cocktail." I'm convinced you could chop up CD single versions of "Kokomo", mix it with water and spread it on alfalfa fields as fertilizer.
The 1990s weren't much better, as Carl passed in 1998, and the Beach Boys name became the subject of legal battles between surviving members Al Jardine and Mike Love. Worst of all, there was never any new music from the group.
The "Beach Boys" continue to tour, although the lineup is simply Mike Love and Bruce Johnston with some unknowns. Anyone looking to experience the music of the Beach Boys at its most spiritual would be best advised to see a rejuvenated Brian Wilson and his ace backing band, currently on a greatest hits tour. While Brian essentially is the Beach Boys, the best backing players can't ultimately make up for chemistry between Brian and the original lads from Hawthorne, California.
As the fall breaks before the oppressive Edinboro winter sets in, it's comforting to know that I can always get in touch with summer, no matter the temperature or the snowfall accumulation. Thanks to the music of the Beach Boys, summer lives on forever and everywhere. So trite, yet so true.
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