Surfin'

During my research for the last post in which I looked for hit singles by The Beach Boys that were never included on any studio albums, I came across a few interesting cases that didn't quite fit that discussion.

It turns out there were several instances where The Beach Boys recorded and released a single with no original intention or immediate plans to have it included on a studio album. In most cases they did eventually end up on an album at some point, the exceptions being listed in my previous post.

Let's take a look at the ones I discovered. If I have missed any, I trust there's a fan out there somewhere that will point it out to me.

SURFIN'

In October of 1961, two months before their first live appearance, the group held their first recording session. Over the summer, Al Jardine and two friends (calling themselves The Islanders) had auditioned for a man named Hite Morgan who happened to have put together his own studio.

In August, Jardine returned for another audition, this time with the three Wilson brothers and their cousin. It is possible this audition included a performance of "Sloop John B" but regardless, the response was lukewarm. When Morgan asked if they had any original material, Dennis stepped up and blurted out that Brian and Mike had indeed written a song about surfing. They hadn't really. But that didn't stop them from going home and quickly doing just that.

Brian and Mike's first songwriting efforts together produced "Surfin'". Morgan liked what he heard and immediately put the band in the studio and recorded it along with a pair of songs that he and his wife had written: "Luau" and "Lavender".

Brian, Mike, Carl, Dennis and Al were barely a band at this point. They were calling themselves The Pendletones but it's not clear how seriously they viewed the whole enterprise. They had yet to even perform live anywhere and by February Al would leave to work for Garrett AiResearch. . By no stretch were they polished performers. In fact, Carl was only 15 and still in high school, and Brian had included Dennis only because their mother had made him.

But Candix Records, a small-time label, released "Surfin'" (B-side: "Luau") locally and it did extremely well. Its west coast success quickly earned it a national release where it broke into the Top 100 and peaked at #75.

There were no thoughts of an album when the song was first released. Candix saw it as a novelty record, and the band may have, too. Of course, no one knew what kind of success was in store for The Pendletones but there was more than one person involved with motivation to pursue it further.

Mike was already a father and desperate for a way to make good money. Murry Wilson, the brothers' abusive and domineering father, saw dollar signs and would soon begin aggressively booking the band. Brian... it's hard to imagine the effect that recording a song and hearing it on the radio must have had on Brian. Brian was too much of an artist, too aware of the possibilities of the studio, too eager to follow in the footsteps of The Four Freshmen and Phil Spector to ever think of not continuing chasing a career in recording.

However, none of this was guaranteed when the group entered Hite Morgan's little studio in October of 1961 and recorded their new little song. And certainly there was no thought of producing an entire album (although the song would eventually show up on their debut album). Who could have known it was the first step in a journey that would lead to international celebrity and the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame?

(Side note: The Pendeltones were upset to open up a box of newly pressed 45s of "Surfin"/"Luau" to discover someone had taken the liberty to rename the act The Beach Boys. They fought it, but there was not enough money available to go back to press so they were forced to keep the name.)

NEXT TIME: "Surfin' Safari" and "409"