Surf’s Up: The Beach Boys on Record 1961-1981 - Brad Elliott

Surf’s Up: The Beach Boys on Record 1961-1981
Brad Elliott
First Published: HB. 1982. Pierian Press, Ann Arbor.
This Edition: 1st Edition.

Elliott’s Surf’s Up is a staggering undertaking and mammoth achievement. Even attempting to read it is an endeavour in itself and should really come with a health warning that it encourages obsessive behaviour! It’s a real curate’s egg, presenting fastidious levels of detail about the band’s recordings and releases, Elliott’s dedication to documenting every scrap of the Beach Boys’ career at a sub-atomic level both admirable and terrifying. Terrifying, because it opens up passages into hitherto undiscovered rabbit-holes of Beach Boy fandom. 

I went into this wondering if a reference book written 40 years ago could still hold any interest, expecting an impressive but ultimately obsolete project, its information superseded by more accurate and accessible print and digital resources. But I was wrong! Not only is it still eminently readable, but it contains plenty of nuggets that I’d never heard about before. Of course, this led me to sometimes question the information. This book laid the groundwork for future references such as Keith Badman’s The Beach Boys and Andrew Doe’s Bellagio website, both of which I’m pretty familiar with. In some cases the information was obviously incorrect (and is probably the source of long-held erroneous takes within the Beach Boys community, such as The Survivors being The Beach Boys) but more often than not, following up on Elliott’s leads online bore a lot of musical fruit! Some of my favourite revelations:

• SO MANY Brian Wilson-written or co-written songs for other artists, such as David Cassidy’s ‘Cruise to Harlem’, and several by Jan & Dean, The Super-stocks and Dino, Desi & Billy.
• That Brian apparently accompanied Al to record a song (‘Rio Grande’) with Hite Morgan in 1961. Is this true? If so, it’s a pretty huge part of the band’s murky origin story that doesn’t get included in most retellings.
• The fact that ‘Moon Dawg’ was a cover of The Gamblers’ 1960 single, considered by many to be the first surf rock single, which was actually produced by Nik Venet and featured Bruce Johnston on keys.
• As a member of studio band The Hot Doggers, Bruce Johnston produced and sang lead on versions of ‘Surfin’’, ‘Surfin’ Safarai’ and ‘Surfin’ USA’ two full years before he was ever asked to be a part of The Beach Boys. So if you want to hear what a bizarro version of the early band fronted by Bruce would sound like, check out The Hot Doggers' Surfin' USA LP.
• A very full discussion of 1963’s Muscle Beach Party movie and soundtrack, which Brian had a hand in as co-writer on several songs with Gary Usher and Roger Christian. This project seems to be frequently overlooked. Elliott discusses the various versions of several of the songs, since they appeared differently within the film to how they did on the LP, with further versions released as singles by different artists (e.g. the title track was released individually by both Annette and Frankie Avalon). 
• Mike was jabbering at one point to the press about planning to record a symphonic rock opera called Atlantis Rising about the rise of the consciousness of man.
• Brian, Carl and Mike contributed backing vocals in the late 70s to a song by a Japanese girl band called Pink Lady, which was released only as a B-side in Japan. How the hell did that come about?
• Dennis Wilson contributed backing vocals to a song by a band called Lynx that only ever appeared on an obscure compilation called Refined Texas Crude.
• Ray Kennedy – one of the many co-writers of ‘Sail On, Sailor’ later formed a group called KGB who cut a version more in line with the original Kennedy-Wilson composition (i.e. before Jack Rieley re-wrote some lyrics, and Tandyn Almer and Van Dyke Parks got involved). It’s rather good!

Anyway, there are tons of other scraps of information that will have you scurrying to the worldwide web for verification or simply to listen to their obscure recordings.

The book is comprised of several main sections: a very complete discography up to and including 1981; a discussion of known and rumoured unreleased songs; key radio and TV appearances; important live shows known to have been broadcast or bootlegged; a debunking of songs previously thought to have had Beach Boys involvement; extensive discographies for associated acts and ex-members; extensive US chart information and a brief discussion of worthwhile (and unworthy) books, articles and fanzines. Elliott has fun coming up with some enjoyably punning chapter titles, e.g. the section on TV appearances is titled ‘Johnny Carson’, the index is titled ‘All This is That’ and the section debunking false Beach Boy releases is ‘That’s Not Me’. The sections I found most valuable were ‘California Saga’, ‘No-Go Showboat’ and ‘Heroes and Villains’:

California Saga – this extensive US discography takes up the half the book. Elliott spends a good few pages detailing the system and key he’s very proudly developed for succinctly documenting information about each release’s catalogue number, Beach Boys involvement, relevant tracks etc. He documents not only Beach Boys releases, but releases on which a Beach Boy wrote, produced or performed on a song. He also covers compilations and the appearances of individual songs on compilations. He helpfully employs a device to highlight rare songs where the disc is the only known official appearance, which is incredibly helpful for nerdy completists like myself. A sub-chapter is devoted to a breezier look at the highlights from the band’s international releases: interesting EPs, cool picture sleeves, alternate mixes, that kind of thing.

No Go Showboat – this covers all the unreleased material, and I found it really interesting to see how much was documented at this stage. It’s amazing that some of these songs still remain just as shadowy now, whilst others have only recently been released or are on the verge of being released due to the copyright extension compilations of the last 10 years. Some titles are new to me and I’ve not seen them in more recent resources, which makes me think they must have since been debunked, but it certainly makes you wonder. The ‘Wow Great Concert’ sub-chapter section is intriguing, but makes me salivate for the more extensive The Beach Boys in Concert by Ian Rushten and Jon Stebbins. We’ll get to that one day…

Heroes and Villains – this chapter kicked off with a brilliant and comprehensive overview of Bruce’s career (I think there’s a huge gap in the market for a Bruce book, the man has had a fascinating career, as this section shows). All of his early recordings as a session player and in acts like Bruce & Jerry, Bruce & Terry, The Rip Chords etc. is covered, as well as demystifying information about his production company Equinox and their mid-70s releases on RCA. Incredibly informative! Elliott also applies this treatment to Dave Marks, The Honeys, Spring, The Flame, Blondie Chaplin, Ricky Fataar, Murry Wilson, Maureen Love, Van Dyke Parks, Jack Riely, Billy Hinsche, Ray Kennedy, Charles Manson and Daryl Dragon. Phew!

As well as all this compiled knowledge the book is just a beautiful thing to hold. It has intrinsic value as a book, with lovely cloth-binding and many high-quality black & white photos and record label and sleeves reproduced throughout. It’s one that really holds pride of place on my bookshelf.