Before The Beach Boys released “Surfin’ Safari” (their first Top-40 hit in September of 1962), Surf Music was mostly guitar instrumentals like “Misirlou” and “Let’s Go Trippin’” by Dick Dale & The Del-Tones. It was The Beach Boys who added the singalong factor to songs about surf, cars, & girls. Their success brought other artists, songwriters, and producers to try to capture that magic too. See if you can remember the songs and artists who added to the West Coast sound. Most of them were one-hit wonders, so the names aren’t easy to recall.
Before we get to those, here are The Beach Boys’ friends and sometimes co-songwriters who had some major hits.
Jan Berry (on the left in the middle photo) and Dean Torrence performed as Jan & Dean, and had hits in the late 1950s, but it wasn’t until 1963 (a few months after “Surfin’Safari” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” by The Beach Boys), that Jan & Dean hit #1 with “Surf City”. The song really was a collaboration by the two groups. Brian Wilson wrote the music, Jan Berry wrote the words, and then Brian sang harmony with them on the recording. All of Jan & Dean’s big surf-style hits came in 1963 and 1964… “Drag City” #10, “Dead Man’s Curve” #8, “ The Little Old Lady From Pasadena” #3, and “Sidewalk Surfin’” #25. That last one was a remake of The Beach Boys song “Catch A Wave”, but with new lyrics by Jan Berry. Trivia note: That’s Dean Torrence singing lead vocals with Brian Wilson on The Beach Boys #2 hit “Barbara Ann”, recorded in 1965.
Now we come to other songs and artists of the surf era that are more like answers to trivia questions.
Here are some mid-1960s hits that sound a lot like The Beach Boys. I’ll give you the titles so you can see if you know the songs and who did them. Then, I’ll give you the names of the artists a little lower in this article.
- G.T.O. (Little GTO) #4, 1964
- Hey Little Cobra #4, 1964
- California Sun (In That Warm California Sun) #5, 1964
- Little Honda #9, 1964
- New York’s A Lonely Town (When You’re The Only Surfer Boy) #32, 1965
- Sandy #27, 1966
Surf instrumentals remained popular in the early 60s. Here are four of them. See if he titles remind you of what they sounded like and who did them. The artists’ names are farther below.
- Pipeline #4, 1963
- Wipe Out #2, 1963
- Penetration #18, 1964
- Walk Don’t Run ’64 #8, 1964
Hollywood tried their best to get in on the surf craze with movies staring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Annette was popular from being on the Mickey Mouse Club, and Frankie was a Teen Idol from music and films. The movies were successful, but the plots were thin and the humor was mostly silly.
Ready for the names of the artists?
- G.T.O….Ronny & The Daytonas
- Hey Little Cobra…The Rip Chords
- California Sun…The Rivieras
- Little Honda…The Hondells (covering a Beach Boys song)
- New York’s A Lonely Town…The Trade Winds
- Sandy…Ronny & The Daytonas (their only other hit)
Instrumentals
- Pipeline…The Chantays
- Wipe Out…The Surfaris
- Penetration…The Pyramids (who shaved their heads as a gimmick)
- Walk Don’t Run ’64…The Ventures (an update of their #2 hit in 1962)
The popularity of surf and car songs was mostly from 1962 to 1965, by that time, there was Folk Rock and more serious music taking over. Maybe that’s why it’s still fun to go back and listen to those early hits.
By the way, there’s some misperception that The Beach Boys started with surf songs, and then moved on to car songs; however, the car song “409” (the engine size of a Chevrolet Impala SS) was the flip side of their first hit, “Surfin’ Safari”, and was on their first album. The group’s earliest albums all included songs about surfing, cars, girls, and the West Coast lifestyle. They were out there havin’ fun, in that warm California sun.