The Origins of Surf Music

THE ORIGINS OF SURF MUSIC - a first-hand account by Paul Johnson Prior to 1961, Southern California kids didn’t hang out at the beach all that much; you’d be more likely to see them cruising the ice cream drive-ins in their cars, or dancing to 45 rpm records at sock hops. Live music was a rarity, and there was no such thing as “surf music.” But a new trend was on the rise that year: with the advent of lightweight foam boards, surfing caught on big with the beach-area kids; by summer this had grown into a major cultural explosion - a mass movement complete with it’s own styles, mannerisms and slang. I was 15, going into that memorable summer of ‘61, and a fledgling guitarist. My band (the Belairs) emulated the sounds of our rock-instrumental heroes (Duane Eddy, Link Wray, The Fireballs, the Ventures, etc.). When we heard that a lot of the new young “surfers” from Torrance Beach were driving thirty miles south to Balboa on the weekends to hear some guy named Dick Dale play the same kind of stuff we did, we decided to throw our own dances locally. The result was like jumping onto a speeding train! Our first dance that summer drew about 200 kids; a prominent local surfer came up to me that night and said: “Wow, man—your music sounds just like it feels out on a wave! You oughta call it ‘surf music’!” No one could have planned or “invented” such a phenomenon; and as its effect spread inland, further developments ensued that transformed the entire California youth scene for all time, which in turn attracted the attention and fascination of the rest of the world. In early ‘62 guitar maker Leo Fender invented the “reverb” unit—a device that gave the guitar a wet slippery tone; this sound was quickly adopted by growing numbers of new So Cal “surf” bands seeking to be a part of what Dick Dale and the Belairs had begun. By that summer, multiplied thousands of kids were stomping to the sound of reverby instrumentals all over Southern California and beyond. Also in early ‘62, just as the Belairs’ “Mr. Moto” hit the local charts (along with Dale’s “Lets Go Trippin”), another record started getting airplay: “Surfin’” (a vocal tune touting the sport and the phenomenon surrounding it) by a group from Hawthorne (just east of the South Bay) called the Beach Boys. Ironically, the local beach crowd (who insisted that “real” surf music must be instrumental) initially scorned this record. It wasn’t until the Beach Boys began singing about cars, “honeys” and cruisin’ the boulevards (subjects they could sing about with more personal authority) that they finally won everyone over and earned the local respect that their talent deserved. When Jan & Dean began to crank out similar hits, it became clear that this was a whole other phase: while instrumental bands like the Chantays (“Pipeline”), the Surfaris (“Wipeout”) and others continued to champion the authentic, original surf sound, the vocal bands captured the imagination of the whole world with what I now call the “California sound”—songs interpreting the “So Cal experience” for mass consumption. .

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