Although nearly a dozen documentaries and dramatized films have been made about The Beach Boys — from 1985’s An American Band to 2000’s TV miniseries The Beach Boys: An American Family and 2014’s extremely odd Love & Mercy — Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny’s captivating new documentary is one of the best.
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| For several years during the early 1960s, The Beach Boys — from left, Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson and Mike Love — were the ultimate ambassadors for the California dream of sand, surf and catchy songs. |
Marshall and Zimny also benefited from a wealth of photographs and home movies; the group’s early years were impressively well documented.
Marshall and Zimny spend most of their film on the popular California group’s origins and meteoric rise — and temporary fall — during the 1960s and early ’70s. While some may regard this as barely half the story, this film nonetheless packs a lot into its 113 minutes.
This saga had it all: a physically and emotionally abusive “stage father” who tried to compensate for his own failed music career by (badly) micro-managing that of his three sons; a tortured genius (eldest son Brian); constantly rotating personnel — who knew that Glen Campbell was briefly a Beach Boy (?!) — the friendly competition with The Beatles, for chart-topping hits and albums; increasingly complex and forward-thinking songs, courtesy of Brian; and eventual emergence into the well-deserved respect of history.
This film opens with a rapturous 1976 reunion concert at a stadium packed to the rafters with tens of thousands of fans, and then bounces back to the late 1950s.
Brian Wilson was 16 in 1958; Dennis and Carl were 13 and 11, respectively. They grew up in Hawthorne, California. (Where else?) Their father, Murry, played piano and composed a handful of songs that had been modest hits during the previous few years. Brian was fascinated by the harmonies of vocal groups such as The Four Freshmen; Carl was enamored of Chuck Berry.
When the brothers got serious about writing, performing and recording songs, they roped in high school classmate Al Jardine, and cousin Mike Love. (Tellingly, Love grew up in the more upscale Los Angeles-area neighborhood of Baldwin Hills.)
Brian and Love co-wrote “Surfin’” and “Surfin’ Safari,” and the former was recorded as a studio demo in September 1961. The fledgling band’s first money performance was New Year’s Eve 1961, in Long Beach. Everybody sang, and by this point the boys had gravitated toward their instruments of choice: Carl on lead guitar, Jardine on rhythm guitar, Brian on bass, Dennis on drums, and Love handling lead vocals and occasional sax touches.
Consider: At this point, Brian, Dennis and Carl were only 19, 16 and 14.
It’s important to recognize, right from the start, that The Beach Boys put an entirely new spin on so-called “surf music.” Its traditionally “spring reverb”-based sound came primarily from instrumental groups such as The Ventures and The Challengers; from the very beginning, The Beach Boys were a vocal group.
And goodness, they caught fire quickly.
After striking out with Liberty and Dot, Murry — now serving as the group’s manager — secured a seven-year contract with Capitol Records. The Beach Boys’ debut single for this new label was “Surfin’ Safari,” released in early June 1962; their debut album of the same title followed in October.
It was groundbreaking in an unexpected way: laden with mostly original songs by Brian, Love and Gary Usher, as opposed to covers of existing tunes.
Jardine had left the group temporarily, in order to finish his school education; he was replaced by Davis Marks.
The chronology quickly becomes almost breathtaking. The group released six (!) more albums in the next two years; although individual songs jockeyed in the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, they didn’t land a No. 1 hit until “I Get Around,” in May 1964.
By this point, Brian had become obsessed by the “wall of sound” backing arrangements that Phil Spector was producing for his vocal acts, evidenced specifically in The Ronettes’ 1963 hit, “Be My Baby.”
Brian also was getting overwhelmed. You can see it in the pensive, haunted expression captured in still photos as 1964 drew to a close. The crisis came two days before Christmas that year, when he had a panic attack during a flight from Los Angeles to Houston. He couldn’t handle the multiple stresses of road travel, writing songs and producing them ... and the latter had become his all-consuming passion.
He therefore withdrew from performing one month later, at which point Campbell replaced him when the band toured. Brian immediately teamed with the Wrecking Crew session musicians, and from that point forward “designed” songs with multiple backing tracks, into which his bandmates would later record their vocals when they had time for studio work.
(Other road substitutions included Daryl Dragon, who performed with The Beach Boys from 1967 through ’72, after which he formed a duet with his wife, and they became The Captain & Tennille.)
The first album that resulted from Brian’s approach — March 1965’s The Beach Boys Today! — is an early (and entirely successful) example of an album as a structured, textured, unified whole, as opposed to merely a collection of disconnected songs.
It becomes disturbingly clear, during archival footage of this period, that Brian’s innovative production desires are clashing with his father’s old-school notions of song-writing ... a fracture eventually destined to result in a shocking betrayal.
By early 1965, of course, the “British Invasion” — led by The Beatles — had changed everything in the American music scene. Although newspaper and magazine articles played up the supposed rivalry between the two groups — as they battled each other for chart hits — the actual dynamic was closer to mutual respect.
Brian’s work on Pet Sounds — released May 16, 1966 — was a direct response to the December 1965 release of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul; when John Lennon and Paul McCartney learned what Brian was up to, they insisted on hearing the album before its official debut. Then they went and made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
And, of course, The Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R.” — first track on the 1968 double album The Beatles — is a deliberate parody of The Beach Boys’ “California Girls” and Chuck Berry’s “Back in the U.S.A.,” with Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies on the bridge.
“We were singers,” Jardine sagely observes, in this documentary. “They were players.”
In the final analysis, The Beach Boys placed 37 songs in the U.S. Top 40 — the most of any American band — but achieved only four No. 1 hits: “I Get Around,” “Help Me, Rhonda” (spring 1965), “Good Vibrations” (December 1966) and — this was a surprise — “Kokomo” (November 5, 1988, for just one week).
That latter prompted an unusual record: 22 years between No. 1 hits!
(The Beatles, of course, blew those stats out of the water: 49 U.S. Top 40 hits, and 20 at No. 1.)
As this film draws to its conclusion, viewers likely will realize that Dennis and Carl Wilson are conspicuously absent among those newly interviewed. The reasons are tragic; Dennis drowned at the age of 39, and Carl died of cancer at 51. Perhaps not wanting to harsh their film’s mostly cheerful vibe, Marshall and Zimny don’t dwell on this.
Also notably absent is any mention of the numerous lawsuits that flew back and forth toward the end of the 20th century, and the acrimonious split between Brian and Love, which subsequently found them performing the group’s earlier hits in separate live bands: still true to this day.
(Most contentiously, Love had been denied co-writing credit on dozens of the group’s early songs.)
Adequately covering the band’s entire career would require at least two more films of comparable depth ... which likely wouldn’t be greeted with the same enthusiasm, since that part of the story is grimly depressing.
Marshall and Zimny wisely chose to focus on the carefree sound and appearance that made The Beach Boys the early 1960s’ “most articulate spokesmen for the California dream.”
With that goal in mind, they succeeded quite well.
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