 The Beach Boys, the most successful and important American band of the rock music
era, is without question. They were formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, CA, around the three Wilson brothers:
Brian (b. June 20, 1942) (bass, piano, vocals), Dennis (b. Dec. 4, 1944 - d. Dec. 28, 1983) (drums, vocals),
and Carl (b. Dec. 21, 1946) (guitar, vocals). Additional members were Mike Love (b. Mar. 15, 1941) (vocals),
the Wilsons' cousin, and Al Jardine (b. Sep. 3, 1942) (guitar, vocals).
From the start, the focus of the Beach Boys' music was Brian Wilson, who combined a
fascination with vocal harmony in the Four Freshmen mold with a love of Chuck Berry-derived rock & roll.
Added to that was the subject matter of middle-class teenage life in Southern California - surfing, cars, &
girls. The Beach Boys returned to prominence in the mid-'70s on a wave of nostalgia and a potent concert
act that focused on their early hits. Capitol Records had repackaged the Beach Boys catalogue repeatedly,
but Endless Summer, a June 1974 double LP compiling their early-'60s work, amazingly topped the charts,
becoming their first gold album in seven years. In July 1976, The Beach Boys released 15 Big Ones, their
first new studio album in more than three years and their first album in a decade to credit Brian Wilson as
producer. The album spawned a Top Ten hit in a cover of Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music," but the group's
commercial appeal, at least as far as new recordings, was temporary.
The 1980's and 90's found The Beach Boys performing at milestone events including: the
Live Aid Concert, Farm Aid concerts, the Statue of Liberty's 100th Anniversary Salute and the Super Bowl.
In 1980, they played to over 500,000 people in the first of four Independence Day concerts on the Washington
Monument Grounds. On July 4, 1985 The Beach Boys played to an afternoon crowd of an estimated one million in
Philadelphia and that evening they performed for over 750,000 people on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Former
U.S. Secretary of Interior James Watt's efforts to ban The Beach Boys from the Washington Monument Grounds
in 1983 created an international furor that VH-1 has termed one of the most important moments in rock.
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