The First Surf Record Wasn't Even About Surfing

Previously: Roadie With A Drum Kit

The song considered by many to be the first surf record was released in 1959 and, oddly enough, had nothing to do with surfing. It was about howling at the moon. Here's that record, Moon Dawg by The Gamblers. Give a listen:

The identity of the members of this group are shrouded in mystery, but pop culture detectives have managed to ferret out some details. I quote here a greatly truncated section from Andrew Hickey's, California Dreaming: The LA Pop Music Scene and the 60s:

Nobody knows for sure who the Gamblers were--the passage of time has added to the legend, and sources conflict as to who did what, but let's listen and try to hear who the players are at the start of our story.

It starts with the drums, of course. [Sandy Nelson? No, that sound is the sound of Rod Schaffer.]

It's a primal, rolling sound...Then the rhythm guitar enters. [Has to be a young Elliot Engber, who was a member of the Gamblers when they called themselves the Moon Dogs.] This is surf music, and we've been hearing it again and again and again. 

Except this is a year before surf music, before Dick Dale and His Del-Tones start playing music like this to surfers, gremmies, and even the odd hodad, and before the sound of a reverbed Fender becomes synonymous with the waves. 

Then enter the Bass, just a low rumble here from Larry Taylor, no hint yet of the virtuoso who would play with everyone from the Monkees to Tom Waits, just holding the low end down, adding a bit of throb.

And then those staccato piano chords come in [Howard Hirsch?  No, this has to be Bruce Johnston, who later wrote "I Write The Songs" and whose distinctive voice is apparent once those harmonies come in, a three chord block following the rest of the track.] 

And forty seconds in we finally have the lead guitar, from Derry Weaver.  This is the birth of surf guitar right here. It's not born fully formed -it's a thin, wiry sound, without the reverb and distortion that would define the genre- but the phrasing is all there, paving the way for Dick Dale that is to come.  And then the final element--producer Nik Venet, howling at the moon.

The Other First Surf Record

Okay, so that record is considered by many pop music historians as "the first surf record" even though it didn't have anything to do with surfing.  Then a year later, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, clearly inspired by the sound of Moon Dawg, cut an instrumental they named Let's Go Trippin'  which wasn't strictly about surfing either. But that hasn't stopped other pop music historians from claiming Dick Dale's was the first surf record. Why? Who knows, other than some kids who surfed seemed to feel that the fast guitar and rolling drums of that single gave off a feeling of excitement, risk, and speed. You know, like surfing.

Third Time's The Charm
At around this same time, a garage band from Hawthorne, California with no performing or recording experience who called themselves the Pendletons (because the boys' father hoped maybe Pendleton Mills would sponsor the nascent group) found themselves auditioning for Candix records. They played acoustic guitars and sang in the style of The Kingston Trio, like pretty much everyone else was doing at the time.  The producer didn't care for their material and asked if they had any other songs, and one of them said, "Brian and Mike have been writing a song about surfing."

Brian and Mike had been writing about no such thing, but the boys fibbed and told the executives the surfing song wasn't finished yet and made arrangements to come back with it the next month.  These guys knew absolutely nothing about surfing, but one member of the group, Dennis, spent a lot of time at the beach, so Dennis helped Mike and Brian with the slang. They came up with a number they called Surfin', which didn't sound anything like the supposed surfing music typified by the instrumental styles of Moon Dawg or Let's Go Trippin'.  The song actually owed more to the Kingston Trio and Doo-Wop than anything else ("Bom Bom dit di-dit di-dit" in repeat).

But at least you could tell by the lyrics that it was about surfing.  So according to still other music critics, that record was actually "the first surf record."  So take your pick. After that the deluge began, and surf music ruled AM radio for almost three years until the Beatles hit the scene, followed by the British Invasion, which spawned the garage band era.  Tastes had changed, and the reign of surf music was at an end.

But let's back up a bit and hear from the author of California Dreaming again:

When the Pendleton's new record came out, Candix records had made the unilateral decision to rechristen them.  The only question was what to call them. "The Surfers" was considered for awhile, before Russ Regan hit on the perfect name for the band, and had it stuck on the label of Candix single 331 when it was released in November of 1961. The first time the band knew about their change of name was when they opened a box of their singles.  And since the song was a big local hit, and a minor one nationally, reaching number seventy five, the name stuck.  The pendletons were now the Beach Boys.

 

(Don't worry. They got better.)

Roadie With A Drum Kit

Previously: Mr. Acker Bilk Got Here Before The Beatles

If you spend enough time on Youtube tracking down obscure musicians, you may eventually come across 60-year-old amateur drummer Ole Rosssillly. (That's right, he spells his name with three 'S's and three 'L's.) Ole was a roadie for all the great rock bands back in the day, and now that he is (presumably) retired, he spends his days honoring the musicians he used to set up for by enthusiastically doing drum covers of their hits.  

But Ole doesn't go halfway. Oh no. He has an almost ridiculously massive drum set; if a kit this big was actually on stage at a concert, it would probably crowd the other musicians off the stage.  Yet somehow Ole manages to utilize every piece of percussion in every recording I've watched him play so far; I counted ten tom-toms and 20 cymbals of varying sizes, plus several cowbells and other doo-dads. And I'm sure I still missed a few. 

For each song Ole covers, he films himself from four separate angles, because you can't see all of the equipment from only one camera.  After I watched his first cover of the Monkees' Pleasant Valley Sunday, I'm danged if I couldn't keep myself from clicking on and watching it from the the other three cameras!  Then I watched him play to several other hits, also at four angles each.  Couldn't help myself; I kept on watching for hours!  A drum kit like his would have been my teenage dream. 

So now Ole seems to be living his dream by spending what must be his every waking hour playing his heart out in tribute to his rock heroes.  I say good for you, Ole!

Be sure you click on the video so you watch it directly on his Youtube channel because you won't want to miss ole's introductory comments. to his videos. because part of the charm. is that he tends. to overly punctuate. his sentences. a lot.  

And for heaven's sake, give this poor guy a "like." A cat who dedicates this much time to his passion deserves to have more than the mere two this video has garnered so far.

Mr. Acker Bilk Got Here Before The Beatles

Here's a trivia question for you: What British musician had the first number one single in America in the early 1960's?

If you thought it was the Beatles, you'd be wrong. The first artist from England who had a number one hit in America was a person whose name you may never have heard.  You may not know the name of the record, either, but it's a sure bet you've heard it many times.  Acker Bilk was a clarinet player, and his hit record, Stranger on the Shore, was all over the radio in 1962 and has been a staple of elevator music for more than 60 years. Acker's instrumental topped the charts in America three years before anyone had even heard of the Beatles. Don't tell me you've never heard this one:

Stranger on the Shore has been covered by practically every instrumentalist you can name, and just when it was starting to wane, someone put words to it and every singer in the day recorded it on their albums, from The Drifters to Slim Whitman to Patti Page. Here's Andy Williams, who seems just barely able to hit that low note:

In Andy's defense, you'll remember the song was originally played on a clarinet, which has a greater octave range than most humans.

And just in case you're wondering: yeah, Acker Bilk says he's sick of hearing that song too.

The Very First Rock And Roll Record Was Released In 1934

Prevously: Huh? And The Mysterions

Okay, I admit it: I was a bit disingenuous with the title of this piece.  Strictly speaking, this is not the first rock & roll song. It isn't even about rock & roll dancing and it doesn't have a rock & roll beat -far from it. This is actually a song from the swing era. 

But it is the first known rock & roll record, in the sense that the title of the song is "Rock And Roll" and the phrase "rock and roll" is sung over and over.  And over.

And this isn't even the Boswell Sisters' best work. In fact it was the B side of their recording "You Oughta Be In Pictures" which later became the unofficial anthem of the American film industry after Rudy Vallee covered it and turned it into a bona fide hit.  But the song does have a place in rock & roll history, if only as a footnote. 

Here is the scene from the movie Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round where the Boswell Sisters are part of the entertainment on a cruise ship, singing about how they'll somehow be dancing and romancing "in the rolling and the rocking of the sea":

The film itself belongs to that genre of musical-comedy-whodunnits that were popular at the time. The story revolves around the murder of a gangster on a cruise ship, and features Jack Benny as the director of a company of entertainers on said cruise.  Is the movie worth watching?  It is, if only for the chance to see Jack Benny before he was funny:

Huh? And The Mysterions

Previously: 100,000 Candy Bars You Never Got A Chance To Taste

I was about 15 years old before I started taking an interest in songs on the radio.  I found I really liked this song I was hearing that had just hit number one on KHJ radio's top forty, "96 Tears."  I recall the disc jockey saying the name of the group was unpronounceable and that made me all the more curious, so I went down to the Anaheim mall and bought the 45.  But the record label just listed the artists as  "? and the Mysterions." 

I didn't know how I was supposed to pronounce that question mark part so in my head I silently pronounced the band's name to myself as  "huh?" and the Mysterions. This was the sixties, and that pronunciation made as much sense to me as anything else those days.

It was many years later -decades, actually- when I finally learned the group's name was pronounced "Question Mark and the Mysterions."

Duh. 

Glad I never pronounced my version of the name out loud among my peers. I was in 9th grade and wouldn't have been able to bear the shame. 

Anyway, by listening to the record over and over I found I could learn to play that riff by ear on my little sister's toy organ, as the song simply slipped from a C chord to a C minor and back again repeatedly.  The church janitor happened to be my neighbor, and one weekday I went to work with him so  I could sneak into the chapel and practice that song on the massive church organ while no one else was in the building.  Teenage heaven, my friend. Teenage heaven.

Here's that record, which I probably shouldn't have been playing in church, as rock historians have since dubbed it one of the early precursors to the Punk Rock movement:

By the way, you may have guessed that the lead singer's name wasn't really Question Mark. It was Rudy Martinez.  And Rudy wants people to know they are a Mexican band. “We lose our national identity when we say Hispanic,” he said. “People don’t connect the good things we do with being Mexican, and that hurts our image as a people.” -Fifty Years Later Question Mark and the Mysterions are as Mysterious as Ever.

Next Up: The Very First Rock & Roll Record: 1934