🌊GROW BIGGER EARS #19: Beach Boys Sound-Alike Songs Through the Decades🏄♂️
Not covers; not parodies. But, more than capable rockers taking their fandom of Brian Wilson and his Hawthorne, California bros and creating their own sun-drenched beach frenzy of girlz, carz & fun!🌞
17 Big Ones
Before the sun effectively sets on Summer 2023, the ever-beach-forward, crack FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE staff insisted on slathering on the ole SPF-80, grabbing a towel, and creating a decades-spanning collection of rock artists who created original songs that channeled our favorite So Cal band, The Beach Boys!
Today’s drive-thru menu? Catchy choruses, hand-claps, la-las, Farfisa riffs, high harmonies, ocean sound-effects, and jangly guitars!
Got a Beach Boys sound-alike song? Feel free to let us know in the comment section below, and you’re welcome to leave a song or vid link to it, as well!
The Fine Line Between Derivative and Evocative
Just below the Pacific Ocean-blue Spotify Playlist box, we’ll provide some “play-by-play” of the particular songs, with artist info and context. Whether aping the Beach Boys, themselves, or bravely pulling on the musical wet suit of the “surf sound” they perfected, these are original songs, usually written by the artists who performed them.
Most of these tracks are gloriously un-self-conscious, and mercifully lacking the cloying and derivative attack that would’ve made them otherwise unlistenable.
Instead, what has been gathered, for the most part, are songs that came from the heart and soul of musicians who grew up, appreciated, and were inspired by the musical genius of Brian Wilson, his brothers, Carl and Dennis, Al Jardine, Mike Love, David Marks, Bruce Johnston, Blondie Chaplin, Ricky Fataar, and everyone else who joined them, playing and singing, on stage and in the studio over the decades.
The Playlist
“I Live For the Sun” by The Sunrays (pictured above) is a fitting kick-off at Track #1. Written by Sunrays lead singer and drummer, Rick Henn (who recorded his own solo version 8 years later), it was originally recorded and released in July 1965, and produced by new Sunrays manager, Murry Wilson—Brian, Dennis, and Carl’s dad!
The boys had just fired Dad as their manager, and the ever-competitive Murry was determined to out-Brian his kid (Spotify seems to have an artist misprint for the Playlist). Astoundingly enough, here’s Henn, himself, long-board surfing near his home at Little Dume, Malibu, California, with his song serving as the music bed!
Track #2 brings us two longtime participants in surf music, Bruce & Terry, with “Summer Means Fun,” released on Columbia Records in June 1964. Theirs was the first recording of the song written by Fantastic Baggys, P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, with Jan & Dean following with their cover 3 months later:
The “Bruce” is Johnston, a Beach Boy who began his decades-long run with the surf titans the following year. “Terry” is Melcher, Doris Day’s lad who we’ll see toward the end of this article, as he’s a co-writer on the The Beach Boys’ 1988 “Kokomo” hit!
The Beach ‘Berries
When they weren’t jangling their collective Rickenbackers making early ‘70s tunes that smacked of mid-’60s Beatles bangers, Eric Carmen and his Raspberries were all about The Beach Boys! Hence, they give us Tracks #s 3 through 5 (“On the Beach,” “Cruisin’ Music,” and “Drivin’ Around”), all original compositions that faithfully capture the Boys’ sound without stooping to tawdry mimicry.
Eric Carmen (above) wrote all three (with guitarist Dave Smalley co-writing “Drivin’ Around”). Here’s Carmen, writing to oldies radio guru, Bob Lefsetz, in 2012:
“I had the great honor to tour with The Beach Boys, both as part of The Raspberries in 1974, and as a solo act in 1976. I can remember standing in the back of the hall listening to them play ‘Surfer Girl’ every night, and, literally, getting tears in my eyes every time they came to a stop after… ‘Do you love me, do you surfer…….’ Then the spotlight would hit Al Jardine as he would sing…. ‘girl.’ It was really an odd feeling to be brought to tears, almost every single night by such a simple song.
“We stayed in the same hotels, on tour, and I remember walking past one of the Beach Boys’ hotel rooms, and hearing them rehearsing acapella vocal parts. It stopped me in my tracks, and I walked backwards, literally stunned, listening to the complexity and beauty of those vocal harmonies. To this day, I have never heard anything that could compare.
“No other band in history has ever influenced me as much as the Beach Boys. Brian stands alone as the genius of my generation, even though I, like many others, was late to catch up with him.”
The Rubinoos: Raspberries’ Spunky Li’l Bros
The three “R”s make up this writer’s Mt. Rushmore of Power Pop: The aforementioned Raspberries, England’s The Records, and Jon Rubin’s The Rubinoos (1970-85, 1999-present), from Berkeley, California.
They were teen mag adorbs, and never knew from shave cream, much less razors. They were The Monkees without their cheeky obnoxiousness, the Bay City Rollers sans tartan accents, and the Banana Splits minus the furry suits. They spent about as much time in “Penny Lane” as The Raspberries, but beach-worthy melodies and harmonies were no less abundant in their sparkling repertoire.
Witness their barely-legal-to-have-a-license “Drivin’ Music” at #6, and “Nothing a Little Love Won’t Cure,” Track #7.
Eric Carmen re-surfaces at #8 with The Euclid Beach Band and “There’s No Surf in Cleveland.” The band was formed in 1978 by Scene magazine editor, Jim Girard and Rich Reising, a guitarist in Carmen’s solo band who also worked at Scene as a delivery driver. The group took its name from Euclid Beach Park, a defunct amusement park which closed in 1969.
“There’s No Surf in Cleveland” was written by Girard and Reising, and produced by Carmen on the 1978 single released on Cleveland International/Epic/CBS Records (after it sold over 11,000 copies as the sole release on Scene Records). The decidedly Beach Boys-inspired, elaborate vocal harmonies were arranged by band members Pete Hewlett and John Hart.
Cleveland’s ABC-TV affiliate, WEWS, ran this Euclid Beach Band feature in 1978, highlighting the song with interviews (including Steve Popovich, Cleveland Internat’l Records founder):
Drifting Sand (featuring The Beach Boys’ Al Jardine) takes the #9 position (above), with their “Best Summer Ever” from 2014, while Papa Doo Run Run (at #10) does The Byrds’ “Feel a Whole Lot Better,” written by Gene Clark. Papa Doo Run Run, from Cupertino, California, has specialized in covers of songs from the heyday of surf music since their formation in 1965.
They now, and have been, made up of current and former members of the Beach Boys, Jan & Dean’s, Frankie Valli’s and Brian Wilson’s backing bands.
Their cover was from their 2008 Greenifornia album. Power pop aficionados will well know The Flamin’ Groovies’ memorable 1978 cover of “Feel a Whole Lot Better.”
Track #11 is “Tarzana Reseda” (two L.A.-area suburbs in the San Fernando Valley) by the late Scotsman, Chris Rainbow (above, who died in 2015 at 68), dubbed “The One-Man Beach Boys” by Alan Parsons, for whom Rainbow had sung and played frequently.
On hearing of Rainbow’s death, Brian Wilson posted this on his official website, “I felt really bad to hear about Chris Rainbow passing away; he was too young. I remember in the late 1970s, a friend played ‘Dear Brian’ for me, and I was touched and honored by it. It was a beautiful track. I wish the best for Chris’s family and friends. Love & Mercy, Brian.”
2002 Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame inductees, The Ramones, would’ve told you their major musical influences were The Beatles, Phil Spector’s girl group productions of the ‘60s, and The Beach Boys (at least, that’s what they disclosed to yours truly in a Houston hotel room in 1978! That evening is more clearly revealed by clicking on this box:
Keyless Entry: My Night in The Ramones' Houston Hotel Room, 1978
I first met The Ramones almost a year to the day after they dropped an earth-shattering musical bomb on London, leaving their new, clear fall-out raining over hundreds of local dead-end dole kids bored with 40-year-old duffers filling songs with extended guitar twiddling and half-hour drum solos (think Eagles and Fleetwood Mac).
At #12, the Forest Hills Four managed to find a beach in Queens, namely, “Rockaway Beach.” As bassist Dee Dee’s fave beach hang, he wrote the song with The Beach Boys top of mind.
Frail and pasty, like so many crullers, British surf rockers (!), The Barracudas (above), follow at #13, with their story of Ricky, the hangdog hodad, and “His Last Summer,” released in 1980 on EMI Records, worldwide, except the U.S.
“Summerlove Sensation” by The Bay City Rollers (below) hits at #14. Written by Phil Coulter and Bill Martin, it was released in 1974 on Bell Records. It peaked at #3 on the UK Singles Chart.
#15 belongs to Tandyn Almer (below) and his “Victims of Chance.” Almer, recently covered extensively here, co-wrote Beach Boys songs, “Marcella” (1972) and “Sail On, Sailor” (1973), which easily pulls him into Beach Boys lore.
Related:
Our old friend, Eric Carmen (at #16 and #17), wraps up the Playlist neatly with two solo tracks, “Last Night” from his 1975, self-titled Arista Records debut, and “She Did It,” from his 1977 second album, Boats Against the Current. The single got to #23 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
In “Last Night,” Carmen name-checks “turning on The Carson Show,” referring to one of Brian Wilson’s late night favorites, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In fact, in 1977, Al Jardine and Brian collaborated on “Johnny Carson,” a stand-out track from The Beach Boys Love You album:
According to Songfacts, The Beach Boys were an influence on the sound of “She Did It” (at #17). Beach Boy Bruce Johnston sang backup on it, and there’s also a guitar solo by Andrew Gold (“Lonely Boy,” “Thank You For Being a Friend”), with drumming by Toto’s Jeff Porcaro.
Carmen has said that the Beach Boys’ 1968 hit, “Do It Again” was the inspiration for this song, because of the vocalized “did-its.” Carmen’s “She Did It” was in turn a source of inspiration for Hall & Oates’ 1982 hit, “Did It In a Minute.” Carmen was touring with Hall & Oates at the time their song was on the charts.
Playlist #s 18 & 19 contributed by Robert C. Gilbert of Listening Sessions on Substack: Peter Anders & Vini Poncia’s “New York’s a Lonely Town” (#18), originally recorded by The Tradewinds in 1965, with Dave Edmunds’ stunning 1976 production included here.
#19 is Gary Lewis & The Playboys’ original 1965 recording of “She’s Just My Style,” as written by Leon Russell, Snuff Garrett, Al Capps, and Lewis. Commentary on both songs can be found below in the comments! Thanks, Robert, for these 2 perfect adds!
#20 rounds out the Playlist nicely, with Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids’ “Time Will Tell,” from their Sons of the Beaches LP in 1975 (produced by the band and Toxey French for Private Stock Records). Formed in Boulder, CO in 1969, the song was written by Flash founding keyboardist, Kris Moe.
This track was recommended by Australian, Dave Laing, who offered some very compelling additions to the ‘List! As Dave mentioned in his comment below, Flash’s “Time Will Tell” lifts a bit from the 1966 Spector/Greenwich/Barry Ronettes hit, but more so (musically and vocally) from the Beach Boys’ 1969 cover.
Plus, the sound effects at the end of “Time Will Tell” makes it sound like we’re opening the door to go out and enjoy the sunshine and the waves, a fitting close to our Summer Playlist!🏄♂️
HONORABLE MENTION:
L.A.’s The Last, with the exquisitely evocative “Every Summer Day”! Read more about this late ‘70s pop’n’punk band by clicking this sentence!
The enigmatic Mark Eric (about whom more can be read here), and his “California Home” from 1969:
The Hudson Brothers, with 1975’s “Rendezvous,” written by Bill, Mark, and Brett Hudson, with Beach Boy Bruce Johnston on the co-write. It was originally released on Elton John’s Rocket Records (distributed by MCA); Elton’s lyricist, Bernie Taupin, produced:
And, finally, while technically a cover, we’ll cut ‘em some slack because their creative license has whelped a deliciously-listenable “re-purposing” of a 1988 Beach Boys hit (that had Brian Wilson nowhere near it) into a mid-’60s classic Beach Boys arrangement that gets a standing ovation from this corner!
BeachBoysTalk on Facebook: “Presenting our cover of ‘Kokomo’ [written by John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, Mike Love, and Terry Melcher]! What if The Beach Boys had done “Kokomo” in 1964/65? This is our first release, and we would like to dedicate it to all of our loyal BBTalkers, the wonderful guests we’ve had on, and of course, The Beach Boys! Thank you for all of the wonderful music!
“Special thank you to Scott Totten for a guitar solo that is straight out of 1964!”
Great stuff. Also check out Australia's answer to Flash Cadillac, Ol'55 - two brilliant hit singles on par with anything on the first Rubinoos album:
Stay (While The Night is Young) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI4OiPgRy3k
(Feels Like A) Summer's Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqF5MSfrbaI
and of course Flash Cadillac's great Bruce Johnston-produced Sons of Beaches LP!
And the Paley Brothers!
A couple of more modern bands that remind me of the Beach Boys are:
New Pornographers - Mass Romantic (the vocals more than the instrumentation), High Llamas (many songs), Linus of Hollywood, and especially The Explorer's Club.
I put together a quick playlist of a few songs I think fit the criteria (with a slight looser definition)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0snaZSf4RWCDZ2Xsoat4sL?si=dedec1737da54ad5