Labor Day Weekend 1961

[petsoundsnola]

I've always thought that the money given to the Boys while Murry and Audree were away was quite a bit of cash for that time period. Various accounts state that $150, $200, $250 was given for groceries, etc.

How long were they away, exactly?  Even $150 would have been a lot in 1961. My dad has told me that he could take a date out for burgers and a movie for $5 back then.

No wonder they rented the instruments. That was a lot of "play money" for a bunch of teenagers.

[Custom Machine]

Out of curiosity I ran $150, $200, and $250 thru the inflation calculator and came up with $1193, $1590, and $1988.  $300, which I think is a figure that's also been proffered over the years, comes out to $2386. 

The early versions of that story left out any mention of Alan's mom footing all or the bulk of the instrument rental bill, although that appears to be the more likely explanation.

[37!ws]

[NITPICK]
Actually, it's since been found out that it wasn't actually Labor Day weekend but actually late August.
[/NITPICK]

[Jesse Reiswig]

I highly recommend you read Jim Murphy's Becoming the Beach Boys. It totally bursts the mythology around Labor Day weekend and the timing of the instrument rentals. Basically, it seems the instruments weren't rented until significantly later, which makes sense, since we don't hear them on any of the home recordings or the Morgan demo session. It seems there's no connection at all between Murry and Audree's trip and the instrument rentals.