The legendary Labor Day weekend, 1961

[Andrew G. Doe]

I have a friend (Morley Bartnoff, best known as keyboardist for Dramarama and Burning Sensations) who shared a childhood recollection of being drawn by a crowd at a room at Hawthorne High School and, when he joined the crowd, they were gathered around the Beach Boys giving an informal concert in one of the rooms there.

I'd always raised an eyebrow at this story but coming on top of Carl's tale of a large crowd materializing out of nowhere, it rang a bell in my mind, because it happens to match up with Morley's anecdote.  One problem with the story is wikipedia has Morley's birthdate as '59.  I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, it either happened much later than the time frame we're concerned with or it didn't happen at all.  It's an interesting mental image though, if this event did take place and it was in '61.  IIRC Morley had said it was in '62, but I couldn't swear to that; it was a long time ago when I heard this and for all I know I might be mixing up who told me the story, too.  Next time I see him I will grill him further.

Well, July 13th 1962 they 'played' the Hawthorne High School Canteen Dance, so that part stacks up. They also played the HHS Valentine's Dance the following year on February 15th (Mark Groseclose depping for Dennis). June 12th 1964 they played the HHS Senior Breakfast. They also played the senior prom in 1969, but that was at the Beverley Hilton hotel.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Also noticed something regarding your Bellagio page whilst fact finding - for November 1963...

15 - Wallich's Music City, South Bay Center, Los Angeles CA* [grand opening]

Why would they be playing a grand opening for a store that opened in 1940? Was it a personal appearance instead or was it a grand "re-opening"?

Check the location - South Bay, not Hollywood. This was a new branch: by fall 1964, although the downtown store had been closed, WMC had branches in Hollywood, Topanga Canyon, South Bay and Lakewood.

[Zander]

Also noticed something regarding your Bellagio page whilst fact finding - for November 1963...

15 - Wallich's Music City, South Bay Center, Los Angeles CA* [grand opening]

Why would they be playing a grand opening for a store that opened in 1940? Was it a personal appearance instead or was it a grand "re-opening"?

Check the location - South Bay, not Hollywood. This was a new branch: by fall 1964, although the downtown store had been closed, WMC had branches in Hollywood, Topanga Canyon, South Bay and Lakewood.

Ah cool, thought that was probably the case but from that Wiki-article it made it sound as though it was just one store and not a chain - cheers

[Zander]

Dennis Interview in Disc (see Badman's book  page 16) - I've shortened it for typing purposes....

"I spent my $100 on a set of drums: one bass drum, snare and a cymbal. We played in the house but neighbours phoned the police"

Assuming it's the same Disc article on that page and the same interview with both Denny and Carl we're informed

1. They got $100 each
2. The drum kit was 2nd hand
3. Their parents were away for 5 days

and that they were starving as they had no food or drinks...  Ha ha...

[Andrew G. Doe]

Ha ! Only just noticed that (after having had the book for some six and a half years): Badman gets the Labor Day date entirely wrong, placing it in early August.

[bgas]

Ha ! Only just noticed that (after having had the book for some six and a half years): Badman gets the Labor Day date entirely wrong, placing it in early August.

Yes, of course, but in 1961 they moved the observance of Labor Day to August, so that it would better fit Badman's story when he would write about it some 43 years later. 

OK. I've thought about this. Here's my gameplan.

1 - buy lottery ticket.

2 - win jackpot

3 - fly to LA

4 - spend many months going through the LADP records for Hawthorne for August/September 1961, the Capitol Records archives 1962-1970, the Local 47 filing cabinets for 1961-1970,  the records of United Western, the AFTRA vaults and... oh, any other relevant archive I can think of.

5 - write definitive chronology.

Anything I've missed ? Any major holes ? 

Once you've won the lottery, I suggest you spend a fraction of your winnings:
Hire a squad of former government employees to kidnap Brian, Al, Mike and Dave
    ( Oh what the heck, let's add Virginia Jardine, Jo-Ann Marks, John Maus and Bruce Morgan)
Keep them in individual rooms( so they can't re-work the story once again)
  Starting with hypnosis( and if that doesn't work, truth serum) dig deep into their memories and get back to the root of what really happened( before they were brainwashed by the Murry Files)
Zap them with the MIB Neuralizer, send them home, and write the now definitive chronology
  (Oh yeah, don't forget to give Mike his new memory that he works in the same gas station he has for the last 45 years)

[Rocker]

In the same programme David also says that a "hollow body electro-acoustic" was played unplugged on the recording of "Surfin", would that be Carl's Kay branded guitar or the rental one? Also, seems strange to rent amplifiers to practise then not use them for the recording of "Surfin'"....

Wonder about that too. On "Surfin'" it's not amplified, same goes for "Luau". Or the volume was very, very low.

Would Carl's guitar be something close to this?



Taken from this site:

http://craigslistvintageguitarhunt.blogspot.com/2009/07/nice-kay-hollow-body-electric-in.html

[guitarfool2002]

2 quick points:

Just because the police "showed up", if that's what happened, it doesn't mean they logged it or made any kind of report. Remember this is 1961 - they used pen and paper, and those big IBM "computers" which operated on punch cards to log and dispatch calls - and if they got a noise complaint chances are it would not have been recorded. Just like today, they'd pull up and tell them to keep it down. And a lot of those daily records that weren't considered part of "big" cases or open cases were lost through the years.

Of course the story of the police showing up to a late-summer party with kids dancing in the driveways as the teenaged Wilsons played is a much more romantic story! It's been my experience that any time a group of kids hears music coming from a neighborhood garage, house, or whatever, they'll stand around and watch/listen. It's part of the appeal of being in a band. Ever see "The Wonder Years" episode where Kevin joins a band? - same thing happened there. He struck an A chord, the only one he knew, the kids in the street went nuts, and the cops came to bust it up. Classic!

As far as the Kay guitar - that semi-hollow in the picture could very well have been like the one Carl played, but unless there is more info on what exactly Carl played it's just a guess. Kay was a beginner/lower quality brand, along with Harmony, Silvertone, and others of that ilk, and mostly sold through retailers like Sears to the beginner/student market. This was before the beginner guitar market exploded in the 60's (Beatles influence) and the stores were literally flooded with Japanese imports - most of them pure crap and mostly unplayable.

If you were 13 and wanted a guitar in 1961, and your parents weren't super-wealthy, you'd get a Kay, a Silvertone, or a Harmony...most likely. And if you liked playing guitar, you'd save up and in time get a Fender or Gibson or something better. Again, unless you were wealthy. Beginner/student guitars apart from the brands listed above were actually horrible back then, but the Kay was a decent brand for what it was.

The most famous Kay model guitar? This "Thin Twin" model made famous by Jimmy Reed.

[Emdeeh]

Last night, on Larry Battson's Wild World blogcast, Al Jardine reiterated the "we rented instruments from a music store using my mom's money" version of the story.

That's not an exact quote, but it's the gist -- listen for yourselves at www.blogtalkradio.com/larry-battson, about halfway through.

[bgas]

Last night, on Larry Battson's Wild World blogcast, Al Jardine reiterated the "we rented instruments from a music store using my mom's money" version of the story.

That's not an exact quote, but it's the gist -- listen for yourselves at www.blogtalkradio.com/larry-battson, about halfway through.

Without listening, but looking at the description, Answers me question of whether it's new sound bites or recorded;
Still, Al isn't known to have the best memory for BBs trivia, and I'll presume he's simply going on what he's repeated and heard so many times that he now believes it.  His version seemingly eliminating all of Murry's money....

[adamghost]

Also, factor in perspective....Al having to cadge money from his mom is going to loom much larger in his mind than in the Wilsons'.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Indeed. Alan's part of the tale has always been consistent, and the only sum ever mentioned was $300, as opposed to anything from $80 to $800 for the 'emergency' fund.

[c-man]

As for why Carl would play the electro/acoustic Kay unplugged on the record instead of the newly-rented Fender Strat...the same reason Al played stand-up bass on the record, and Brian played a snare drum only instead of someone, Denny or a pro drummer, playing the full kit:  they were going for a simple folk sound instead of a rock sound.

[c-man]

Regarding the bass rental, here's something ELSE to consider...in the liner notes of "Carl And The Passions - So Tough", Alan's mom is thanked for renting "the bass fiddle on the first session"...and in Badman's book (pg. 17) Dennis is quoted as describing their first gig (December 23rd):  "Alan played (an upright) bass, which was bigger than him".

So, we can POSSIBLY come to the conclusion that Virigina's rental of the bass was for more than just a weekend...maybe the Wilsons payed for the initial (Labor Day) weekend rental with Murry's food money, and then when it became obvious they'd be recording & playing gigs, Al's mom plopped down $300 for a long-term rental (say October-January).  That might also explain why there is no bass on the September 15th demo session:  it had been returned after the Labor Day weekend, and wouldn't be rented again until it was needed for the early October master session.

Also Andrew, I think the Labor Day timeline still makes sense, even if the demo session wasn't until mid-month:  they simply needed the extra time to practice & get better (while still attending classes or working).

[Andrew G. Doe]

Regarding the bass rental, here's something ELSE to consider...in the liner notes of "Carl And The Passions - So Tough", Alan's mom is thanked for renting "the bass fiddle on the first session"...and in Badman's book (pg. 17) Dennis is quoted as describing their first gig (December 23rd):  "Alan played (an upright) bass, which was bigger than him".

So, we can POSSIBLY come to the conclusion that Virigina's rental of the bass was for more than just a weekend...maybe the Wilsons payed for the initial (Labor Day) weekend rental with Murry's food money, and then when it became obvious they'd be recording & playing gigs, Al's mom plopped down $300 for a long-term rental (say October-January).  That might also explain why there is no bass on the September 15th demo session:  it had been returned after the Labor Day weekend, and wouldn't be rented again until it was needed for the early October master session.

Also Andrew, I think the Labor Day timeline still makes sense, even if the demo session wasn't until mid-month:  they simply needed the extra time to practice & get better (while still attending classes or working).

Small problem: no-one, going back as far as I can as regards print sources, makes so much as a passing reference to the Labor Day weekend beign when they rented the instruments and bass. I could understand one or two people forgetting it decades after the event... but for everyone to forget it within three or so years is highly unlikely. So, I'm sticking with my revised timeline, thus:

September 1-3 - Labor Day weekend, Murry & Audree go... somewhere, the band auditions for the Morgans.
September 8-9 - Murry & Audree go... somewhere (again), the band rent instruments and rehearse "Surfin'", "Luau" & "Lavender"
September 15  - demo session at Morgan's house.

[c-man]

Something else that occurred to me...maybe it wasn't "Surfin'" that got Brian that F, but rather "Surfer Girl" (or at least the melody of it)...after all, that's supposed to be the first song he ever wrote.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Something else that occurred to me...maybe it wasn't "Surfin'" that got Brian that F, but rather "Surfer Girl" (or at least the melody of it)...after all, that's supposed to be the first song he ever wrote.

Um... Thinking Fred Morgan would recognise a variation of "When You Wish Upon A Star". 

[c-man]

Something else that occurred to me...maybe it wasn't "Surfin'" that got Brian that F, but rather "Surfer Girl" (or at least the melody of it)...after all, that's supposed to be the first song he ever wrote.

Um... Thinking Fred Morgan would recognise a variation of "When You Wish Upon A Star". 

Well...he did give it an "F". 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Something else that occurred to me...maybe it wasn't "Surfin'" that got Brian that F, but rather "Surfer Girl" (or at least the melody of it)...after all, that's supposed to be the first song he ever wrote.

Um... Thinking Fred Morgan would recognise a variation of "When You Wish Upon A Star". 

Well...he did give it an "F". 

I once handed in the lyric to "Space Oddity" for a homework assignment - not only did I get a fail and a detention for being a smartass (see, it's nothing new), but also a dressing down in front of the whole class for assuming my tutor was not only hopelessly unhip but also stupid. Taught me a valuable lesson: if you're going to do that, never use a chart hit.

[bgas]

Something else that occurred to me...maybe it wasn't "Surfin'" that got Brian that F, but rather "Surfer Girl" (or at least the melody of it)...after all, that's supposed to be the first song he ever wrote.

Um... Thinking Fred Morgan would recognise a variation of "When You Wish Upon A Star". 

Well...he did give it an "F". 

I once handed in the lyric to "Space Oddity" for a homework assignment - not only did I get a fail and a detention for being a smartass (see, it's nothing new), but also a dressing down in front of the whole class for assuming my tutor was not only hopelessly unhip but also stupid. Taught me a valuable lesson: if you're going to do that, never use a chart hit.

Then it was smart for Brian to hand in either Surfin or Surfer Girl, because at that time, neither was a chart hit. 
Correct?

[guitarfool2002]

and then when it became obvious they'd be recording & playing gigs, Al's mom plopped down $300 for a long-term rental (say October-January).  That might also explain why there is no bass on the September 15th demo session:  it had been returned after the Labor Day weekend, and wouldn't be rented again until it was needed for the early October master session.

I think it was an "impulse buy" or in this case "impulse rental" to get the stand up acoustic bass. I said the same thing about the type of folk music Al was into at that time having little or no electric bass or full drum kits (heck I think it was 1963 or 64 before a drum set was allowed on the Grand Ol' Opry stage just for perspective from the Nashville world), so it's definitely a factor in their decision.

Maybe they had the folk sound in their minds and their immediate plans, but lugging a stand up bass to the type of teenage Legion Hall types of gigs the Boys would be booking would have been a waste of time because you'd never hear it over drums and electric guitars in a live setting.

So my next questions are:

1. When why and how did Brian and not Al become the "official" bass player when they went electric and ditched the folk stuff?

2. Did they book and or play any gigs which would have been at folk clubs or concerts, or were the first gigs "electric" with the famous lineup?

It still bugs me why Al didn't get/rent a Fender bass when it most likely would have cost less than renting that acoustic. And a Fender was definitely not taller than Al himself at the time.

[bgas]

and then when it became obvious they'd be recording & playing gigs, Al's mom plopped down $300 for a long-term rental (say October-January).  That might also explain why there is no bass on the September 15th demo session:  it had been returned after the Labor Day weekend, and wouldn't be rented again until it was needed for the early October master session.

I think it was an "impulse buy" or in this case "impulse rental" to get the stand up acoustic bass. I said the same thing about the type of folk music Al was into at that time having little or no electric bass or full drum kits (heck I think it was 1963 or 64 before a drum set was allowed on the Grand Ol' Opry stage just for perspective from the Nashville world), so it's definitely a factor in their decision.

Maybe they had the folk sound in their minds and their immediate plans, but lugging a stand up bass to the type of teenage Legion Hall types of gigs the Boys would be booking would have been a waste of time because you'd never hear it over drums and electric guitars in a live setting.

So my next questions are:

1. When why and how did Brian and not Al become the "official" bass player when they went electric and ditched the folk stuff?

2. Did they book and or play any gigs which would have been at folk clubs or concerts, or were the first gigs "electric" with the famous lineup?

It still bugs me why Al didn't get/rent a Fender bass when it most likely would have cost less than renting that acoustic. And a Fender was definitely not taller than Al himself at the time.

Maybe the store didn't rent electric basses. Heck, for that matter, maybe  it was an acoustic only rental store, which would explain the need for the Wilson's money to get some electric instruments so they could really wail! 

[guitarfool2002]

So they rented the bass at the acoustic-only store, and went elsewhere for the electric instruments? Maybe so, if there were acoustic-only shops in that area.

Sounds a bit like the Monty Python "cheese shop" skit...

Do you have a Fender Stratocaster?
No sir, we're fresh out of those.
How about a Gibson EB-O?
I'm sorry, we're out of those as well.
This IS a music shop, isn't it?
Yes sir, one of the finest in California!
Okay then, do you have any amplifiers?
No, sorry, we're fresh out of those.

etc etc etc

[bgas]

So they rented the bass at the acoustic-only store, and went elsewhere for the electric instruments? Maybe so, if there were acoustic-only shops in that area.

Sounds a bit like the Monty Python "cheese shop" skit...

Do you have a Fender Stratocaster?
No sir, we're fresh out of those.
How about a Gibson EB-O?
I'm sorry, we're out of those as well.
This IS a music shop, isn't it?
Yes sir, one of the finest in California!
Okay then, do you have any amplifiers?
No, sorry, we're fresh out of those.

etc etc etc

well, I think that's part of the problem; no one now, seems to know just what was available then. While the $300 figure has remained consistent for almost 50 years, nothing else in connection with the tale has been the same. The story changes. While they remember the amount, I don't recall ever reading about a specific store. It could have been the shop around the corner, or Wallich's Music City, or anywhere in between.

[guitarfool2002]

I don't recall ever reading about a specific store. It could have been the shop around the corner, or Wallich's Music City, or anywhere in between.

Timothy White's book mentions Wallich's by name. Carrie Marks a few pages ago mentions the possibility of a shop called "Hogan's" in Hawthorne.