On the day we celebrate the release of Brian's NO PIER PRESSURE, I am happy to share that McFarland Publishing advises they have a large number of pre-orders for my book
Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963, and that the publication process will move quickly from here out. Although I do not yet have a firm release date, we are at the stage of creating the Index and I am hopeful the book will be out early June. It will be about 500 pages, featuring 75 photographs, 12 Appendices, 1,200 end notes, and a extensive bibliography and index.
Thank you to everyone who has placed an order for the book. I believe you will enjoy it immensely and will not be disappointed.
I have been a fan and collector of the band since fall 1966 and I set out to write a book about their early history that I would want to read myself. A book that addressed and tried to answer all the obvious and all the arcane questions about the band's early history. The book opens on June 16, 1960, on HalCap Field, as the Seventh Annual Graduation Exercises of Hawthorne High School get underway. Among the 403 eager graduates sitting on metal folding chairs on the school's football field were two seventeen-year-old guys who, in about fifteen months, would help form the greatest rock 'n' roll band America has ever produced -- Alan Charles Jardine and Brian Douglas Wilson. We take a trip back through Hawthorne and the boys' musical education, that key year following high school, and forward on through 1963. Twenty four chapters later we end with a Coda -- The Hite Morgan Tapes: Discovery, Illumination, and Litigation, drawn from interviews with Bruce Morgan, Paul Urbahns, and Steve Hoffman, and a stack of two decades of legal documents taller than me. Along the way we learn about life at Hawthorne High School in the late 1950s, all those school assemblies (with dates!), the Tikis (later the Islanders, with Bob Barrow, Gary Winfrey, and, later, Don Winfrey), Al's tenure at Ferris Institute in Big Rapids, Michigan; Lima Locomotive Works; Hite, Dorinda, and Bruce Morgan; CANDIX Enterprises and the four Dix brothers (Richard, Robert, Al, and Sherman); William Silva (the music man Bob Dix hired; Canaday was Silva's stepfather's name, hence CAN + DIX = CANDIX, which they insisted always be capitalized]; Joseph Saraceno (A&R director at CANDIX); Russ Regan (record promoter at Buckeye Record Distributors, handling the CANDIX account); Dorothy Freeman (owner of Buckeye); Herb Newman (owner of Era Records); Jodi Gable, Judy Bowles, Jimmy Bowles, Nick Venet, Mike Borchetta (record promoter at Capitol Records), Wink Martindale, the
Dance Party television show, a list of 1961-1963 concert appearances with a healthy number of new shows, Azusa Teen Club, Pandora's Box, disc jockey Jimmy O'Neill, the Four Freshmen (interviews with the late Ross Barbour, Bob Flanigan, and Bill Wagner, their manager), the Kingston Trio, the Four Preps, and various other players in the story. Also, the story behind the Kenny and the Cadets black and splash wax records, why Chuck Berry was not properly credited (initially) for the melody to "Surfin' U.S.A.," and the story behind those three Grad Night concerts (June 7, 1963) from the man who booked and organized it.
Some of the photos in the book include Hite Morgan, Dorinda Morgan, Joe Saraceno, the Dix brothers, Bill Angel (Angelo Fiorvanti, Saraceno's friend who was the record librarian at KFWB and right hand man of program director Chuck Blore, who lobbied heavily for "Surfin'" to be added to the station's play list), telegrams from Bob Dix to Al Levine of Alco Research and Engineering (the company who pressed "Surfin'" on X Records 301), Herb Newman, Nick Venet, the May 18, 1962, Capitol Records work order for "Surfin' Safari" b/w "409," telegrams from Murry promoting "Surfin'" and "Surfin' Safari," the guys rehearsing for their Azusa Teen Club appearance, Jodi Gable, Vickie Kocher (different from the one that appeared in ESQ), and Judy Bowles. And lots of cool posters, handbills, flyers, concert tickets, newspaper advertisements and articles, the first fan club material, the first record charts, rare record labels (Safari 101, Randy 422), autographed picture sleeves, autographed promotional photographs, an autographed poster from Club Ponytail (Harbor Springs, Michigan, August 8, 1963), guest pass to a show at the Aragon Ballroom at Pacific Ocean Park, the lyrics to "Dennis," a song written in 1984 by Dorinda Morgan as a tribute to the memorable Wilson brother she first met when he was just sixteen, and a really cool map illustrating the band's zigzagging itinerary on their first Midwest tour (April 24-May 5, 1963), demonstrating how little was learned from the ill-fated 1959 Winter Dance Party tour that claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson.
On a side note, interviewing and becoming friends with Judy Bowles was one of the highlights of my nine years of working on the book. Part-time as I am a companion animal veterinarian in my real life. Labor of love and all that. You could never meet a lovelier, kinder person than Judy Bowles. And all the questions are answered. She and Brian began dating
before the band formed (a great story of how and when they met), she was present when the instruments were rented from Hogan's House of Music in Lawndale, they continued dating through CANDIX and the signing with Capitol and the first four albums. They were, in her words, "inseparable." Brian presented her with a diamond engagement ring at Christmas 1962. She's integral to the story. Ever wonder why no other book featured an interview with her? Well, I sure did. Ever wonder what happened to that engagement ring? Or if she ever met Brian again? Or what she thought of him in the intervening fifty years? Well, wonder no more.
Choosing the final images for the book was an extremely difficult process. Many did not make the cut because they were either redundant, cool but peripheral (i.e., record labels documenting Murry Wilson's songwriting career, the advertisement for the Kay Swingmaster Model K6960, the guitar Carl received for Christmas 1958), or would not reproduce well in the book. A companion website will feature photographs that did not make the final cut. Things like their original three-page contract for Capitol Records dated May 24, 1962, which was vetoed because it was too difficult to read when reduced in size; five additional photographs from the Azusa Teen Club rehearsal; four additional photographs from Dykstra Hall at UCLA (thank you PR, soon to make their way back to you); the legends from the tape boxes of the original Hite Morgan recordings; complete discographies for Murry Wilson, Hite and Dorinda Morgan, and CANDIX Enterprises. Also, complete discographies for Joe Saraceno, Russ Regan, and Nick Venet [interestingly, all three had singing careers before crossing paths with the Beach Boys). The website will also feature anecdotes and stories that, for one reason or another, did not make it into the book. It will also have a reader's forum and Q&A section, and I will update it with new information that might be jogged free once the book is published.
Again, thank you to everyone who has placed an order for
Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963. Please share the news with friends and other fans.
With new music and new books, 2015 will be another good year to be a Beach Boys fan.
http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Beach-1961-1963-James-Murphy/dp/0786473657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428427159&sr=8-1&keywords=becoming+the+beach+boys
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