surf music

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surf music

music

Written by Jeff Wallenfeldt

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Key People:: Bruce Johnston; Dick Dale

Related Topics:: rock; surfing

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surf music, genre of popular music that arose in southern California in the early 1960s. As the sport of surfing became increasingly popular on the West Coast of the United States, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones provided the sound track, beginning with “Let’s Go Trippin’” in 1961. Dale, a surfer himself, developed a distinctive style of electric-guitar playing that fused Middle Eastern influences, staccato picking, and skillful exploitation of the reverb amplifier (which he helped Leo Fender develop) to create a pulsing, cascading sound that echoed the surfing experience, most notably on “Misirlou” (1962). He led a parade of mostly West Coast-based groups that gained local, then national, popularity with guitar-driven instrumental songs, among them the Chantays (“Pipeline”), the Ventures (“Walk—Don’t Run”), and the Surfaris (whose “Wipe Out” featured the most identifiable drum solo in rock history). Surfing culture also flourished on the beaches of Australia, giving rise not only to an Australian version of surf music but also to the stomp, a national youth dance craze. Australian surf musicians included “Little Pattie” Amphlett (“He’s My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy” [1963]), the Delltones (“Hangin’ Five” [1963]), the Denvermen (“Surfside” [1963]) and, most prominently, the Atlantics (“Bombora” [1963]).

As Jan and Dean, Jan Berry (b. April 3, 1941, Los Angeles, California, U.S.—d. March 26, 2004, Los Angeles) and Dean Torrence (b. March 10, 1941, Los Angeles) gave voice to surf music with distinctive falsetto harmonies, especially on “Surf City” (1963). It was the Beach Boys, however, led by Brian Wilson, whose complex vocal harmonies, skilled musicianship, inventive production, and evocative lyrics apotheosized surf music and culture with a remarkable string of hits such as “Surfin’ U.S.A.” (1963) and “California Girls” (1965). As the Beach Boys transcended surf music, the genre began to fade, but its influence could still be heard in the 1970s and ’80s in the sound of punk and new wave bands such as the Ramones and the Go-Go’s.

Jeff Wallenfeldt

instrumentals

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instrumentals

popular music

Written by Stephen Seddon

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Related Topics:: rock; popular music; instrumental music

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instrumentals, type of popular music performed without a vocalist, in any of several genres but especially prevalent in rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Serving primarily as dance music, rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues instrumentals began appearing on the pop charts in the mid-1950s, with Bill Doggett’s organ- and saxophone-driven “Honky Tonk” (1956) leading the way. Thereafter instrumental records regularly reached number one. Link Wray’s “Rumble” and the Champs’ “Tequila” hit it big in 1958, the year Duane Eddy began a string of hits featuring his trademark twang guitar sound. In Britain the Shadows had their own run of hits beginning in 1960, though they failed to export their success to the United States (unlike the Tornadoes, who topped the American charts in 1962 with “Telstar”).

By the early 1960s the top American instrumental group was the Ventures, who helped popularize the surf music pioneered by Dick Dale. Rhythm and blues also had its share of instrumental hits in the 1960s, ranging from Booker T. and the MG’s’ driving “Green Onions” (1962) to Hugh Masekela’s lighter “Grazing in the Grass” (1968). As pop music became more sophisticated in the late 1960s, symphonically inspired songs such as Paul Mariat’s “Love in Blue” (1967) and Mason Williams’s “Classical Gas” (1968) also were hits. In general, however, the heyday of instrumental rock ended in the early 1960s as the British Invasion bands shifted the focus back to vocalists.

In the 1970s and ’80s instrumentals were most prevalent as movie soundtrack music, but, as new-age music and light jazz gained in popularity in the 1990s, they returned to the charts. The legacy of the golden era of instrumental rock, however, was its lasting influence on rock musicianship. Wray’s rumble could be heard in the heavy electric guitar sound of the late 1960s; the Beach Boys took surf music to another level; and Johnny and the Hurricanes, best remembered for “Crossfire” (1959), left their mark on the Beatles, with whom they gigged on the in Hamburg, West Germany.

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