Beach Boys are ready for Walla Walla
By Terry Murry on Tuesday, August 29th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
The spotlight will shine on The Beach Boys Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Walla Walla County Fair and Frontier days. Elkhorn Media Group recently interviewed original Beach Boy Mike Love who said the band that spanned generations first had a feeling it was going to be a hit with the first record.
LOVE: “There was a contest at the station that the song that got the most requests would be featured the next week. Well, that very first song that we recorded and the very first song that came out on the radio became a pretty big hit in Southern California and in other places too. It was called “Surfin’.”
That song also brought about another change in the band. Prior to it becoming a hit, the group called themselves the Pendletones, as an homage to the flannel shirts they loved from the Pendleton Woolen Mills.
LOVE: “We got named the Beach Boys by a really nice guy who was a record promotion man who said, well, it’s called “Surfin’” so how about the Beach Boys? So we abandoned Pendleton for the Beach Boys.
Love said the group, picked up by Capitol Records, followed that song with singles featuring a surfing song on the A side and a drag racing song on the flip side.
LOVE: “By 1964 we had ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ and ‘Help Me, Rhonda,’ and around that time we figured, ‘Hey, we’re doing pretty good. This just might work out.’”
“Fun, Fun, Fun” is now featured in the hit movie, “Barbie.” That is something Love said they couldn’t have predicted.
LOVE: “That makes us really current, really happening.”
He said that it was clear they were a success when they released “Good Vibrations.”
LOVE: “It went to number one in England, and we were voted the number-one group in Great Britain and the Beatles were number two, which was a pretty amazing achievement, actually.”
It’s hard for Love to chose a favorite Beach Boys song.
LOVE: “’Good Vibrations’ is great. ‘Kokomo’ is a fantastic sing-along. ‘Help Me, Rhonda,’ I wrote that with my cousin Brian, is another one. It’s hard to say what’s a favorite. On the ballad side, there’s a song called ‘The Warmth of the Sun’ that Brian and I wrote on the same day that President Kennedy was taken to the hospital in Dallas. I don’t think I have a favorite song, except ‘Good Vibrations’ was probably the most unique and yet successful song that we ever did.”
The band granted Love the right to tour under the Beach Boys name in 1998. He’s now 82 and the music, he says, will keep on coming because he loves to sing.
LOVE: “As long as you’re healthy, and people want to hear what you do, and you enjoy doing what you do. I really enjoy what I’m doing.”
Love promises the audience a good show.
LOVE: “We’ll definitely be doing all our songs, two hours of music. We’ve been very blessed to have some beautiful songs and we’re going to be singing them all in Walla Walla. We’ll be doing all kinds of songs from throughout the years and even a couple of songs from other people. We do a song called ‘Rockaway Beach’ by The Ramones and we do ‘Summertime Blues’ as well. That really rocks too. Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody would come to our show and pick up some good vibrations and have fun, fun, fun? That’s what we hope for.”
The Beach Boys take the stage at 7 p.m. Wednesday (Aug. 30). Tickets can be purchased at the Walla Walla County Fairgrounds or online.
Photo by Udo Spreitzenbarth
