Love is the secret ingredient

The Beach Boys stop at Capital Credit Union Park

By Kris Leonhardt

Editor-in-Chief

GREEN BAY – For more than six decades, the music of the Beach Boys has conjured up images of sun and surf for generations of music lovers.

While their music is associated with California culture, their hooks and lyrics transcend the boundaries of the Golden State and convey visions of fun, happiness and love.

The band was formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, not far from the California coast, where their family camped after arriving in California.

The group’s songs about sun and surf were a natural development in their youth.

“Well, I grew up in a house with a grand piano, an organ and a harp,” said Mike Love, who formed the band with his cousins ​​​​— the Wilson brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis — and his friend Al Jardine.

“But my mother was obsessed with opera. She loved opera music. She would wake us up in the morning with her music when we went to school, as loud as the music on the record was. If we played rock’n’roll even half as loud, it was too loud.

“We would get together for birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and any other special occasion, and it was always all about music. In fact, at Christmas time, we would literally rehearse our Christmas carols in the living room, and then the aunts and uncles and all the kids and friends in our neighborhood would go around singing Christmas carols.

“So with the Wilsons and Loves it was always about music.”

Wilson and Love’s grandmother had nine children, resulting in a large extended family.

“One died in infancy and the other eight grew up – let’s be generous and call it adults,” Love joked. “We have all kinds of uncles, cousins ​​and stuff like that.”

“A radio station in Los Angeles had a special where they played a lot of new songs on the radio; the song with the most calls became ‘Record of the Week’…with all our nephews, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors, we won that contest handily in 1961. The song was called ‘Surfin’ and here we are, six decades later.”

The hit was released by a small independent label that later filed for bankruptcy.

They later signed with Capitol and recorded “Surfin’ Safari,” the first of many hit albums.

The album cover of “Surfin’ Safari” was shot in Paradise Cove – a location near Malibu, California – where they returned to film their latest documentary with Disney Plus.

“And that was really great because Brian and I were sitting next to each other and he remembered things from our high school days that I had even forgotten. So there are long-term memories, physically in top shape, although he doesn’t have it easy because we put them in a wheelchair and stuff. He’s not doing so well anymore, but his memory is fantastic. And we had the opportunity to sing a few songs together,” Love recalled.

way to success

But six decades ago, things looked a little different.

“We were touring in Minnesota and we were in a little place where people go to concerts — it was called Lake Minnetonka — and there was this little building where we had four shows a night,” Love said. “When you start out, that’s what you do; you go to these ballrooms, armories, different places.

“My cousin Brian and I went outside and looked down the street. There were cars lined up for about a mile. You can see the lights. They’re still trying to get to the concert, but it was sold out and people were actually breaking the windows to get in.

“And I looked down the street and said to Brian, ‘This must have been what it was like for Elvis Presley when he started out,’ because we had no frame of reference.”

And these two cousins ​​​​were the perfect songwriting team.

“Unlike my cousin Brian, who can sit at the piano and play chord progressions of Four Freshmen songs, which is not easy. I was more interested in the lyrics and the chorus because I was very interested in literature, history, culture and languages. So that’s me, and that’s where I came in handy when writing lyrics.

“In the US and elsewhere, everyone learns how to surf, all these things. I learned a lot from Chuck Berry. He was one of them – ‘I got on the city bus and found an empty seat. I thought I saw my bride-to-be walking down the street. I called out to the driver, ‘Hey, conductor, you need to slow down. I think I see her, please let me off the bus.'”

“And I would go—Well, she took her father’s car and drove past the hamburger stand. Seems like she’d completely forgotten about the library, as she just told her old man.

“So it’s like alliteration. I was in the language of poetry. I was the most well-read kid in elementary school, middle school, and high school.

“That’s why it was a good opportunity for me to write these songs with Brian.”

Across generations

“The best thing is when whole families come to our concerts, the grandparents, their children and grandchildren. And sometimes there are four generations or sometimes even the great-grandparents come. People in their eighties and older come. And children, babies, five-year-olds,” explained Love.

“I think the secret ingredient is love. We love coming together and harmonizing.”

“And we’re actually obsessed with the mix. We took the mix from the Everly Brothers, they blended beautifully. And maybe it was a family connection; it was definitely there with us. And when we do our four-part harmonies – a lot of people do two-part harmonies or three-part harmonies, but not so many do four-part harmonies.”

But sometimes the words are just as important as the harmonies.

Love recalled the creation of “Good Vibrations” – one of his favorite Beach Boys lyrics.

“There was psychedelic stuff on the West Coast, and the East Coast, too, but California was all about psychedelic stuff. And there was a Vietnam War, student demonstrations, and integration issues. We all knew that stuff was going on. We all had draft numbers and draft notices and stuff,” Love recalled.

“I just want to emphasize the positive, because at the same time there was all this negativity. There were people who represented peace and love and flower power, and I just wanted to write a poem about a girl who represented peace and love and harmony and nature. That was the inspiration for ‘Good Vibrations.'”

“The track that my cousin Brian finally finished after recording several versions in different studios was incredible. I gave him the lyrics and he liked them.

“That song went to number one. In the autumn of 1966 we were voted the number one band in England; the Beatles came in second. It was pretty amazing.”

Today, the group continues to tour and release their upbeat songs, and Love said the audience is the motivation to keep going.

The Beach Boys will perform at Capital Credit Union Park in Green Bay on July 11 with guests Dave Mason and John Stamos as part of the Beach Boys’ 79-stop, continually expanding “Endless Summer Gold” tour.

For more information visit https://thebeachboys.com/pages/tour.

Following the concert, Love and his wife Jacquelyne will host an after-party tasting featuring their rums and canned cocktails from Club Kokomo Spirits, with photo opportunities and signed memorabilia.

For more information about the after-party, visit https://mikelove.com/vip.