What follows here is a brief history of the Beach Boys’ early career, and in a companion Part 2 story, a more focused look at six of their 1963-1967 songs, with MP3 versions.īeach Boys from top left, clockwise: Mike Love, Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson & Al Jardine. In America, the Beach Boys would become one of the hottest and most successful groups of the 1960s, credited with inventing “California rock” and “sunshine pop” - and along with the Beatles in the mid-1960s - pushing the envelope on a new and imaginative front of pop music composition. And the one group that popularized that sound and rode it to enduring fame was the Beach Boys, a California group of three brothers - Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson - plus cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. The music was happy, fun-loving, and filled with beautiful harmonies.
It featured the California surfing and beach scene. In the early- and mid-1960s, a new kind of music from the West coast was being heard across the U.S.
The Beach Boys’ first album, “Surfin’ Safari” of October 1962, had a modest showing on the charts at No.