What was the original line-up of The Beach Boys?
When their 50th-anniversary tour came to an unsavoury end in 2012, there were still five Beach Boys alive and kicking. Original lead singer Mike Love, guitarists Al Jardine and David Marks, Bruce Johnston and songwriting genius Brian Wilson. 12 years on, thankfully, that’s still the case, although some of these names no longer feature in performances by one of the world’s longest-running bands.
Wilson’s health has sadly declined in the past year, particularly since the passing of his wife, Melinda. But the other Beach Boys still harbour optimism that he’ll make it back on stage or into the studio with them again. All the same, that special anniversary year is likely the last time fans will ever get to feel like The Beach Boys are still the band they grew up listening to.
Many would argue they stopped being that band decades ago, following the death of the youngest Wilson brother Carl in 1999. Aside from being the original lead guitarist in the group, Carl Wilson is renowned for his lead vocal performance on ‘God Only Knows’, and writing songs which have become low-key classics like ‘Friends’ and ‘Long Promised Road’.
Brian and Carl’s brother Dennis, famously the only Beach Boy who actually liked to surf, had tragically drowned 15 years prior to his young sibling’s death. However, the band experienced a commercial resurgence in the late 1980s thanks to the appearance of their song ‘Kokomo’ in the hit film Cocktail. Still, by the time Dennis died, their best days as a band were already far behind them.
In fact, even at the peak of their musical powers, they’d stopped being the band they were on their early records, with two guitarists, a bass player, a drummer and a vocalist. From 1964 onwards, Brian Wilson drafted in the Wrecking Crew, a group of session musicians renowned for playing on Phil Spector’s recordings, to take over as many instrumental parts as possible. For the recording of Pet Sounds in 1966, the other Beach Boys were largely relegated to the role of backing vocalists.
So, who was in the band’s first line-up?
Soon after the Wrecking Crew arrived, Johnston joined the band as a vocalist. First to fill in for Brian Wilson in live performances after he quit touring to focus on studio sessions in 1965, and then as a full-time member. Johnston even contributed his own songs to the band’s albums, most famously with ‘Tears in the Morning’ on Sunflower and ‘Disney Girls’ on Surf’s Up at the beginning of the 1970s.
Meanwhile, Marks was playing guitar in the band as early as their second single ‘Surfin’ Safari’ in April 1962, although he was pushed out by the Wilsons’ father Murry a year later. He almost makes it into the original line-up of The Beach Boys, but not quite.
That’s because he actually took Jardine’s place as rhythm guitarist since the latter decided to leave the group following their very first single recording. The five initial members recorded ‘Surfin’’ together in November 1961.
They were the three Wilson brothers, Brian, Dennis and Carl, their cousin Love, and Jardine. With Love singing on most early Beach Boys songs and Carl alongside Jardine on guitar, Brian filled in on bass guitar while Dennis took on the drums. This was the classic line-up that brought the California surfing craze to popular attention in the US. And the one that fans fondly remember as the real iteration of The Beach Boys.
