“Son fun”: The Beach Boys song Al Jardine called “the kicker of all time”
The first person that comes to mind with The Beach Boys for most is Brian Wilson, but other fans might cast their eye to his brothers Dennis and Carl or Mike Love. However, in the grand scheme of members, Al Jardine tends to get overlooked far too often, despite the fact that his song ‘Help Me Rhonda’ was a major contribution to the group’s sound.
If you examine the golden era of the band, pretty much 90% of their greatest material comes down to Brian. Dennis and Carl had golden voices that were hard to rival, but Jardine was among the first non-Wilson members to come into the fold in a writing capacity. Jardine had a significant number of ideas, but when building the image of The Beach Boys, the most important factor was his voice when rounding out their iconic four-part harmony lines.
Having completed that now-iconic four-part harmony, The Beach Boys were the Americanised version of The Beatles before the Fab Four crash-landed on The Ed Sullivan Show. Whereas Brian still had a firm hold on how the songs were written, that wasn’t to say that Jardine couldn’t contribute in this realm, either.
He was responsible for tracks including Good Time’, which appeared on the criminally underrated The Beach Boys Love You with Brian, and he was the one who motioned that the group rework the folk traditional song ‘Sloop John B’ into the version that fans heard on Pet Sounds. Yet, in terms of cultural touchstones, there aren’t many tracks that can compete with ‘Help Me Rhonda’ in the minds of fans.
While Jardine may have begun his lead vocal journey on the Beach Boys’ first festive album on the track ‘Christmas Day’, ‘Help Me Rhonda’ signified the moment his singing was elevated to the next level. By the band’s standards in the 1960s, this is the top of the mountain, taking the concept of a traditional rock song and cramming every single hook they can into a tight three-minute space.
Looking back on his own legacy with The Beach Boys, Jardine still counts ‘Help Me, Rhonda’ as one of the most enjoyable songs to play live, explaining to Far Out at a recent press conference, “‘Help Me, Rhonda’ was the kicker of all time because that was a slightly popular tune for a while. You know, it’s just so fun to sing it. You cannot help but feel good about it.”
Even throughout all of the ups and downs that the band’s career has gone through with and without Brian, Jardine’s vocal showcase has never worn out its welcome in the years since. The minute that those opening chords come in, it feels like the sun is breaking just above the clouds as you bask in a Californian summer. As Jardine opines, that’s a notion that will always remain timeless, and with ‘Help Me, Rhonda’ they have it preserved in aural amber.
If anything, that’s the essence of what Jardine helped bring to The Beach Boys. Love and Brian may have been seen as the captains of the group at various moments, but throughout every era of the band, Jardine was always interested in bringing a little bit of levity to the situation. As he puts it, pure ”fun”.
