The Beach Boys
‘Surfer Girl’
The single – Released July 22, 1963, “Surfer Girl”, reaching #7 on the US Billboard charts, #18 on the R&B charts, #8 on the Australian charts, was the first song “officially” credited as produced, as well as written by Brian Wilson. Brian Wilson later claimed that the song was inspired by Dion & the Belmonts version of “When You Wish Upon a Star”. The song is reportedly the first song that Brian Wilson wrote when he was 19.
“Surfer Girl” was backed by a new hot rod song “Little Deuce Coup” reaching #15 on the US Billboard charts. The song was co-written by Brian Wilson and Roger Christian, a radio personality and lyricist friendly with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys who specialized in hot rod car songs.
The Album – Surfer Girl
The third Beach Boy album “Surfer Girl”, released September 16, 1963, which went gold, peaked at #7 on the US Billboard charts and #17 on the UK charts. All the songs on the album were either, written, co-written or arranged by Brian Wilson.
Mike Love co-wrote four of the songs (“Catch A Wave”, “Hawaii”, “Surfer’s Rule” and “Our Car Club”) and writing credits went to Carl Wilson and Al Jardine for lyrics and music by Stephen Foster on “South Bay Surfer (The Old Folks At Home)”. Gary Usher co-wrote “In My Room” with Brian Wilson. Bob Norberg a recording engineer, who worked with Les Paul, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra also co-wrote “Your Summer Dream”.
As with their debut, the Beach Boys played all the instruments on the album with Mike Love as the lead singer, Carl Wilson on lead guitar, David Marks on rhythm guitar, Al Jardine now on bass having returned in a limited capacity, Dennis Wilson on drums and Brian Wilson producing and playing bass, piano and organ. All six Beach Boys provide the vocal harmonies.
Brian Wilson sings lead on “Surfer Girl”, “The Surfer Moon” which features a string accompaniment, “in My Room” and “Your Summer Dream” while co-singing with Mike Love on “Catch a Wave”, “South Bay Surfer”, “Hawaii” and “Our Car Club”. Dennis co-sings with Brian on “Surfer’s Rule”. Additional musicians were the session drummer Hal Blaine on “Our Car Club” and “Hawaii”, tenor saxophonist Steve Douglas. Notable on the album, Maureen Love, Mike Love’s sister plays harp on the song “Catch A Wave”.
‘Little Deuce Coupe’
The Album
“Little Deuce Coupe” was released October 7, 1963, and peaked at #4 as a platinum album for a 46 week run in 1963 and early 1964. This album was put together, quite hastily, in response to an unauthorized album compilation of hot rod car songs called “Shut Down”.
Even though this album was released a month after “Surfer Girl” Which could have over saturated the market with Beach Boy songs, (a practice which proved to have negative results ), the album still sold well, even outdoing the other albums on chart position and sales. There are many re-releases of songs that appear on the other previous albums like “Shut Down”, “409”, “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Our Car Club”.
After a dispute with manager Murray Wilson, Dave Marks left the band in early October, making the Beach Boys a quintet. He went on to have moderate success with a band called “The Marksmen”.