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Surf Music?

T

TheFonz

Star Participant
In a thread on the National Radio board that has since been closed, a discussion developed about whether The Ventures' "Walk Don't Run" was considered a Surf song back in 1960. I agree with a poster who said it was not. Terms like Surf, Rockabilly, and Doo Wop were created well after those types of songs were first released. Maybe we could continue that discussion here.
 
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TheFonz said:
In a thread on the National Radio board that has since been closed, a discussion developed about whether The Ventures' "Walk Don't Run" was considered a Surf song back in 1960. I agree with a poster who said it was not. Terms like Surf, Rockabilly, and Doo Wop were created well after those types of songs were first released. Maybe we could continue that discussion here.
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I have heard "Walk, Don't Run" referred to as a "surf song", after the fact, since the 1960s. On another point of the former thread: I have never heard a song by Dick Dale & His Deltones, despite living in Portland all my life. Having been so strong in LA, I'm surprised he didn't make it up here. If it had ever been acknowledged on the radio that that was who it was, I would've made the connection because it was also the name of one of the longtime featured singers on "The Lawrence Welk Show", which I always hated but can probably name the entire cast, including the orchestra members.
 
TheFonz said:
Terms like Surf, Rockabilly, and Doo Wop were created well after those types of songs were first released.
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So what? The music we now call "classical" or "classic rock" or "oldies" were not called that at one time either. What we call country now was once called folk. Doesn't change the fact that the music fits a certain sound and style.

I identified Walk Don't Run as an early example of what came to be called surf music because of the distinctive guitar style that went on to be used in surf music. There is a similarity of sound and style that typifies the genre. As I said in the previous thread, it's obvious others agree, since the entry in Wikipedia classifies it that way. Compare it to Pipeline and Wipe Out, both of which are inarguably surf songs.
 
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Although the terms have become somewhat intermingled Folk and Country music are two separate entities. Folk music is an original American type consisting of primitive instruments (dulcimer, banjo, washboard, harmonica, fiddle, etc.) set to simple story telling lyrics - usually by one or several vocalists. The instrumental side of Folk music is usually called Bluegrass and can be wholly instrumental or vocal. Both forms originated in the hills and valleys of the American East but were largely carried over with the Irish immigrants of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Country music is a more complex version of Folk and usually features several versions of guitar (acoustic, electric and steel), drums, violins/fiddles, various basses, is a more rhythmic form than Folk and tends to tell a story in rhyme. The origin of modern Country began in the rural East but gradually drifted "west" where the subjects changed to various aspects of frontier life (life on the open range, ranching, wide open spaces etc.). Country lyrics changed as the country urbanized into tales about modern "cowboys" (truckers) and the loneliness of living on the road. Unlike most Folk music, most Country tunes can be danced to and have, over time, created popular dances as the Virginia Reel, square and line dancing.

Surf music is largely defined by the several groups that sang about the surfing and hot rod life style as it existed in Southern California in the early 1960's (although the life style still exists the music genre is no longer active). Groups like the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, The Hondells, Surfaris, etc.) sang about life spent on the beach or the land-based equivalent, hot rodding and the genre got popular enough to attract Hollywood movie producers who made a series of surfer themed b-movies in the mid-60's. Several instrumental groups (Ventures, Dick Dale, Chantays) also released records which were adopted into the Surf genre. The arrival of the British Invasion killed off Surf after a run of only half a dozen years.
 
TheFonz said:
The "so what" is that it wasn't called a Surf song in 1960. That's all. Plain and simple. If you youngsters want to create genres for the music, I have no problem with that.
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Big A being Big A....no wonder many have left this site. "So What"? Big Attitude!
 
On a recent Casey Kasem replay on Sirius XM's 70s channel, he stated some trivia, and then played the song he called "the first (charting) surf song... and it wasn't by The Beach Boys..."
The one he stated was from 1961-62, and though it hit the Hot 100, didn't make the Top 40.
Of course, the name eludes me. It wasn't a group that had other hits. But Casey said (then, in the 70s) that the song was considered the first "surf song."

Of course, Jan & Dean scored the first No. 1 surf song, Surf City, 1963, which was co-written by Brian Wilson, of that other surf rock group....
 
Dondd said:
On a recent Casey Kasem replay on Sirius XM's 70s channel, he stated some trivia, and then played the song he called "the first (charting) surf song... and it wasn't by The Beach Boys..."
The one he stated was from 1961-62, and though it hit the Hot 100, didn't make the Top 40.
Of course, the name eludes me. It wasn't a group that had other hits. But Casey said (then, in the 70s) that the song was considered the first "surf song
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Let's Go Trippin' by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones?
 
Dondd said:
On a recent Casey Kasem replay on Sirius XM's 70s channel, he stated some trivia, and then played the song he called "the first (charting) surf song... and it wasn't by The Beach Boys..."
The one he stated was from 1961-62, and though it hit the Hot 100, didn't make the Top 40.
Of course, the name eludes me. It wasn't a group that had other hits. But Casey said (then, in the 70s) that the song was considered the first "surf song."

Of course, Jan & Dean scored the first No. 1 surf song, Surf City, 1963, which was co-written by Brian Wilson, of that other surf rock group....
Click to expand...
In early 1960 a group called The Gamblers released a song called "Moon Dawg". It didn't chart. The Beach Boys later covered the song on an album.
 
TheFonz said:
In early 1960 a group called The Gamblers released a song called "Moon Dawg". It didn't chart. The Beach Boys later covered the song on an album.
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I should say it didn't chart nationally. It probably did chart on the West Coast.
 
The Gamblers (surf band) - Wikipedia
The group, led by primary songwriter Derry Weaver, recorded the "Moon Dawg!" single in late 1959, acknowledged as the first known surf record released, and covered by West Coast groups such as the Beach Boys.
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"Moon Dawg!" was released in February 1960. Despite failing to chart nationally, the single found an audience in Southern California where it reached number 12 on KFWB's music listing in July that same year.[1] Although historians differ on the single's exact release date, "Moon Dawg!" is considered by some to be the first surf rock record, serving as a template for acts that followed the Gamblers and recorded their own version of the song.[4] As the first band to cover it, the Beach Boys helped solidify the track as a staple of surf music on their studio album Surfin' Safari before more renditions by the Challengers, the Tornadoes, the Ventures, and others followed.[5]
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