Sound of the Surf: When California was Fun

It is the only rock & roll subgenre that has largely been instrumental. Yet, ironically, its most popular artists are considered phonies by the real fans, because of their vocal harmonies. They would be the Beach Boys. Surf musicians might have played for beach bums, but virtuoso guitar work was always part of package. The original Surf music pioneers look back on Surf culture’s early 1960s heyday in director-cinematographer Thomas Duncan’s documentary, Sound of the Surf, which releases today on VOD and DVD.

Its closest cousins were garage rock and punk rock, but the founding Surf music musicians had two major influences. Not surprisingly, 1950s instrumental rock guitarists like Duane Eddy and Link Wray were significant musical role models. However, most of the Surf music veterans have more to say about jazz artists, especially big band drummer Gene Krupa.

In fact, jazz musician Tom Morey, who also invented the Morey bogie board, expressly compares jazz and surfing, because both require improvisation. Alas, nobody discusses Bud Shank by name, but his soundtracks for Bruce Brown’s surfing documentaries are duly acknowledged. Regardless, jazz collectively gets its full due.

Dick Dale claims the title as the original Surf music guitarist for himself and pretty much everyone Duncan interviewed agrees with him. Indeed, Dale had some of the biggest Surf hits, including his reverb heavy arrangement of “Misirlou,” which became popular again thanks to Pulp Fiction. Eddie Bertrand, co-founder of the Belairs and Eddie & the Showmen represents a not-so-distant second.

Yet, one of the more prominent voices turns out to be Kathy Marshall, who gets her overdue credit for her contributions to the Surf music scene. Technically, she never recorded commercially, but she performed regularly with Eddie & the Showmen and the Blazers, even though she was still a teenager. Plus, viewers also hear from Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman, a.k.a. the real “Gidget,” whose father wrote the novel the film and TV series were based on, building on her accounts of her new surfer friends.

Sadly, both Dale and Duncan never lived to see the release of Sound of the Surf, but it serves as a fine tribute to them both. Duncan took a traditional approach to documentary filmmaking, but the music is peppy and the interview segments are lively. Frankly, it is wistfully nostalgic to look back on an era when California was considered a fresh and exciting land of opportunity.

After watching Duncan’s doc, viewers should fully understand the Surfaris (“Wipeout”) are much more representative of Surf music than the Beach Boys. They should also fully appreciate the massive guitar chops of Dale and Bertrand. The use of Jimi Hendrix as a framing device is also quite clever and ironically appropriate. Very highly recommended, Sound of the Surf releases today (7/1) on DVD and VOD.