May Birthdays 
Kawentzmann wrote:
synchro wrote:
Having lived through the era, I can state from firsthand experience that we thought of The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean as Surf music and made no distinction between these bands and The Chantays or The Surfaris. We knew that some was instrumental and some was vocal, but we saw this music as part of the same phenomenon.
Same here, even though I discovered it here in Germany in the early 80s the term Surf Music still covered vocal and instrumental all those years later, halfway around the globe.
However it is a function of the time passed since, that makes it easier to define the genre(s) by aural details rather than cultural ones. Because the culture of Kennedy era California is not as apparent to as many people anymore.
Measurements, of all sorts, are in the eye of the beholder. Musical genres, and the “boundaries” between genres, are quite open to interpretation. I always keep in mind that musicians that hope to get airplay, tended to record whatever was selling well at the time. Copycat artists have been common for a long time. If someone does well with a certain type of music, you can be assured that there will be any number of similar recordings being released. No criticism intended; if I were in the business of selling records, I’d do the same thing.
Instrumentals have been around a long time. I remember my parents buying instrumental recordings of vocal songs that had meant a lot to them in their younger days. Instrumentals frequently reflect the popular music of the day. Rock n’ Roll came along in the mid ‘50s and Instrumental Rock followed shortly thereafter.
My own take on Surf instrumentals is that they grew out of the Twist craze. The Twist hit hard just before Surf Music hit the scene. In the same time period, The Beach Boys were singing about surfing, girls and cars and getting a lot of airplay. While we, as guitarists, might see a lot of distinctions, I don’t think that the average teen listening to a Top Forty station would have thought in those terms.
What I can be certain of is that when Surf instrumentals came on the air, they were well liked. During the height of the Surf era, in the Midwest of the US, we might hear a Surf instrumental once every hour or two. There may have been more instrumentals being played in the LA market, and I’d love to see the local charts for LA, circa 1962.
Speaking for myself, I enjoy instrumentals of several basic genres. I enjoy Classical guitar, Jazz guitar, some of the Country instrumentals (such as Buck Owens played) and some of the Fusion that Jeff Beck has done. For me, Surf is a lot of fun to play, and I feel that it’s a great place to exercise my Classical arpeggios, along with the Rock n’ Roll licks I heard growing up. Surf usually gets a good audience reaction, as well, even at gigs where Surf Music is not the main course.
Unfortunately, the band I am in is probably not a good candidate for Beach Boys vocals. I can only reliably sing up to G-4 and I don’t think that anyone in the band can get into the stratospheric range some of their songs require. Too bad, because I would love to do their music, and do it justice.
—The artist formerly known as: Synchro
When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.
