Surf Music

Slap on that industrial-strength sunblock. Zip up that wetsuit. Wax up that board. Or just sit back beneath a beach umbrella and let these seaworthy songs do the surfing for you. Brian Wilson was the Shakespeare of surf, and his Beach Boys laid down the scene's national anthem with "Surfin' U.S.A.," which got every American hanging ten to a choogling Chuck Berry beat. From its lunatic-on-a-long-board laughter to that hot-doggin' hurricane of a drum solo, there's no more convincing case of sheer surf insanity than the Surfaris' "Wipe Out." OK, maybe there is: If the babbling "Surfin' Bird" that drove garage-rock godheads the Trashmen over the edge sounds more like a wave junkie after one too many wipeouts, well, what part of "papa-oom-mow-mow" don't you understand? In Next Steps, find out why a rockin' surf riff's worth a thousand words.

While sultans of sand like the Beach Boys were busy spreading the wave-riding word, a nation of six-stringers tore into the super-tight twang of surf instrumentals. With "Pipeline," the Ventures drop us smack-dab in the middle of that winding wheel of water, with only those reverb-drenched whammy-bar guitar riffs for support. The powerhouse picking of Dick Dale made him the Babe Ruth of oceanic axemen, and even though the female admirers hailing him as King of the Surf Guitar keep that track from being strictly instrumental, dangerous Dick shows off plenty of shred. But the guitar-guided missile of '90s alt-rock astronauts Man or Astro-man?'s space-age surf theme "Super Rocket Rumble" shows that instrumental surf sounds didn't die out with the mono recording. In Deep Cuts, the beach-bum boys club gets a dose of feminine mystique.

Despite all the Mermen and Beach Boys floating around, dudes don't have a stranglehold on surf music. Brian Wilson's future wife harmonized with the Honeys — whose voices sweetened hits by Brian's boys and Jan & Dean — on the-beach-is-my-bible odes like "Pray for Surf." They were undoubtedly an inspiration to later rockin' L.A. ladies the Go-Go's, whose Moondoggie-meets-Moonraker string-bender "Surfing and Spying" tips a tailfin to the classic surf 'n' twang sounds of the Ventures and Dick Dale. But boy and girl, young and old alike, everybody knows that the message the Barracudas swam with all the way from London still rings true: "Surfers Are Back," and we've got an endless summer of beach-bound sounds to prove it.

Jimi Hendrix was wrong. At the end of 1967's "Third Stone From the Sun," he proclaims, "You'll never hear surf music again." We love you, Jimi, but here's a reality check: surf music will never die. Not as long as the sound that sprouted from the '60s hot-rodding, board-straddling, sun-worshipping generation keeps on capturing the ears and imaginations of would-be ocean warriors the world over. Surf music can take as many shapes as seashells on the shore — it might be the Coasters-meet-Chuck Berry-in-Malibu sound of Jan & Dean and the early Beach Boys, or the electric-carving-knife guitar safaris of the Ventures and Dick Dale. We've scoured the sands to bring you the crest — and the best — of the surf-music wave, from the original beach bums of the '60s to the pipeline poets of today, and you don't even have to get your board-shorts wet.