Active on-and-off from 1961 to the present, The Beach Boys’ career
packs a lot of history, so it would be naïve to expect a 250-page book
dominated by large photos to say everything that needs to be said about all
those great songs, strange personalities, terrible tragedies, and tedious
lawsuits. Nevertheless, Johnny Morgan does a pretty admirable job in his new
coffee-table centerpiece The Beach Boys:
America’s Band. The basic narrative runs through the book occasionally supported
by half-page profiles of albums and singles. While coffee table books usually
don’t present a point of view, Morgan asserts his personality with lively
writing and a critical viewpoint of the band’s music and the often questionable
ways certain members (Mike Love) have chosen to represent a band that has been
profoundly splintered for more than half of its five-decade history. There are
no gaping omissions here, though there are no revelations either. Morgan sticks
to the essential tale told in many other books, which he often quotes
throughout.
Although his book boasts no firsthand interviews, the author
has clearly read a lot about his book’s topic, which makes the occasional major
error rather jarring. He marks “Kokomo” as the band’s third number one hit (it
was their fourth) and confuses the content of Revolver for that of Rubber
Soul, which really affects his discussion of Pet Sounds. More forgivable is his assumption that Between the Buttons “must have sounded
like a nightmare” to Brian, though if Morgan was aware that Rolling Stones
manager Andrew Oldham played the LP for Brian Wilson, he should have also read
that Brian really dug the record and ranked its only nightmarish track, “My
Obsession”, as one of his favorite Stones songs.
Morgan’s critiques can be odd too, as when he calls the extremely
simple and graspable metaphors of “Til I Die” “inane nonsense.” Kudos to the
author for taking The Monkees as seriously as he does, but reviewing Smiley Smile as if it’s some sort of
direct response to Headquarters is an
inadequate and misguided approach. Of course, most serious Beach Boys fans will
crack America’s Band not for history
and assessments but for its lovely abundance of photos, and on that account, it’s
definitely a looker.
