Al Jardine - With The Beach Boys

With The Beach Boys

Jardine is the band's rhythm guitarist and middle-range harmony vocalist. He first sang lead on "Christmas Day," on the 1964 Beach Boys Christmas Album, and followed shortly after with the Number 1 hit "Help Me, Rhonda." Thereafter he regularly sang leads on tracks including "Then I Kissed Her," "Cotton Fields," "TM Song," "Take a Load off Your Feet," "Lookin' at Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)," "Peggy Sue," "Lady Lynda", "Come Go With Me", "Good Time," "Honkin' Down The Highway" and "Crack at Your Love." He is significantly the co-lead singer on other notable tracks, including "Break Away," "Winds of Change," "California Calling," "Somewhere Near Japan" and "I Know There's an Answer." Of the latter track, producer-writer Brian Wilson has stated that he preferred Al's vocal to his own. During the Pet Sounds sessions, it was Jardine who suggested to Brian Wilson that the group record "Sloop John B," a lovingly remembered song from his folk days.

Beginning with his contributions to the Friends album, Jardine wrote or co-wrote a number of songs for the Beach Boys, varying in style from straight-ahead rockers like "Susie Cincinnati" to Wilsonesque mid-tempo harmony efforts like "Island Girl." The prominence of Brian Wilson's influence on his compositions is clear on "California Saga: California" from the Holland album, which charted in early 1973. On the same album Jardine utilized the Big Sur poet Robinson Jeffers' poem, The Beaks of Eagles, as part of the so-called "California Suite" which is both paean to West Coast culture and a subtle call to arms about environmental neglect. Jardine's song for his first wife, "Lady Lynda" (1978) proved a considerable success for the band beyond the US, scoring a Top Ten chart entry in the UK. After Jardine's divorce, the song was re-titled "Lady Liberty" in honor of the centennial of the Statue Of Liberty, which was celebrated in 1986.

Increasingly from the time of the Surf's Up album Al became involved alongside Carl Wilson in production duties for the Beach Boys. He shared production credits with Ron Altbach on 1978's M.I.U. Album and was a significant architect (with Mike Love) of the concept and content of the album. As with "Lady Lynda" and his 1969 rewrite of Leadbelly's "Cotton Fields," "Come Go with Me" and "Peggy Sue" on the M.I.U. Album were Jardine productions - the first being a measurable hit in the UK.

In the fallow period of the late seventies/early eighties as the various Beach Boys diverted talents to other projects, Jardine's voice remained central in their irregular shared work and he can be heard prominently on songs like 1979's "It's a Beautiful Day," which he co-wrote with Mike Love and which later appeared on 1981's "Ten Years of Harmony" compilation assembled by James William Guercio for Caribou CBS, and one-off movie-featured songs like "Happy Endings" (1985) and "Problem Child" (1990).

In 1986 Jardine instigated the recording by The Beach Boys of a cover of The Mamas And The Papas' biggest hit, California Dreamin'. The song was a major success for the band, reaching Number 8 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart. The music video for the song featured in heavy rotation on MTV, securing extensive international airplay. The video featured all the surviving Beach Boys and two of the three surviving members of the Mamas And The Papas, John Phillips and Michelle Phillips (Denny Doherty was on the East coast and declined), along with former Byrds guitarist Roger McGuinn.

In the early nineties as legal moves were initiated to remove Brian Wilson from the care and control of his therapist, Dr Eugene Landy, the Beach Boys strove to retain recording unity and worked as a fractured team on the Mike Love-conceived album Summer in Paradise, once again a project with an ecology theme. Recorded in sessions from 1991 till the end of 1992 and released in December 1992, the album features strong leads by Al Jardine on "Slow Summer Dancin' (One Summer Night)" and "Strange Things Happen"".

On December 16, 2011 it was announced that Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks would reunite for a new Beach Boys album and 50th anniversary tour in 2012. Within the industry word circulated that the reunited band was recording at Brian's favored Western Studios in Los Angeles, aided by Joe Thomas, Brian's collaborator on his 1999 solo album, Imagination. Duly, as the promised worldwide reunion kicked off with a Grammy event performance in February 2012, the new album, That's Why God Made the Radio, was released on June 4, 2012. The album features prominent vocals by Al Jardine, especially on the tracks "Spring Vacation" and "From There to Back Again".