RIDING THE WAVES

Interview by Ken Sharp

A founding member of the Beach Boys, Alan Jardine has been part of the fabric of American popular music for almost four decades. Never hungering for the spotlight, he has always been a team player, more than happy with his supporting role in the band. A wonderfully expressive and dynamic singer—he is the voice of Help Me Rhonda, Susie Cincinnati, Come Go With Me, Lady Lynda, Loop De Loop and Looking At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song) among numerous others—he lent a distinctive and engaging folk sensibility into the group’s diverse palette of sonic colors.

Lyrically, Alan’s songs provided a wonderful and sumptuous musical storybook, espousing the joys of nature and the environment, ecology preservation, and the power of love. While not exerting a high profile media presence as Brian Wilson or Mike Love, the innate blend and distinctive character of Alan’s honey-sweet voice cannot be underestimated to the success of The Beach Boys.

A humble and charming man, he looked back with RC on over thirty years of good vibrations.

Eric Carmen once described the Beach Boys’ voices as each being an instrument. Brian was a French horn, Carl was a flute, Al Jardine a trumpet, Dennis a trombone and Mike a baritone sax

That’s kind of how we saw ourselves …

by Ken Sharp
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