The Beach Boys are to release a new single in aid of the victims of the recent Japanese tsunami.
Al Jardine, together with Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, will issue ‘Don’t Fight The Sea‘ tomorrow (April 19th), a track which was originally intended for Jardine’s solo album ‘A Postcard From California‘. The single will be backed by The Beach Boys’ 1968 song ‘Friends‘, with all proceeds going towards the Red Cross Japan Relief.
On the track, Al Jardine explained how he feels the song lends itself very well to the Red Cross Japan Relief charity. “We felt that the song had a nice basic message of friendship,” he said.
“I also like the idea of that song, because the vocals are a bit under appreciated. So this release was a perfect place to showcase the idea of harmony and friendship. Everybody is behind it 100%, that’s the nice part.”
Rumours continue to circulate that the surviving original Beach Boys members could be ready to reunite for a new tour in celebration of their 50th anniversary.
Kudos to the Beach Boys (and other rockers) for stepping up and helping this worthy cause. Hopefully the Hollywood community will do the same. Their harmonies are on best display on the “Beach Boys’ Party!” album.
“Barbara Ann” was a huge hit from “Party!”, which seemed to be recorded live at a house party; in fact, the album was recorded in the studio and laughter, hand-claps and chatter were added later for effect. On my Rockaeology blog at http://bit.ly/fwBViE is the story of how Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean ended up sharing lead vocals with Brian Wilson on this Regents classic.