A rare retrospective of The Beach Boys’ formative years from 1962-1972 will be on display
It’s been 60 years since the Beach Boys caught a big wave in signing their first contract with Capitol Records in 1962. Since then, the surf rock pioneers have had a tidal wave of an impact on pop culture. On Wednesday, September 28th, Morrison Hotel Gallery (MHG) will present Good Vibrations, an exhibit honoring The Beach Boys and their first decade. This is a celebration of the band, and a tribute to the often unsung photographers who captured these myth-making images. For Good Vibrations, MHG will be offering 30 never-previously-released images – plus, a very limited edition of co-signed prints featuring all living Beach Boys.
“We are thrilled to debut our Beach Boys fine art photography collection with Morrison Hotel Gallery and 1966 Americas,” the group shares. “Having the fortune to work with iconic image makers like Ken Veeder, Guy Webster, Julian Wasser, Earl Leaf and more, we appreciate the celebratory curation developed by our partners for this program which eloquently captures career highlights and intimate moments. Together, these compositions wholeheartedly display the fun-spirited, good vibrations of The Beach Boys.”
The Beach Boys are era-defining musicians who profoundly shaped and influenced pop culture in the 1960s. In fact, Paul McCartney has publicly acknowledged The Beach Boys 1966 masterpiece, Pet Sounds, as the primary impetus behind The Beatles’ 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Good Vibrations features classic images of the legendary group performing live and in the studio and outtakes from classic album shoots, like Pet Sounds. The photographs in this collection are from the group’s personal archives as well as the Capitol Records vaults. With a strong theme from their earliest years when the group really cemented its aesthetic and imaging, many of these images were taken by Capitol’s staff photographers and confined to the label’s archives until now.
The collection not only celebrates The Beach Boys’ enduring and iconic legacy, but it also shines a light on some brilliant photographers who shot the group early on, capturing the Beach Boys superstar essence. For Good Vibrations, MHG will showcase images by Ken Veeder, head of Capitol Records’ Photography Department in the 60s, who shot the Beach Boys historic “Paradise Cove” photo series; the legendary Earl Leaf who traveled to Europe with the band and for whom they recorded Bull Session with the ‘Big Daddy’; Guy Webster, who also shot The Rolling Stones, The Mamas & the Papas, Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson, and more; and former TIME magazine photographer Julian Wasser who covered the band’s legendary concerts at the iconic Hollywood Bowl.
To mark the launch, and this significant anniversary, the band have selected three images from their history and created a very limited co-signed edition of only ten prints. These photos have been signed by Mike Love, Al Jardine, Brian Wilson and Bruce Johnston. The photos of the band include them rehearsing at Columbia Studio A for Good Vibrations (by Guy Webster); one from the iconic Pet Sounds photo shoot at San Diego Zoo (by George Jerman/Capitol Archive); and one at The Hollywood Bowl headlining the July 3rd, 1965 Summer Spectacular Concert that also featured The Byrds, The Kinks and Sonny & Cher (by Julian Wasser).
