Omnivore RecordingsA new album taking an in-depth look at The Beach Boys‘ earliest recordings will be released on August 26. Becoming The Beach Boys: The Complete Hite & Dorinda Morgan Sessions features multiple versions of nine songs that the band, then known as The Pendletones, recorded from September 1961 to April 1962.
The album, which will be available as a two-CD set and a digital download, contains demos, full and partial takes, rehearsals, overdubs, between-song banter and master recordings of the tunes that the group made at the home studio of Hite and Dorinda Morgan in the Los Angeles area.
Among the songs the band recorded were such well-known Beach Boys tunes as “Surfer Girl,” “Surfin’ Safari” and “Surfin’,” plus rarities like “Luau,” “Lavender,” “Judy” and “Beach Boy Stomp, also known as “Karate.”
Becoming The Beach Boys features a total of 62 tracks, 40 of which are previously unreleased. Also included in the package is a booklet boasting photos of the original tape boxes and rare early records that were issued that featured some of the recordings from the sessions. The album’s liner notes were penned Jim Murphy, author of the 2015 book Becoming The Beach Boys, 1961-1963.
“Here in these seminal recordings are the nascent Beach Boys, the premier vocal group of American popular music,” writes Murphy, “and this is where it all began.”
After making these recordings, Capitol Records signed The Beach Boys to a seven-year contract in May of 1962.
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