Memorial Day is rapidly approaching. With summer, I think surf. So let’s take this as an opportunity to revisit¹ the ultimate summer genre. That’s right, folks, it’s surf rock time! Grab a board and a transistor radio and let’s head to the beach.

The origins of surf rock

I’m probably not alone in associating surf rock with summer fun and sun-drenched, teen nostalgia. Put on Point Panic or Tidal Wave, and it’s easy to imagine cruising the Pacific Coast Highway with the roar of breakers mixing with the wind in your Thunderbird convertible. Maybe you’re on your way to a technicolor, beach-party spectacular with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Want something a bit more thrilling? Put on Dick Dale’s Miserlou or A Run For Life and you can almost feel a 50-foot wave bearing down on you.

Surf rock has obvious antecedents and relatives in 1950s and early 1960s guitar instrumentals like Bill Justis’s Raunchy, Link Wray’s Rumble, Sandy Nelson’s Teen Beat, the Shadows’ Apache, Chuck Berry’s Blues for Hawaiians, Duane Eddy’s Rebel Rouser, and a bunch of bizarre and awesome Bo Diddley instrumentals like Mumblin’ Guitar and Spanish Guitar. (Bo’s record label would infamously cash in on the surf craze with a thematic album packed largely with filler recorded by someone else).  

There’s some ambiguity about surf rock’s big bang.² In his phenomenal liner notes for Cowabunga! The Surf Box, surf music expert John Blair writes that Dick Dale’s 1961 hit Let’s Go Trippin is “[c]onsidered to be the first distinguishable surf music record.”³ 

Let’s Go Trippin certainly sounds surfy to me, although Blair identifies several other “surf music prototypes” like 1960’s Church Key by the Revels. For what it’s worth, in his essay for Cowabunga!, Dick Dale said that surf rock predates its earliest recordings and was being played live as early as the mid-1950s. 

If the precise birthday of surf rock is uncertain, surf rock’s place of birth seems easier to pin down. Key surf figures like Dale, the Chantays, and the Surfaris came out of Southern California. Th surf rock developed alongside surfing culture, teen dances, and recording studios. But the geographical purity of surf rock has always been a bit muddled by contributions from bands like the Trashmen out of Minneapolis (Surfin’ Bird) and the Astronauts from Colorado (Baja)—both pretty far from the pacific paradise their music evoked. Not to mention, I personally find it hard to think of surf rock without thinking of the Ventures, who were actually from Tacoma, Washington (the Ventures started recording in the 1950s and would later record surfy classics like Diamond Head). 

Regardless of the exact details, Blair explains that surf rock found its way into the top 100 roughly 30 times starting in September of 1961, with big years in ’62 and ‘63. Then, almost as fast as it began, the genre’s commercial power faded. The Pyramids recorded what the Allmusic Guide has called “the last big national instrumental surf hit” with Penetration in 1964. Surf rock would soon be overshadowed by the British invasion, folk rock, psychedelia, and the loud forerunners of hard rock. (Although does anything actually-rock harder than Dick Dale, a true progenitor of guitar shredding?). Even the Beach Boys–the leading purveyor of vocal tunes with surf themes–would leave their lyrics about cars, girls, and waves behind for more adventurous lyrical content and arrangements (see, e.g., “Pet Sounds”).⁴

The legacy of surf rock

When the tide of surf rock receded, it left an interesting legacy for musical beach combers. For one thing, there are the band names—a fabulous menagerie of monikers styled as “the [Plural Knowns]” … like the Frog Men, the Surf Men, the Honeys, the Tornadoes, the Lively Ones, the Centurions, the Blazers, the Surfaris, the Astronauts, and the Pyramids. It also left behind a body of classic recordings that continues to inspire contemporary artists and that can turn even a winter day in New England into a summer stroll down Doheny Beach.

One part of surf rock’s legacy is that it was something of a proving ground for musicians who went on to other things. For example, Blair writes that the surf group the Sentinals launched the career of drummer Johnny Barbata, who would go on to play with the Turtles, CSNY, and Jefferson Starship. As another illustration, in his fascinating autobiography Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen describes one of his early band’s attempts to play Wipeout. He wrote that the song was an essential part of the repertoire in the New Jersey garage scene. (That was a problem for Springsteen’s band since his drummer apparently couldn’t nail the beat.) And to really see how big a role surf rock played as a laboratory for other forms of rock waiting in the wings, just check out this recording of Canadian surf rock group the Squires, featuring Neil Young at the dawn of his storied career:

Suggested Listening to Keep Those Waves Coming All Summer Long!

Looking for some non-DIY surf rock as a soundtrack for your summer? If you can’t tell from the copious references above, I really don’t think you could ask for a better starting place than Cowabunga! The Surf Box from Rhino. It was an invaluable resource for this project. Although it’s out of print, you can still find gently used copies online. It offers a phenomenal survey of classic and newer surf rock across four CDs. And the packaging is topnotch. The paperback booklet is a fascinating and entertaining read and Rhino even included fake water droplets on the surfboard-inspired box. A cheaper option is Rhino’s one-CD compilation entitled Guitar Player Presents: Legends of Guitar: Surf, Vol. 1. It doesn’t have the breadth and depth of Cowabunga!, but it’s a crash course of surf classics. Also out of print, but I saw some copies available used on Discogs.

The reissue label Sundazed has an overwhelming amount of surf music available on vinyl. I’ve really enjoyed their 2023 compilation entitled Surfin’ the Great Lakes: Kay Bank Studio Surf Sides of the 1960s. The lovingly produced collection is fun from start to finish. It also gives some long overdue context and attention to surf bands from the Midwest. I’m pleased to report that there’s far more to midwest surf than just Surfin’ Bird!

Finally, if you want some new surf rock, I highly recommend checking out some of the recent releases by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives. For Record Store Day 2025, they released a new instrumental album called “Space Junk,” which takes on the surf tradition with aplomb. It’s a little tricky to find since it was a limited edition release, but Marty and his band also included surfy instrumentals on their previous albums Way Out West and Altitude. Or, better yet, catch them live and watch them effortlessly transition between surf rock, rockabilly, classic country, country rock, and bluegrass. Their live surf performances are so convincing you’d almost believe the genre was invented on a Telecaster near Nashville instead of a Stratocaster near the Pacific Ocean. 

And shameless as it may be, I’d be remiss if I did not plug my own adventure in creating surf rock. Here’s my surf rock song Coronado, named after the 1960s Fender hollowbody electric guitar I used to record it.

1. This article has been excerpted from my longer post DIY Surf Rock: Crafting Your Sound. Check that out if you want additional details on the creative process of creating surf rock music, as well as profiles of the gear and equipment I used to do so. ↩︎
2. Much like there’s uncertainty regarding the origins of rock and roll itself. See https://diyrockandroll.com/2026/02/11/what-is-the-first-rock-and-roll-song/ ↩︎
3. Further discussion of Dick Dale and his contributions to music and music equipment like amps and effects may be found in my post Dick Dale Belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. ↩︎
4. (I am not going to weigh in on the debate about whether The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean are surf rock or just rock/pop about surfing; but that topic is explored in Cowabunga!). ↩︎