Milestones in Surf History Part Sixteen (#98 - #104)

Milestones in Surf History Part Sixteen (#98 - #104)

by Sam Bleakley

#98 : 1961 Beth Jackman Australian Champion : By the early 1960s surfing was spreading like wildfire and hot scenes lit up in small pockets around the world. While there are isolated examples of early Malibu boards in Australia, including one brought in by actor Peter Lawford in 1950 and ridden by locals at Bondi, it was the 1956 visit from the American and Hawaiian lifeguards for the Olympic Lifesaving Championship at Torquay in Victoria that really inspired a revolution in Australian surfing. The new Malibu boards were highly manoeuvrable, light-years ahead of the clunky long paddleboards, and blew everything else out of the water with speed and style. In 1961 the first Australian Malibu Surfboard Riding Championships were held at Avalon. A local newspaper reported that “The highlight of many thrills and spills was the performance put up by three youngsters in the sub-junior event. In the words of the judges, these lads were able to teach many of the older board riders a thing or two. They were Bob Young of Collaroy, Rodney Sumpter of Avalon Beach and Robert Brown of Cronulla.” Bob Young was better known as Nat Young, who would win the second World Surfing Championship in 1966, and lead both the shortboard revolution and the longboard renaissance, while Rod Sumpter and Bobby Brown also carved their place into surfing stardom. Beth Jackman, pictured here, won the women’s event, making her the first women to win a specialist surfboard contest in Australia. The president of the Avalon Board Riding Club at the time was Bob Head (a powerful surfer with a beautiful carving approach), who would soon travel to Cornwall, UK (with John Campbell, Warren Mitchell and Ian Tiley) to work as a lifeguard, and ultimately set up Bilbo Surfboards will Cornishman Bill Bailey. The swinging Sixties was beginning.

 

#99 : 1960s Surf Music (Dick Dale) : It’s hard to think of 1960s surf culture without reference to the reverberating guitar sound of Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, the driving drum-based hits ‘Pipeline’ and 'Wipeout' from The Chantays, or the sun-bleached harmonies of The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean with richly layered vocals. These are the pioneers of the surf music genre that would ultimately stretch to the fast paced punk of NOFX, Pennywise and Bad Religion to the laidback acoustic melodies of Donavon Frankenreiter and Jack Johnson. Of course, surfing and music has always gone hand-in-hand, solidified by the Waikiki Beach Boys who played a laconic, finger-picking style on slack-key guitars and ukuleles. While the earliest surf films of the late 1950s often had a west coast jazz soundtrack (for example Bud Shank), we associate the heyday of the 1960s surf film with the Fender Stratocaster guitars, electric pianos, and the saxophone instrumentals of bands like The Surfaris, The Lively Ones and The Trashmen. Dick Dale was the original lightning-fast instrumental rock guitarist. He began surfing as a teenager at El Segundo and in late 1959, backed by his new rock band the Del-Tones, played his first concert at the Rendezvous Ballroom, a Newport Beach concert hall. Local surfers went wild over the hard-driving sound. Their 1961 single ‘Let's Go Trippin’’ is considered the first surf record. ‘Surfer's Choice’, Dale's 1962 debut album, with Dale shown surfing on the cover, sold more than 80,000 copies. The heavy-reverb sound is most distinctive in ‘Misirlou’ (a Greek folk song transformed by Dale in 1962). ‘Misirlou’ was used as the opening song in 'Pulp Fiction' (1994). Dale said he was trying through his music to “match the feeling I had while surfing; (the) vibration and pulsification, and the tremendous power.”

#100 : 1961-63 Surf Music (The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean) : In the early 1960s The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean (by strict definition not the nonvocal, heavy-reverb-guitar surf music genre) served not as a soundtrack for surfers, but the music that inspired the first large generation of surfers. And why not, with inclusive lyrics like “Let's go surfing now, everybody's learning how, come on a surfari with me.” Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys were influenced primarily by Chuck Berry and the Four Freshmen and released a storm of consecutive hits, including ‘Surfin’’ in 1961, followed by ‘Surfin' Safari’, ‘Surfin' USA’, ‘Catch a Wave’ and ‘Surfer Girl’. Wilson’s complex layering of melancholy in the likes of ‘In My Room’, ‘Don't Worry Baby’ and ‘God Only Knows’ quickly became legendary. Paul McCartney later said that Wilson and The Beach Boys helped inspire the Beatles' ‘Rubber Soul’ and ‘Sgt. Pepper’ albums, and praised the 1966 ‘Pet Sounds’ as "perhaps the album of the century." In 1963 Jan and Dean (Jan Berry and Dean Torrence) released ‘Surf City’, the first of many tunes that preached waves, the beach, cars and girls. Wilson co-wrote ‘Surf City’, and Torrence returned the favour with the uncredited lead vocal on The Beach Boys' 1965 ‘Barbara Ann.’ Remaining full-time California students during the height of their pop celebrity, Jan and Dean in fact sold more records than the Beach Boys between 1963 and 1964, with ‘Honolulu Lulu’, ‘The Little Old Lady (From Pasadena)’, ‘Ride the Wild Surf’, ‘Sidewalk Surfin’’ and ‘Dead Man's Curve’. "None of us much liked the Beach Boys when they first came out," Surfer magazine founder John Severson said. "Now I think their music is wonderful; now I understand it, and know why everyone thought they were so incredible." Behind the positive tunes, The Beach Boys revealed a sad story and a dark underbelly of drug addiction and mental illness, and Dennis Wilson—the only band member who actually surfed—drowned in 1983. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ proved to be the stuff of dreams.

#101: 1962 Bob Evans Founds Australia's First Surf Magazine ‘Surfing World’ : Sydney’s Bob Evans did it all : surf filmmaker, founder of the Australian Surfriders Association, photographer, the first Australian radio surf reporter, surf columnist in the ‘Sunday Telegraph’, and founder-publisher of ‘Surfing World’ magazine. "Whenever something is happening in the sport," said Midget Farrelly, "Evans is sure to be mixed in with it somewhere." ‘Surfing World’ was the voice of Australian surfing through the '60s, while Evans's films included ‘Surf Trek to Hawaii’ (1962), ‘Midget Goes Hawaiian’ (1963), ‘The Young Wave Hunters’ (1964), ‘The Long Way 'Round’ (1966), ‘The Way We Like It’ (1968), ‘Tracks’ (1970), ‘Family Free’ (1971) and ‘Drouyn and Friends’ (1974). He mentored a new generation of Australian surfers, photographers, writers and filmmakers, including Alby Falzon, who went on to produce ‘the Morning of the Earth’ (1972). Evans was raised in Manly Beach, inspired by the 1956 visit from the Californian and Hawaiian lifeguards who introduced the new balsa-core Malibu boards. Evans's scored a 10' 6" Malibu when they left. In late 1961 Evans organised a trip to Hawaii for a group of 20 Australians, including Midget Farrelly, Bob Pike and Dave Jackman. The following year ‘Surfing World’ was released, the same year the Rolling Stones played their first concert, Spiderman made his debut in a Marvel comic and Andy Warhol released his Campbell’s Soup screen. Brian Alford was the first surfer to feature on the cover at Angourie. Evans wanted surfing to move deeper into the Australian sporting mainstream: his magazine ran articles about his movies and covered his contests; his movies were shown at surf stomp events he staged at Sydney dance halls and clubs; and the surf trips he organized provided imagery for his magazines and films. In 1976 Evans died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. He was 47. Surfing World is the longest running continually published surf title in Australia.

#102 : 1962 Havaianas Hit the Market : The name ‘Havaianas’ is Portuguese for ‘Hawaiians’. The first pair of Havaianas were launched in 1962 (designed by Scotsman Robert Fraser) based on the traditional Japanese sandal known as the Zori (with soles made of rice straw). The texture of Havaianas’ rubber soles were designed like rice grains, still one of the distinctive details of the flip-flops. The open toed sandal actually dates back to 4,000 years ago when Egyptians used papyrus leaves, wood and sisal. The Japanese Zori originated in the 1500s, the style popularized in the US by soldiers returning from Japan after WWII. But it is Havaianas who have become the ubiquitous global flip-flop. By 1964 practically every worker in Brazil wore a pair. Salesmen travelled in VW vans throughout the country to sell them directly to communities. They were traditionally only available in blue and white. However, a production error produced a batch of green Havaianas ended up being a success, so more colours were introduced. 150 million pairs of Havaianas are made per year, which raises the question: where does all the plastic go? Roll on biodegradable Havaianas, reviving the rice straw of the Zori (pictured here) and papyrus of the Egyptian open-toed sandal.

#103 : 1964 Midget Farrelly and Phyllis O'Donell Win the World Surfing Championships at Manly Beach, Australia : The annual Makaha International had long been regarded as the unofficial world title, but Bob Evans convinced Australian oil company Ampol Petroleum Limited to sponsor the first official World Surfing Championships in 1964. Thousands filled the tree-lined beachfront promenade for the finals. Californian goofyfooter Linda Benson was the favourite in the women's final. But Australian regularfooter Phyllis O'Donell (pictuired here) honed in on the zippy rights and styled to victory. At 27, O'Donell was the oldest female competitor in the event by more than three years. “Phyllis was completely at ease,” Surfing World magazine reported. “Her placement in the wave was ideal and her trimming and arching through the hollow sections pretty to watch. O'Donell was a decisive winner.” Australians Midget Farrelly, Bobby Brown and Mick Dooley met Americans Joey Cabell, Mike Doyle and LJ Richards in the men's final. Cabell was on fire, but the grey area of ‘drop-ins’ saw him penalized for jamming his fellow finalists into the whitewater. Doyle came second. Bernard ‘Midget’ Farrelly had won the 1962 Makaha International, and upon his return to Australia became a sports hero. He won the Australian National Titles in ‘64, and was just 19 at the World Champs. He didn’t catch many waves in the final, but was smooth, elegant and flawless on a heavier board that suited the conditions. The International Surfing Federation (ISF) was conceived during the '64 titles, and founded shortly after in Lima, Peru; the ISF's sole mission to stage future world contests. At the time, Surfer magazine predicted that the 1964 World Championships would help get surfing "entered on the Olympic calendar."

#104 : 1964 John Kelly Founds Save Our Surf : Environmental activism by surfers for the health of the oceans, waterways, coastlines and planet is THE most important contribution to wider society that surf culture can foster. This is our shared resource, and we must manage it sustainably. One of the pioneer environmental surfer protest organisations was Save Our Surf (SOS) started in 1964 by John Kelly when plans were unveiled by the Army Corps of Engineers and state of Hawaii to “broaden” the beaches of Waikiki. “Hawaii's shoreline - the habitat of many people – was under assault,” said Kelly. “Surfing sites, fish and fishing areas, old beach trails, parking areas and public access were disappearing. Once-clean shoreline waters near town were turning dirty brown or green, and beginning to smell. Pollution almost suddenly appeared everywhere…One day in the mid-1960's, when before our eyes, a crane dumped boulders into the sea to destroy a favourite Ala Moana surfing site, the new realism came home. Several of us decided to act.” Using demonstrations, self-printed fliers, posters and leaflets, and rebel rousing presentations at public meetings, SOS won solid grassroots support and grew to tackle big issues. The SOS strategy was based on: respect the intelligence of the people, get the facts to them and help the people to develop an action program. “Instead of going begging without power to those with power," said Kelly "we decided to build our own power base, not inside the system where big money rules, but outside it, where big money is weak.” With a democratic non-centralized style, SOS became instrumental in preventing offshore development around Hawaii and saving 140 surfing sites on Oahu. Kelly was deeply passionate about the ocean, human rights and environmental causes. He co-designed the late 1930s Hot Curl boards with Wally Froiseth, pioneered Makaha, created and patented a radical hydroplane board in 1963, and authored ‘Surf and Sea’ published in 1965. Kelly died in 2007, but much of his legacy continues in the Surfrider Foundation. "He was probably the greatest humanitarian I've ever met in my life," said George Downing. Kelly explained: “In the never-ending struggle between truth and falsehood, truth needs energetic and fearless advocates.”