Book – Everbody Had An Ocean

Everybody Had An Ocean – Music and Mayhem in 1960’s Los Angeles – by William McKeen, (2017), Chicago Review Press – An enthralling look at rock and roll growing up.  Anchored by the story of the Beach Boys, McKeen covers everyone from Jan and Dean to Charles Manson.  The history cover is sprawling and it would be easy to get lost in the story.  Instead, he leads the read along each strand of the web that formed among the legends, near-legends, and hangers-on of the day.

While many of the stories, and virtually of the music is familiar, “Everybody Had An Ocean” offers new understanding for the music and the musicians who made it.  I will never be able to listen to the music of the Beach Boys the same way again.

There may be no musical group that seems more clean and pure than the Beach Boys.  They are, to many people, the standard of clean cut, All-Americanism at the beginning of the Sixties, and their music provides most of the soundtrack for summer.  Close harmonies of bright melodies are their trademark.  But the familial hell out of which that grew is a startling contrast.  Too often we forget that they were the Kings of Rock and Roll until the Beatles grabbed that crown.  It’s also easy to brush their music off as auditory fluff.  McKeen will make you go back and reassess.  That polished sound is the result of intense work by all involved, lead for many years by the genius of Brian Wilson.  The pressure of expectation, both from within himself and the world around him, would take their toll on Wilson and all the members of the band.

The book’s examination of those heady, and occasionally out of control, years is a careful weaving back and forth, from the Beach Boys to Jan and Dean, to the Buffalo Springfield, to the Byrds and Crosby, Stills Nash and Young.  There is Joni Mitchell, the Mamas and the Papas, the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr, surf music and rock music and folk music.  And Charles Manson.  At the center of it all, in many surprising ways, were the Beach Boys.

It’s a fascinating story and well told.  There was one “authorial tic” that marred my enjoyment of the book.  Periodically, McKeen steps out of his casual but clean storytelling style to insert a convoluted phrase or an unneeded piece of obscenity.  It happened most often, but not exclusively, when the subject of sex came up.  Being that the topic of the book is rock and roll, the Sixties and Los Angeles, sex comes up quite a bit.  It’s inconsistent with the overall storytelling style and really adds nothing to the reading experience.

The overall quality of the writing, and the excellence of the storytelling, easily sweeps away any small objections I may have.  For fans of the music and students of the era, this has the feel of a “go-to” book.  It is the best kind of history.  The kind that both teaches and enthralls.

“Everybody Had An Ocean” hits the bookshelves April 1.

Why You Should Read This Book – A great story, well told about the influential music of the second half of the Twentieth Century.  Fascinating stories about the very human creators of beloved music.

Rating – **** Recommended

This book review was based on an Advanced Reader Copy and conforms to the Review Standards.