Beach Boys'' sandy path first trod by ''50s surf kings (1/4ページ)

Don't call the Beach Boys' iconic sun-and-waves hits surf music.

"I never made real surf music, because the real surf music was one of the things that got me interested in surfing," says Bruce Johnston, whose first recording with the band was "California Girls." "I'm not one of the real guys."

The "real guys" Johnston refers to are the ones who started and inspired the first wave of instrumental surf music, such as Dick Dale and His Del-Tones and The Ventures. But even they were reluctantly labeled as surf musicians.

"It was titled surf music afterwards because I was surfing," Dale says. "They could have called me Tarzan of the jungle, because I had 40 different species of animals, lions and tigers and apes and gorillas and hawks and eagles, so when my elephants would scream or my mountain lion would scream for me, going 'Waaaooh!' I would make that sound on my guitar. So it had nothing to do with surfing."

The Ventures' first hit, "Walk, Don't Run," has often been called one of the first surf-style tracks, though the Tacoma, Wash., band's two founding members were construction workers doing heavy lifting, not surfers. "We were looking for something no heavier than a guitar to pick up, and we were hoping for just local success," says founder Don Wilson.