All posts filed under: Latest News

CANDIX Enterprises Discography

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CANDIX Enterprises, Incorporated, was formed August 26, 1960, by the four Dix Brothers—twins Richard and Robert, Sherman, and Albert, of Fresno, California. A fifth brother, Theodore, and a sister, Sarita, were not involved in the record company. The name CANDIX, which they insisted be capitalized, was an amalgam of their surname Dix and that of William Silva, who preferred his stepfather’s surname Canaday, the man they hired as president of the company and to manage its day-to-day operation. They soon hired Joseph F. Saraceno as Artist & Repertoire director, and John Blore and John Fisher as record promoters. CANDIX Enterprises was distributed in Southern California by Dorothy Freeman’s Buckeye Record Distributors on West Pico Boulevard and its account was handled by record promoter Russ Regan.   CANDIX Enterprises released forty-one singles (two additional records were released on its Storm subsidiary, one record on its X Records subsidiary, and CANDIX distributed the sole release on Castil).  CANDIX ceased operating by September 1963. Contrary to some reports, Bob Dix did not file bankruptcy. He simply let the label’s …

Be True to Your School: the ’59 Cinderella Season

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This article commemorates the 56th anniversary of the start of the 1959 football season for the Hawthorne High Cougars.  In this Cinderella season, the Cougars went undefeated in eight regular season games, two post-season play-off games, and squared off against the mighty Long Beach Poly Jackrabbits for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championship in front of 14,906 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Friday, December 11, 1959.  In a happy coincidence, dates and days of the week are the same this year as they were in 1959.   The night before Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev landed in Los Angeles to begin his historic visit to the United States, Hawthorne High students had a decidedly less global event on their minds.  The traditional Kick-Off Dance was held in the boys’ gymnasium Friday, September 18, from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.  The dress code was dressy cottons for girls and slacks and sport coats for boys.  It was the first social event of the new school year and was designed to get the student body pumped …

Murry Promotes the Beach Boys in Sweden in ’62, Writes the Morgans

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In late November to mid December 1962, Murry Wilson traveled to Europe for a trip combining promotional efforts on behalf of the Beach Boys and personal medical reasons. On Wednesday, November 21, 1962, the day before Thanksgiving, Murry completed Department of State Form DSP-17, Passport Renewal Application, at the Los Angeles Passport Agency on Wilshire Boulevard.  Two days later, at 3:00 p.m., he paid five dollars and picked up his renewed passport in person. Murry had to renew his passport because the last time he had used a passport was for a business trip to England and France (Paris) from September 4 through September 19, 1959. He was under a tight deadline now as he stated on his application he planned to depart LA November 28 aboard Scandinavian Airlines to Denmark.  He indicated over the next seventeen days he would travel to West Germany, where the stated purpose of his visit was for medical reasons, Switzerland, and England.  It is unclear what medical reasons took Murry to West Germany or how many days he spent …

Seattle’s Spanish Castle and Party Line — A Research Challenge

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This is the first in a series of articles in which I will discuss researching Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963. The topics will include locating and interviewing people connected to the story; searching for newspaper articles, advertisements, handbills, posters, programs, telegrams, tickets, records, and rare memorabilia; finding photographs that had not been published in other books about the band; unearthing heretofore unknown personal appearances and attempting to place dates on appearances for which dates were unknown. First, a little bit about the mystery of human memory. When I interviewed people for the book we discussed events that happened nearly half a century ago. I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to recall exact dates. I tried to gently jog their memories by asking if they could associate the event with something specific—the season, the weather, a national holiday, songs on the radio, national or world news, events in their own lives—anything that might spark an additional clue. I found with many people the simple act of strolling down memory lane and …

Russia Comes to LA and Hawthorne High

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On September 8, 1959, 1,900 students trudged through the doors of Hawthorne High, including seventeen-year-old seniors Al Jardine and Brian Wilson, and Brian’s fourteen-year-old brother Dennis, one of 500 entering freshmen of the Class of ’63.  As much as they hated to return to school, there was some good news.  The school day would be thirty minutes shorter this year.  It still began sharply at 8:30 a.m. and each of the seven periods still lasted 53 minutes, but a half-hour was shaved from the two lunch periods.  The new schedule gave cafeteria workers more time to restock food and prepare for the second lunch period.  The not-so-good news was getting accustomed to the new bell system signaling when to change classes as students had seven minutes to scurry to their next class.  The lunch periods began at 11:23 a.m. and 12:23 p.m., and each lasted thirty-eight minutes.  If you didn’t pack your lunch, you spent a great deal of that precious time waiting in line. Senior Jean Robertson returned to Hawthorne High after spending her …

Hawthorne’s Plaza Theater and The Tingler

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Movies were a popular pastime for teenagers in the 1950s. And for parents, they were an unbeatable value. For less than a dollar, movies got the kids out of the house, occupied them for an entire afternoon, and, even after forking over a little spending money, were still cheaper than a babysitter. The kids would leave late morning and not be seen again until dinner time. They were treated to about five hours of entertainment—cartoons with Tom and Jerry, and Woody Woodpecker, boring newsreels, coming attractions, serials of Superman, Tarzan, Zorro, and Flash Gordon, and at least two feature-length movies. And since theaters weren’t emptied between showings, lots of kids stayed to see a movie again. Another movie phenomenon of the time was hearing, from somewhere in the darkened theater, “Oh, this is where we came in.” No one paid attention to timetables or when movies started. You just went, began watching at whatever scene on which you entered, and stayed until that scene came around again. People stood up, excused themselves down a row …

Capitol Tower Transforms LA Landscape

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On Friday, April 6, 1956, fourteen years after its founding in 1942, Capitol Records celebrated the grand opening of its new, state-of-the-art, centralized headquarters at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.  As searchlights crisscrossed the LA sky, Capitol and E.M.I. executives gathered to show off their new corporate headquarters.  The Capitol Tower, now a worldwide symbol of Hollywood and the music industry, was built by the architectural firm Welton Becket & Associates, and designed by Lou Naidorf. As Angelenos watched the construction progress while driving along the Hollywood Freeway, they joked construction was delayed because workers didn’t know whether to “put it on at 33⅓ or 45.”  Others joked “you can’t corner girls in a round building.”  Although the unique circular structure resembles a stack of records loaded onto the spindle of a turntable, that was a happy accident.  During a construction tour, Capitol co-founder and president Glenn E. Wallichs told reporters, “We don’t want people to think it’s supposed to look like a stack of records.  The round design was the idea of the architect, …

A Word About Podcasts

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The website is my way of sharing research that didn’t make its way into the book and the experience of writing Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963.  Additional posts are in the works and will appear soon.  Some of the site’s posts expand on stories that appear in BBB61-63; others are Beach Boys-related but outside the purview of the book. It occurred to me some additional stories are better served by the telling rather than the reading.  Accordingly, I’ve added a Podcast menu page that initially will contain radio interviews I’ve participated in, but that will later include discussions of Beach Boys-related events and people back in the day.  First up on the Podcast page is a radio interview with WFDU that aired August 23, 2015:  Third Annual Beach Boys Bash on “The Vintage Rock & Pop Shop,” conducted by Ghosty.  There are also links to Ghosty’s interviews with David Marks, David Beard, and Barbara Eden. Does anyone want to hear what it was like for me to pull the book together (the research, interviewing the folks behind the …

Dorinda & Hite Morgan Discography

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Dorinda Morgan was a prolific songwriter. While this discography is a good beginning, it is likely not comprehensive. For example, it seems certain she composed more songs during the 1930s. The discography is drawn from documents with Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI), the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., interviews with Bruce Morgan, and my personal collection. Images, where available, accompany the records below and will be added as available. Check back. [Last updated October 1, 2016 – details at bottom] Please contact me with any additions, corrections, or images. September 9, 1931 “Cabaret Lady” written by Dorinda Morgan copyrighted by H. Bowman Morgan September 30, 1941 “V Is for Victory” written by Dorinda Morgan copyrighted by Hite Bowman Morgan (Brookhaven, Georgia) December 31, 1941 “Anthem of the Allies” music by Dorinda Morgan words by Hite Bowman Morgan copyrighted by Hite Bowman Morgan (Brookhaven, Georgia) July 1945 “All Clear in My Heart” written by Hite Bowman, Robert T. Chestnutt, and Dorinda Morgan published …

Surf Cinema and George Freeth, Jr., the Father of California Surfing

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B ud Browne was the originator of the surf film genre and the first to make surf films for a commercial market.  His first surf film, Hawaiian Surfing Movie, debuted in 1953 at Adams Junior High School in Santa Monica.  Tickets were sixty-five cents.  “After introducing the film on stage,” recalled Browne, “I hurried up to the projection room to join the operator of an arc projector I had hired.  I could see the screen from a small window.  I had a microphone in hand and a tape player with music.  It was a nervous time, trying to coordinate telling the projectionist when to switch from sound to silent speed and vice versa, playing music in some places and not in others, and narrating when needed.  Sometime during the show, I remember the take-up reel quit turning and much of the forty-five minute reel of film piled up on the floor.  Although this was sort of a nerve wracking experience, I’ve always thought of the overall event as going very well.” Browne filmed in Hawaii …