Various Artists - 1994 "Rock Instrumental Classics Vol. 5 Surf"

Rhino closes its five-volume rock instrumentals series with an 18-track outing devoted to surf guitar. This fast-paced, prickly, and frequently exciting form may not be among the most diversified structurally, but if does offer some surging playing from its practitioners. They range from founding father Dick Dale to its most popular bands, the Surfaris, Belairs, Ventures, and Chantays. While not particularly a hardcore surf collection, this disc certainly outlines its virtues, and the tunes were long enough to display guitar proficiency, but short enough to prevent self-indulgence and repetition.

For a long time this was one of the few surf music collections out there and it still rates a high recommendation among the other contenders out there. For one thing it obviously includes only the instrumental form of surf music, the form the surfing crowd liked and acknowledged. The vocal music of the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean was less well-received, partially because they weren't all surfers and also because they helped popularize the scene enough to bring huge crowds to the beaches and surfing spots. As surf instrumentals go, all the national hits are here as well as a good number of the bands who had regional hits like Dick Dale, The Belairs, Tornadoes, Challengers and Lively Ones. This CD sticks with the actual surf music hits and does not get into the roots of surf in the instrumental hits of bands like the Ventures, Johnny & the hurricanes, Duane eddy, Link Wray or The Fireballs. For that there is the excellent "Birth of Surf" CD by Ace which also has a lot of the same tracks as are on here, though it's still worth having both.

The track order is a little odd in that it's not chronological as most collections would be. I imagine the producers felt some songs went better after certain others. It plays well, though a really early track like Dick Dale's Let's Go Surfin' sounds a little old with its un-reverbed guitar sandwiched between Point Panic and Surf Rider. The producers also include a number of tunes that aren't considered true surf music by purists and I'm glad they did because the public perceived them as surf music, so it presents a fair portrait of the times. These are: Surfer's Stomp by The Mar-Kets because there was no real Mar-Kets band; they were just studio musicians. But Surfer's Stomp was the first song to have "Surf" in the title in January, 1962. Jack Nitzsche was a producer and engineer working with Phil Spector at Gold Star, and his "The Lonely Surfer" is really an orchestral tone poem about surfing but not really surf music. It's great to see it here though because not only is it ultra-rare but also clearly an inspired piece of music.

Everything else is what you'd expect: great surf music by great surf bands. I'm happy they included The Challengers and Eddie & the Showmen, both split-offs from The Belairs( and also chose Mr. Rebel and not Squad Car which gets tiresome on repeated listenings). You won't go wrong with this surf music collection.

This is an excellent collection of surf classics. Great album to get if you want to get the 'standards' without buying all the various original albums they came on. Quite a few of the really great pieces are here, in one set. Really took me back to my childhood in southern California!

Sticker on outside of CD promises all lyrics included (in an INSTRUMENTAL album) -- all in all, good fun.

Track listing:

1 –Chantays - Pipeline 2:23
2 –The Belairs - Mr. Moto 2:12
3 –The Surfaris - Wipe Out 2:41
4 –The Frogmen - Underwater 2:08
5 –Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Miserlou 2:16
6 –The Ventures - Diamond Head 2:04
7 –The Astronauts - Baja 2:28
8 –The Mar-Kets - Surfer's Stomp 1:59
9 –The Tornadoes - Bustin' Surfboards 2:30
10 –The Pyramids - Penetration 2:05
11 –Eddie & The Showmen - Mr. Rebel 1:59
12 –The Crossfires - Fiberglass Jungle 2:14
13 –The Challengers - K39 2:14
14 –The Surfaris - Point Panic 2:19
15 –Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Let's Go Trippin' 2:09
16 –The Lively Ones - Surf Rider 3:22
17 –Johnny Fortune - Soul Surfer 2:34
18 –Jack Nitzsche - The Lonely Surfer 2:35