The 1970’s had almost reached the halfway point (1974) and the Beach Boys had released three excellent albums, Sunflower, Surf’s Up, and Holland plus one clunker, Carl & The Passions – So Tough. The problem facing the Beach Boys was that these excellent albums were not selling well and worse the Beach Boys were becoming irrelevant.

Enter Mike Love and the Beach Boys former label, Capitol. Many of the Beach Boys newer songs were not conducive to being performed live on stage. Mike Love did not play an instrument, so he was most comfortable on stage when he was singing, which he did on many of the groups pre Pet Sounds hits. Capitol Records was always looking to make a buck, and I’m O.K. with that. They retained the rights to the huge pre 1970 Beach Boys catalogue. Capitol Records and Mike Love put together a two record, twenty song compilation album and released it under the name Endless Summer.

Endless Summer was released in 1974 and promptly became the number one album in the country selling over three million copies. It remained on Billboard’s top album charts for over three years. Capitol was happy as it made buckets of money. Mike Love was happy as the early Beach Boys hits were back in the public eye.

Endless Summer introduced a second generation of music buyers to the Beach Boys. Their new material still did not sell much better but for the next twenty years The Beach Boys became one of the most popular concert attractions in the country. I saw the Beach Boys live several times during this period of time. It was always in arenas that held about 15,000 people and they were always sold out. The down side of all this was the Beach Boys became basically a nostalgia act playing their old surf and turf hits. They did, however, make buckets of money.