Al Jardine will be the first to tell you he didn’t play much guitar for the Beach Boys in the ’60s. Early Beach Boys albums – like Surfin’ Safari (1962) and Surfin’ U.S.A. (1963) – feature plenty of nifty vocals and a ton of great songwriting but little to zero Jardine-related six-string action.
Later records – including Pet Sounds (1966) and Wild Honey (1968) – did little to change that narrative. Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ brilliant yet deeply eccentric and erratic bandleader, had a vision manifested via sounds in his head, and he relied on a revolving group of L.A. session musicians called the Wrecking Crew, rather than Beach Boys guitarists Jardine and Carl Wilson, to bring it to life.
