Jack Johnson © Getty Images
Pulsification: Jack Johnson Leads Surf Music into the 21st Century
Dec 19 2006 / Los Angeles, CA- Jack Johnson to Tim Donelly on ESPN.com
When Jack Johnson busts out his electric ukulele, plugs in and strums into Breakdown, the centuries, decades, eras and many currents of surf music flow through one guy, and make the world a little wetter and a little better.
Johnson grew up on the North Shore of Oahu, with the Pipeline in his backyard and his music goes back to the chants of the kahuna, the Polynesian priests who would stand at the water’s edge and sing to the ocean to make the surf come up.
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He was a surfer first and has done an admirable job of mixing recording and touring time with water time: “I get really grumpy if I don’t get to surf for a few weeks,” he said to Rachel Kampfner on synthesis.net. “It’s just part of my personality to have to surf because I've been doing it pretty much every day. Me and my friends used to go before school every morning and when we got home from school; it’s all that there really was. If I don't surf, I just don't feel in tune with everything around me. It’s like once I surf, I realize how out of balance I was with everything.
The chants of the kahuna were the original – and maybe the purest – surf music, but everything changed after Captain Cook “discovered” the islands of Owhyhee in the late 1700s. The people of this northernmost Polynesian franchise were exceptionally good in the water, but they were also exceptional musicians. When Portuguese workers brought a small instrument called a branguinha, the Hawaiians renamed it the ukulele (jumping flea). And when Mexican paniolo (cowboys) brought their guitars, the Hawaiians took them and retuned them and developed slack key guitar. Hawaiian music mixed native Hawaiian chants with European instruments and structure and into the 20th Century, the few surfers who made the long trek to Hawaii came back with those songs in their heads and their hearts.
During the 1950s, “surf music” was the soundtracks that early surf-movie makers Bud Browne, Bruce Brown, Greg Noll and John Severson chose for their four-wall surf movies. This was a time before the popularization of surfing, when surfers were a cult who would gather in high school auditoriums to watch images of far off surfing in the Hawaiian islands. Back then, the film-makers used whatever they wanted, and through the 50s it was a combination of jazz and rock and roll.
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Johnson began playing guitar at 14, sitting on his back porch picking out Cat Stevens songs - the endless ebb and flow of the Hawaiian ocean working its way into Johnson’s brain and flowing through his fingers. Johnson had a short career as a pro surfer which ended when he smashed his face on the reef at Pipeline. He was a good surfer but not a great surfer, so he transplanted himself to the mainland for a few years to attend UCSB. When he wasn’t surfing Rincon or The Ranch, he played and occasionally sang in a band called Soil, but his focus was on film-making. He made two 16 mm surf movies – Thicker than Water and September Sessions – which sold well and lead in a winding way to his music career. Johnson used a song by G. Love and that lead to them surfing together, and Johnson recording Rodeo Clowns as a fluke for G. Love’s 1999 album Philadelphonic. Rodeo Clowns was the hit from that album, and it all grew from there.
Flukes have a history in the history of surf music. During the surf music craze of the 60s, The Surfaris hastily threw together, rehearsed and recorded Wipeout as a B side for Surfer Joe. Within a year they were touring with the Beach Boys and Roy Orbison, and since then the song has been played 8 million times on the radio. In 1961, Bruce Brown paid West Coast jazz pioneer Bud Shank $200 for a custom soundtrack to Slippery When Wet – the soundtrack sold 10,000 copies in 1961, unheard of for a jazz album.
In the spirit of those flukes, Johnson hooked up with surfer/ producer JP Plunier, who introduced Jack to Ben Harper and that lead to Johnson opening for one of his musical heroes. Plunier connected Johnson with drummer Adam Topol and bassist Merlo Podlewski. They recorded Brushfire Fairytales in six days then went on the road to support Ben Harper. - Johnson had a surprise hit with Brushfire Fairytales. Johnson’s music was every from Montana to Malibu to the Mentawai Islands. Brushfire Fairytales sold 100,000 copies on two hits, Bubble Toes and Flake. And from there, Johnson’s success has been like a trip through the inside section at Sunset Beach: fast, intense and thrilling.
Johnson has a sweet deal with Universal Records who distribute whatever Johnson chooses to release – right down to the cover art. In that way he is much like surf movie maker Bruce Brown, who was adamant about retaining creative control and ownership of every project he ever made. Johnson’s second and third albums, On and On and In Between Dreams sold well. In February of 2006, Johnson released Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George which topped the Billboard Top 200 and sold multi-platinum.
