UPDATED: The story behind those Beach Boys photos at Saltair

The Beach Boys at Saltair circa 1968 (via Google Images)

GREAT SALT LAKE, CIRCA 1968—

The exact dates are fuzzy, but Bill Hesterman, Jr. and his younger brother Dave remember their first trip to Saltair like it was yesterday.

It was early on a Saturday afternoon when their father, Bill Hesterman, Sr., pulled the family’s red Toyota Land Cruiser off Highway 40 and aimed it toward the lake’s southern shore.  There, at the end of a mile-long trestle, stood Saltair—the world-famous “Lady of the Lake.”

Or Saltair’s ghost, at least.

The historic resort had been deserted for nearly a decade.  The locked gate at the trestle’s entrance was a half hearted formality.  The Utah State Parks Commission, to which the resort had been donated in 1959, had neither the resources to maintain the iconic pavilion nor an interest in restricting access to it.  Saltair hosted throngs of recreationists and big-name musical acts for nearly 60 years before it succumbed to the elements, extraordinary operating costs, and an ever-receding shoreline.  Now the dilapidated Moorish edifice appealed only to urban explorers and tourists who pined for its glory days.

It was those glory days that brought the Hestermans to Saltair that day.  Bill and Dave sat in the back seat.  Riding shotgun was The Beach Boys founding member Al Jardine, who was in town with his band mates to play a concert at Lagoon later that evening.   Jardine was stoked to explore Saltair.  Bill and Dave were stoked to be hanging out with their rock idol.  Hesterman shifted into 4-wheel-drive, hopped the railroad tracks and cruised the alkaline mile out to the ghost resort.

The Beach Boys stand on pier pylons behind the abandoned Saltair Pavilion (via Google Images)

Even casual Beach Boys fans know the band’s connection to Utah runs deep.  It’s well known that the band’s 1964 hit “Fun, Fun, Fun” was inspired by Salt Lake City teenager Shirley Johnson England, daughter of KNAK radio station owner Howard Johnson, who took her father’s Ford Thunderbird and naughtily cruised State Street.  And of course there’s the 1965 song, “Salt Lake City.”  The Beach Boys played Lagoon seven times during their formative years are set to headline BYU’s Stadium of Fire Independence Day celebration next month.

So what brought The Beach Boys to Utah in the first place?  How did little ol’ SLC become The Beach Boys second home?

It all started in the early 60’s when Hesterman, then a DJ and general manager of KNAK Radio, played a rough Beach Boys demo tape on the air.  “Daddy-O,” as Hesterman was known on-air, was likely the first disc jockey to play a Beach Boys record on radio outside of California.

And Utah listeners were smitten.  As the fledgling band’s sunny lyrics and rich harmonies began to define the surf rock genre, Hesterman promoted them heavily.  He arranged several Beach Boys concerts at Lagoon and later toured with the band in Europe.

Jardine reflected on those early Lagoon concerts in a 2010 interview in Goldmine Magazine:

“It was a magical time. It was like being in a time warp (I think). It felt like we were back in the 1940s and ’50s doing these big ballroom dances, which were so popular in that era.

“We set attendance records every year … it became an annual affair. That’s the kind of vibe we were having with our fans and [even] the promoters at that time. Everybody was pretty happy with The Beach Boys. It was reciprocal feeling, and we always set attendance records.”

He also talked about Hesterman:

“Bill Hesterman was the deacon in the Mormon Church — he never prophet-eltized (sic) or tried to push his particular faith on us. He was just a normal guy with a great radio voice and just promoted the heck out of The Beach Boys. That spilled over to the promoting of the Lagoon.”

Hesterman was actually a Mormon Bishop at the time, but I think we can cut Jardine some slack.

He became good friends with band and their manager, Murry Wilson (also the father of band members Brian, Dennis, and Carl).  When the Hesterman family traveled to California, they visited the Wilsons.  When the band was in Salt Lake, they hung out with the Hestermans.  While the tune “Salt Lake City” was a public tribute to their Utah fans, it was written in Hesterman’s honor.  And although “Barbara Ann” wasn’t written by The Beach Boys, they often dedicated SLC performances of it to Hesterman’s wife, Barbara.

The Hesterman children were given tour jackets and backstage passes to Beach Boys concerts, and were sometimes introduced by their father on stage.

Bill, Dave, and their younger brother Mark grew especially close to Al Jardine.

“I remember him picking me up as a little kid and holding me in his arms,” Mark Hesterman recalled during a phone interview earlier this week.  “He always seemed to be well grounded, just a regular guy.”

Bill “Daddy-O” Hesterman remained close friend of the band until he passed away in 1996, and his sons still keep in touch.

But back to that Saturday at Saltair.

According to Dave, the outing had been Jardine’s idea.  He had heard about the resort growing up and was intrigued by its musical heritage.  With the Lagoon concert several hours off, Jardine saw an opportunity.  They’d have plenty of time to tour the old pavilion before join up with the other Beach Boys for the concert.

They spent two hours wandering the pavilion and exploring underneath.  They climbed the grand staircases.  They walked to the middle of the dance floor, which for decades was the largest unobstructed dance hall in the United States.  They stood there for a while, just to take it in.  This was the place where generations of Utahns danced, fell in love, and thrilled to the music of the Mills Brothers, Phil Harris, and Nat King Cole.

“You felt like the ghosts of the bands were in the background,” Bill Jr. recalled.

Saltair featured the largest unobstructed dance floor in the U.S. (Utah Historical Society)

Though it was certainly run down, Bill Jr. said the old pavilion’s infrastructure seemed plenty solid—perhaps fully restorable with proper funding.

Leaving Saltair proved difficult when the Cruiser high centered on the railroad tracks.

“We were stuck out there in no-man’s-land,” Dave laughed.

Everybody got out and started to dig.  They tried rocking the Cruiser and using a railroad tie for leverage.  They worked for over an hour, racing against the clock and the darkening clouds and the next passing train.  Bill Sr. was fretful.  Jardine, according to Bill Jr., “thought it was great sport.”

They finally freed the cruiser and sped to Lagoon, arriving late to an anxious crowd.  With no time to clean up, Jardine joined his band mates on stage covered in Great Salt Lake mud.  By all accounts, the concert was great.

When Jardine told the other Beach Boys about Saltair, their interest was piqued.  It was decided (with a measure of reluctance from Bishop Hesterman) that they would all return to Saltair on Sunday for a photo shoot before leaving town on Monday.  On Sunday afternoon Hesterman, the band, and a photographer loaded into the Cruiser and drove west (Bill Jr. and Dave didn’t make the trip; Hesterman insisted they stay home and attend church services).

The cover of Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 19 (via Google Images)

As reported in last week, the photos taken that day were featured on a European repackage of Today! and a later Sea of Tunes bootleg release.  The guy in the middle of the cover shot?  Yep, that’s Bill “Daddy-O” Hesterman.

Aside from those photos, little is known about the trip or the photographer.  Calls to Al Jardine’s manager were not immediately returned (no shock there; the band is on tour and this is a modest blog).  But Jardine did mention the trip in the same Goldmine Interview:

“In 1968, Bill took us out to the Salt Flats out there at another old ballroom called the Salt Palace that had since — literally — started to fall into the Salted Sea in the Great Salt Lake. In the 1940s, there was a dance hall out there. The lake shrank away and Bill thought it would be a great place to have pictures taken. So we were sitting on pier pylons and goofing around in the sand out there. You can imagine that the Salt Palace was a hell of a place, and it must have really rocked… The Lagoon was our Salt Palace.”

Okay, so his names are off (the Salt Palace is a convention center in downtown SLC and I’m not sure what he’s referring to with the “Salted Sea”), but it has been about 44 years.  His comparison of Saltair to Lagoon is interesting since the two resorts were fierce competitors until the former’s demise.  Lagoon had solid local appeal, but Saltair was a nationwide destination and was frequently dubbed the “Coney Island of the West.”  The pavilion’s ornate Moorish design and location nearly a mile offshore gave it grand, almost ethereal presence.   This setting, combined with the popularity of saltwater swimming and the resort’s massive dance hall, made Saltair THE concert destination.    Had The Beach Boys been around even a decade earlier, they would have certainly played Saltair.

But their rise in prominence coincided with the end of the Saltair era and the beginning of Lagoon’s heyday.  Lagoon, as Jardine aptly points out, was the Beach Boys’ Saltair.  How appropriate that they, thanks to Bill “Daddy-O” Hesterman, were able to visit both over the same weekend!

——-

Those same pylons today (photo by Clint Thomsen)

Click here for my previous stories about Saltair.

UPDATE:  Just for fun, a few more photos from a visit on 3/13/2015:

 

The Beach Boys – Saltair Connection

Today marks the release of The Beach Boys’ 30^th studio album, That’s Why God Made the Radio.  The band is currently playing their 50^th anniversary reunion tour, which will bring them to BYU’s July 4 Stadium of Fire show in Provo.  Since I’ve got The Beach Boys on my mind, and since I’ve always got Saltair on my mind, it’s high time I address the Beach Boys – Saltair connection.

What do Saltair and The Beach Boys have in common?  The answer may surprise you.  Sure, one was a long-vanished resort in Utah, the other a rock band from California.  But think about it.  Both spark thoughts of sun, sand, and saltwater.  Both were arguably products of genius, their legacies unmistakable.  Both have rocky—even tragic—histories.  Both have persisted through the years in some incarnation or another.

Oh, and one other thing:  these icons of music and culture met each other one summer day in the late 1960’s.

If you’ve done much research into Saltair history, you may have come across a photo or two of the Boys posing and goofing around at the old Saltair site.  The most ubiquitous is a shot of the band standing alongside a Toyota Land Cruiser with the dilapidated Saltair pavilion in the distance.  This photo appeared on two separate album covers—a European EMI repackage of Today! and a bootleg album titled “Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 19.”

Here’s the EMI album cover:

Photo by Clint Thomsen

The back features the same photo and a blurb by the late Dick Clark.  Saltair is instantly recognizable, as are The Beach Boys.  There’s Dennis with the beard, Carl in the denim shirt, Mike with the Newsie cap, Al with the wild red hair, and there’s Bruce on the right.  But Beach Boys fans and Saltair buffs alike continue to debate one question:

Who’s the guy standing with them?

Photo/Edit by Clint Thomsen

It’s no secret; it’s not well-known.  The online speculation is amusing.  He might be the Wilsons’ father, Murry.  Or Bruce’s father, or the band’s Mexican bus driver, or a Brazilian cabbie.  The truth makes a lot more sense and is actually quite interesting.  So who is that guy, and what brought The Beach Boys to Saltair in the first place?

Check back early next week for the answers to these questions and several other nice tidbits on The Beach Boys’ connection to Utah.

Or, since it’s already posted, just click here.

 

We Were Watermen, or, Why I’m Thinking About The Beach Boys, Part I

We were watermen.

Or at least we were the Utah equivalent of the Polynesian term for someone whose life, as surf legend Chris Malloy once put it, is dictated by the ocean’s moods.  A waterman swims, dives, surfs, and spear fishes.  He lives in and for the sea.

Our seas were the lakes and streams along the Mirror Lake Highway in northeastern Utah.  Each summer, a sequence of family camping reunions allowed my cousins and me to escape to our aquatic Shangri-La in the Uinta Mountains for days on end.  Matt, Adam, and I learned to swim at a young age in the frigid waters of the Upper Provo River.  Our older cousins Tommy and Josh taught us how to safely ford rapids and properly acclimatize to cold depths.  Eventually we learned to fashion rafts out of driftwood and catch rainbow trout with our bare hands.

By about age 9, we considered ourselves experts.  Each morning after breakfast we’d leave camp for the river, often not to return until sunset.  We navigated miles of the Upper Provo, charting swimming holes and naming landmarks.  There was Coney Island, a large rocky islet near the Soapstone Campground.  A particularly sandy shoreline earned the title “Waikiki Beach.”

Matt had a Sony Walkman with a pair of portable speakers.  The happy, surf-centric harmonies of the Beach Boys provided the soundtrack for our adventures.  We’d belt the chorus of “Surfin’ USA” as we tossed a Frisbee over the river between Coney Island and Waikiki.  Many of our landmark names came from Beach Boys tunes.

When Uncle Garth bought a power boat, our turf extended to Rockport Reservoir, an impoundment along the Weber River.  Time not spent water skiing was passed lounging on a wide beach on the lake’s north side.  Adding to my delight was the fact that our annual trip to Rockport coincided with my birthday.  Water, sand, campfires, and birthday presents—it couldn’t get any better!

One year, Tommy’s wife, Shanna proudly gifted me a New Kids on the Block album on cassette.  Later, Tommy pulled me aside and discretely handed me another album, The Beach Boys’ Still Cruisin.

“The New Kids are hot now,” I remember him saying quietly, so as not to upstage his wife’s gift, “But The Beach Boys are timeless.”

I don’t swim in rivers much these days, but I pine for my waterman days—for the loud rush of the Provo, the glow of a Soapstone campfire, the lazy days on Rockport’s beaches.  Those times epitomized summer for me, and so did the tunes.  That’s why every year around this time, I get an irresistible urge to crank The Beach Boys and head for the mountains.

 

Christmas tune of the day: TobyMac

Count me among the many music fans who don’t naturally associate urban hip-hop with Christian music.  In theory, it just ain’t right.  But in practice– at least when it comes to the artist known as TobyMac– it’s a marriage made in heaven.

Here’s my thing with music:  There are certain genres I tend to write off altogether.  Three of them happen to be urban (I lean rural), hip-hop (meh), and Christian (a bit cheesy for my taste).  But good music is good music.  If you dig an uber-modern sound but cringe at modern lyrics, you’ll love TobyMac.  His stuff is clean and uplifting, yet perfectly blastable on the car stereo.

Weird, huh?  Now that you’re curious, check out his new Christmas tune.  “Christmas This Year” folds both the fun and spiritual aspects of the holiday into a bright, catchy track.  This tune will stick in your head, but the great thing is you’ll want it there.

TobyMac – “Christmas This Year”

 

 

Christmas tune of the day: Elvis’ anachronistic duet with Amy Grant

I’ve been a casual Elvis fan ever since Disney’s Lilo & Stitch movie introduced me to him several years ago and .  Since then I’ve noticed a trend of revisiting and releasing reworked versions his original work.  I really liked Viva ELVIS, a collection of re-imagined favorites that was released this fall.

Today’s Christmas Tune comes from 2008’s Elvis Presley Christmas Duets, which splices the voices of modern country/gospel artists into classic Elvis holiday tunes.  The result is a mostly seamless marriage of old and new.  My favorite track here– and the one that sounds most like a genuine duet– is White Christmas with Amy Grant.

Unlike some of the other singers on this album, Miss Grant realizes the star here is Elvis.  She doesn’t try to upstage The King, but makes a fine presence nonetheless. It’s interesting to note that Elvis recorded this tune back in 1957– three years before Grant was born.  Yet it almost seems like he recorded it in anticipation of her joining him in a duet more than half a century later.

Elvis Presley – White Christmas (duet with Amy Grant)

 

Christmas tune of the day: Dido

Today’s tune comes from British songstress Dido.  “Christmas Day” appeared on a rare 2001 EP and sort of fell through the cracks.  More about love than holiday cheer, this is classic Dido with subtle, yet rich holiday touches.  It’s an excellent addition to any newer-school Christmas playlist.

Dido – Christmas Day

 

Christmas tune of the day: Peter Cetera

This idea came late in the season, but I think it’ll be fun nonetheless.  Christmas music is a funny thing.  I love it, but timing is key.  There’s something about the big holidays that makes them all-encompassing when they’re upon us, but somehow…wrong… when  they’re out of season.  Not sure what I mean?  Turn on Burl Ives’ “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” in June or Bobby Pickett’s “Monster Mash” in December and tell me how it goes over.

But there comes a time late in the year when some mental switch is thrown and Christmas music becomes an absolute must.  For me, Christmas Music Season officially runs from Black Friday to Januaary 2– a pretty standard range, methinks, for most Americans.

My favorite Christmas songs will always be the old-timey standards, but I like to explore the newer stuff too.  I make two playlists for the family car every year– one old-school and one more contemporary.  I’m always looking to mix things up, and maybe you are too.  So every day until Christmas I’ll post a “Christmas tune of the day” that you might check out and add to your own custom playlist.

We’ll start off today with “Deck the Halls” from Peter Cetera’s 2004 album You Just Gotta Love Christmas.

Who wasn’t devastated when Peter Cetera left Chicago?  They replaced him with a decent fake Peter Cetera (no offense, Jason Scheff fans), but it could never be the same.  Thankfully, Peter C added a Christmas album to his solo repertoire in 2004.

You’ll notice a few things on this album– first, that Cetera’s voice almost eerily defies age.  Seriously, the guy sounds exactly the same in his 60’s as he did in his 20’s.  Oh that we could say the same for Brian Wilson or Bono!  Second, the production on this album is flawless.  Saccharin, like his other post-Chicago stuff, but flawless.  Third, if you listen closely to my favorite track, “Deck the Halls,” you’ll hear vocal goddess Alison Krauss singing background.  Exactly what more could you ask for?

So here’s the Christmas tune for today:  Peter Cetera’s “Deck the Halls”

 

Video: Hike to South Willow Lake

Here are some clips from our recent hike to South Willow Lake in Utah’s Stansbury Mountains.  The angelic voice issuing from my phone in one clip belongs to Miss Zee Avi.  If you must listen to music in the wilderness, it must be hers.

 

Stay tuned for a review of Jack Johnson’s latest album, To the Sea

I know, I know– it was released two weeks ago and after all my hype, I still haven’t reviewed Jack Johnson’s new album, To the Sea.  I typically wait a while after buying an album before reviewing it so that it has time to sink in, gel, grow on me, etc.  So fret not, Googlers!  I’ll post a review sometime next week.

Some albums come in with a bang and hook me at first listen.  Some come in with a whisper but grow to become favorites.  To the Sea came in with a whimper, and the jury’s still out.  I owe it to my man Jack to wait to review it until after an upcoming 14 hour road trip to the west coast.  If it’s going to sink in, I’m guessing it will happen on the open road.

 

Jack Johnson’s ‘You and Your Heart’ is a rolling slice of heaven

I just bought Jack Johnson’s new single, “You and Your Heart”, and I wanted to post a few quick thoughts:

• LOVE the upbeat rhythm guitar intro!  Jack’s writes some sweet song intros, and this one may just be one of his best.

• Very radio-friendly.  Most of his singles are.  Deeper cuts are sure to come on the album, which drops on June 1.

• I’m over-generalizing here, but Jack’s music can be roughly classified into three categories: Soundtrack/instrumental (his early stuff- think September Sessions or the Curious George soundtrack); Beach tunes (most everything prior to Sleep Through the Static); and the piano-driven ALO sound.  “You and Your Heart” fits squarely in this third category.

TANGENT: The third category merits some explaining- A very distinct change in Jack’s sound occurred when he added long-time pal and vocalist for ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra), Zach Gill, to the band, and heavily incorporated Gill’s school-choral-room piano style into his subsequent work.

The transition is best evidenced in Jack’s 2005 album, In Between Dreams.  This album, in my opinion, was the perfect juxtaposition of all three of the categories I mentioned above (and it’s consequently my favorite album).

NESTED TANGENT: While I consider myself something of an early days purist (most of my favorite Jack Johnson tunes come from his early soundtracks), the addition of Gill was a welcomed and natural evolution, which added an amazing dimension to the band’s sound.  If you’ve never experienced ALO, I’d strongly recommend checking them out.

But back to the quick thoughts on the newly-released single…

• I dig the dubbed self-harmony effect.  I’m sure there’s a more official term for that, but I don’t have time to Google.  This is something that has always worked for Jack, and it works great here.

BOTTOM LINE: “You and Your Heart” is a rich, rolling track.  If it’s representative of the rest of the album, To the Sea will be a gem.

Listen to the whole track here.  It’s available on iTunes now.  The album will be released on June 1.

See previous posts about Jack Johnson here.