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high falsetto, deep bass, and resonating harmony, make it a so much more enjoyable offering, providing you can accept the lyrical shortcomings of Mike’s visionary imagination, although the average mediocrity that creeps throughout the rhythms of “Summer Of Love” and “Slow Summer Dancin’ (One Summer Night)” ensures that the release never achieves the potential that the band could still deliver had they seriously committed themselves to the job.

  Nevertheless, good or bad, enjoyable or embarrassing, the album fared disastrously on the market, failing completely to touch the chart listings and, despite the additional promotional push of issuing “Hot Fun In The Summertime” to the radio stations, the album swiftly disappeared into obscurity. However, one year later, and all too aware of the failure in their homeland, the group re-issued “Summer In Paradise” into the loyal market of the UK, with five of the tracks partly re-recorded and/or remixed … where it subsequently followed a similar fate.

  Despite the clear division between the musical discussions surrounding the release, nearly all concerned are united on one front … the packaging. The original US design was, without doubt, one of the finest to grace a Beach Boys release for many a year, perfectly putting into perspective the bands standing on environmental and ecological issues and world harmony. Lavishly presented in a clip-open, gatefold CD casing, with each side featuring the awe-inspiring tropical artwork of Robert Lyn Nelson, one can only imagine how the album would have been accepted had the music inside matched the quality outside.

  Nelson is recognized as the founder of the "two worlds" school of art, blending the images above and below the oceans into one project, and is celebrated internationally for his achievements and innovations in that particular genre. Having started drawing at a very early age, by the time he was just seven years of age he was already creatively utilising mediums such as chalk, acrylics and watercolour, and as a native of Southern California (and a keen surfer from an early age) it was only natural that his artistic inclinations led him to the ocean. Then, following his relocation to the island paradise of Maui, Hawaii during the mid-1970’s, his paintings finally developed into the spellbinding concepts that grace the many posters and exhibitions around the world today.

  The actual design and art direction on the package is afforded to the AIGA award-winning creative partnership of Spencer Drate and Jutka (Judith) Salavetz, a team based in New York also responsible for packaging the works of Bon Jovi, Lou Reed, U2, Sun Ra and Talking Heads, in addition to being the authors behind a number of music and movie-related books. For “Summer In Paradise” they successfully combined two of the strongest images of modern day Americana; the sun-kissed ocean-filled sounds of America’s own Beach Boys, and the crystal clear visions of one of America’s most talented ocean-themed artists.

  For the outer portion of the casing (the original US sleeve) Drate and Salavetz utilised a work entitled “Elements Of The Universe”, which takes us from the far reaches of outer space, surrounded by the comets, the stars and the planets, down to the depths of our own beautiful oceans, where the humpback whales, hammerhead sharks and rays are the powerful forces, swimming amongst the corals and the vast undersea foundations. With the striking colours of the Dean Torrence created ‘Beach Boys’ logo placed centrally, but not too large, on the housing, the focus is drawn swiftly to the undersea images that take up the majority of the front, whilst for the rear section the track listing hovers between the galaxy of stars and the cloud formations drifting across the blue skies. Then by opening up the case (a not too easy task I hasten to add) we are graced by two further pieces of Nelson’s work. Unfortunately, neither is immediately complete before the eye and only by opening up the case one further stage do we get to view the full majesty of each painting, and even then the work labelled “Embraced By The Sea” is split into two sections, with the turtles of the underwater portion on the left, and the birds and lush green foliage over on the far right. Nevertheless, the second of the inner painting; a slightly cropped “Ring Of Life”, is the dominant picture on the package, with the enlarged American flag floating high in the skies, above the circling ring of dolphins and porpoises, and with the bikini-clad bronzed beach bunny laid out alongside a surfboard at the bottom of the picture. And note the immortal words ‘ The Beach Boys’ engraved onto the board itself …

CLICK ON AN IMAGE

Robert Lyn Nelson's original "Ring Of Life" (left) and the Beach Boys variation (right)

  However, it would appear that both the bronzed goddess and her engraved board, and the small rocket or balloon (decide as you will) that appears amongst the distant mountain ranges (bearing the words ‘Happy 30th’, in self acknowledgement to the bands’ 30th anniversary the previous year) were later additions, along with a number of other extras, seeing that neither appear on Nelson’s original work. As to whether it was Nelson himself who added these extra details remains undocumented at present (one suspects it was), but neither add any additional dimension, or take away anything particular, from the original piece of art.

  The fourth and final piece of artwork that appears on the sleeve is, strangely, just a small section of the work “Amethyst Dawn At Kipahulu” (below), one of the few Nelson works that see the focus stay completely above the waters’ surface. Only the ocean view is incorporated onto the sleeve, although the original painting features much of the surrounding coastline and plant life. For the interested; Kipahulu is one of the more south-easterly points on Maui, and is also the final resting place for aviator Charles Lindbergh.

  The final inclusion on this impressive packaging comes in the form of a large additional insert, folded neatly away behind the Kipahulu image. The insert unfolds to reveal a larger, uncropped version of the “Ring Of Life” painting, whilst on the reverse is a detailed credit listing for the album, featuring production, engineering credits and technical specifications, a musicians listing (notable for including only one Beach Boy; Bruce Johnston), full thanks from the band members to whomever, art and design credits; which notably also acknowledge Dean Torrence and his ‘Surf City Visual Arts Company’ (presumably for the logo), and finally, with a definite Mike Love-favoured slant, a brief synopsis of the album by Michael himself, followed by the lyrics to the title track. What it fails to mention however, was that it was barely a Beach Boys album at

all … Brian Wilson was nowhere to be seen, Bruce Johnston was the only contributing band member to the actual tracks, and Alan Jardine was virtually out of the line-up at that stage (due to a general lack of interest/commitment on his behalf). Sure, he made a number of significant vocal contributions, and Carl’s golden vocals appear throughout the release, but this was, without doubt, the starting point of what would ultimately be referred to as the ‘Beach Boys Band’ – i.e. Mike Love and his merry band of followers.

  The four remaining Beach Boys toured extensively during 1992/1993 pushing the new release, but at the same time Capitol Records released their near-definitive 4-CD boxed set, “Good Vibrations: 30 Years”, and more often than not focus during the ‘live’ set was justifiably emphasised onto the classics … and gradually “Hot Fun In The Summertime”, “Surfin’” and “Under The Boardwalk” slipped away from the set list …

With acknowledgements to the many online galleries that feature the works of Robert Lyn Nelson

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