Another sunny “Endless Summer” is coming to City Winery thanks to The Beach Boys’ Al Jardine

Al Jardine Photos provided by Al Jardine

For Beach Boy Al Jardine, the city of Chicago holds a special place following nearly six decades of live performance. The 2015 Capitol Records release “Live in Chicago 1965” captures a pair of raucous March concerts at McCormick Place’s Arie Crowne Theater while a May 1968 stop at University of Chicago kicks off “On Tour: 1968,” a live collection featuring eight full Beach Boys concerts.

Fresh off a tour with Brian Wilson alongside Chicago, which revisited a 1975 Beach Boys/Chicago road trip famously dubbed “Beachago,” Jardine is on tour with his Endless Summer Band, an outing which stops at City Winery Monday night. Alongside son Matt, who also performs alongside his father in Brian Wilson’s group, the Endless Summer Band features rhythm section Bobby Figueroa and Ed Carter, both of whom performed as members of the Beach Boys touring band early on.

“It means a lot. The vocal quality is very high,” said Jardine of performing with his son. “Just like when we first started, it was the Wilson family who was predominantly the vocal mix. Now we have the Jardine family to help move that along. So it’s extraordinary. The voices just blend very naturally together.”

Jardine’s 2010 solo debut “A Postcard From California,” set for vinyl reissue next month and a streaming debut, features an incredible array of guests including Glen Campbell, Steve Miller, Flea, Neil Young, David Crosby and Stephen Stills on a collection of songs which celebrate The Golden State. “Don’t Fight the Sea” doubles as a quasi Beach Boys reunion, featuring guest spots by Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston alongside Figueroa and Carter.

Al JardineChicago Concert Reviews spoke with Al Jardine ahead of Monday night’s City Winery performance about the importance of storytelling during his Endless Summer Band sets, bringing “Sloop John B” to Brian Wilson’s attention and reworking “Help Me Rhonda” with Steve Miller on “A Postcard From California.” A transcript of the phone conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows below.

Any fond moments stick out in the city of Chicago after all these years whether it’s on stage or off?

Al Jardine: Oh yeah. Absolutely. And I’m looking forward to coming to Elton John’s new musical there [“The Devil Wears Prada”]. I just saw a review on it and the music sounds great. And the show is probably just as good. I just enjoy the city.

What’s it been like getting back on stage the last year and a half or so in front of actual people again?

Jardine: Oh, it’s great. Especially with my sons – in particular Matt Jardine who bails me out when I have laryngitis or Brian when he doesn’t feel like singing. When we go out with Brian it’s always challenging and fun. So he’s been doing the heavy lifting. So that’s great.

I just got over a spate of COVID. Towards the end of the last tour, it was really hitting my vocal chords I think. My voice got really rough toward the end of the Brian tour. We were in Tinley about [a month ago]. It was rough. Persistent sore throat and cough. I’m fully recovered thankfully. But Matt was there for me.

I’ve seen you perform here in Rosemont with Matt alongside Brian. What will your band be looking like [on Monday]?

Jardine: Oh yeah, of course! We’re bringing a couple of extra people with us this time around. Before, we performed as a trio and so we thought we should add a couple of members and make it more complete. We thought we’d embellish it a little. So I’ll be bringing our Beach Boys percussionist Bobby Figueroa and Ed Carter on bass. So we’re going to have a nice rhythm section. It enhances the vocal section as well.

Ed and Bobby literally made up our first Beach Boys touring band way back when we started adding musicians. After the first five or six years, we did the very same thing – we started having other players come in and support us. So they’re back again!

Obviously, The Beach Boys started as a family band. And here you are now decades later sharing your formative musical experiences with your family, with your sons. What does it mean to you to have that?

Jardine: Well, it means a lot. The vocal quality is very high. When you have a family of singers… Just like when we first started, it was the Wilson family who was predominantly the vocal mix. Now we have the Jardine family to help move that along. So it’s extraordinary. The voices just blend very naturally together.

Al JardineWhen you do these more intimate solo shows like you’ll be doing at City Winery, how important does the idea of storytelling become?

Jardine: I still enjoy that a lot. It’s just fun to recount the early years and do some music from the present. It’s quite a gift to be able to do that all of these years later.

I was reading an article about the Moody Blues and their lead singer [Justin Hayward] had the same feeling: that it’s a gift to be able to come out without the whole band and do some storytelling and play live. I don’t know how many pieces he tours – probably a little rhythm section like mine – but it’s a gift, you know? It’s the gift that keeps giving.

You mentioned that recent tour stop in Tinley Park. My dad is always telling me about seeing The Beach Boys and Chicago here at the old Chicago Stadium [in June of 1975]. How was it sort of revisiting that pairing a bit this summer on the Chicago/Brian Wilson tour?

Jardine: Oh yeah! It was great. I really didn’t know what to expect. There’s only three remaining [original] members of the Chicago band. And they’re all as enthusiastic as they were the first time I met them. They were generous. And it was a lot of fun.

We joined them on a song that we did with Chicago way back when called “Wishing You Were Here” and that was a lot of fun. And then they joined us on a song that required horn parts so they came out and played [“Darlin’”] with us. So it was just a lot of fun. It was a nice mix. I didn’t know if it would be that much fun.

Obviously, The Wrecking Crew worked with Brian in the studio so much. As a multi-instrumentalist yourself, what was it like watching them work and what did you learn from that process?

Jardine: Well, you learn that they have something to teach you. We’re basically songwriters and singers. We’re not really musicians the way they are. They’re professional musicians. We’re, I call it, professional singers. And we all have our limits. Those guys go in there every day, three hours a session – maybe three, four or five sessions a day, you know? They’re at it all of the time. They know their instruments. And they know the studios more importantly. They know where to sit and what instruments to play. They taught Brian a lot. And they taught me a lot. About how to behave rather than just go in with the touring band and lay down a track.

You famously brought “Sloop John B,” a folk standard, to Brian’s attention. Where were you discovering the folk tradition?

Jardine: The Kingston Trio. Folk music was huge in the 50s and early 60s. It was a force. And not just a musical force but a political force. It had a lot to do with a lot of things. A group called The Weavers from New York City who more or less invented a lot of the techniques – Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Ronnie Gilbert, and people like that, just captured the minds and souls of America, you know? The Trio learned from them and I learned from The Trio.

Well, your solo album, “A Postcard From California,” will be reissued in September, right?

Al Jardine

Photo provided by Randy Straka

Jardine: September, yeah. It keeps getting moved back. I’m looking forward to finally having a real company distribute it worldwide, not just here. It never really was properly issued in the first place. So it feels very contemporary to me. It wouldn’t matter if it was written ten years ago or yesterday, it’s still thematically prescient to me. It’s a celebration of the particular lifestyle here in California. It’s a rootsy kind of thing too. It kind of takes us back to our roots musically and also lyrically.

There are a lot of really great songs on there that I’m very proud of. You can drive the coast going up California and almost experience musically every town you drive through from Los Angeles to San Francisco. So that’s kind of cool.

“Help Me Rhonda” was famously your second Beach Boys lead vocal. You reworked it with Steve Miller on that album. How did you guys go about putting a new spin on a familiar song like that?

Jardine: Steve was in the neighborhood. Literally. He had his own private plane and flew in. It was perfect timing. He just happened to fly in and sit down with me in the studio and just do his version of it. I thought, “Well, I’m not gonna correct him. I’m just gonna let him sing!” Because he’s a great artist. And then his harmonica, his compadre for all those years – he laid down a nice blues harmonica solo. It just seemed to be very natural and very easy with Steve.

As it was with everybody on the album – all of those great players! There’s so many great artists on this. It blows my mind that they were all willing and able to come to the plate and deliver. I was very lucky. Because I didn’t have my Beach Boys singers anymore. So I had to reach out.

Glen Campbell performs on the title track of that album. Obviously, there’s such a rich Beach Boys history there, from him working with you guys as a member of The Wrecking Crew to actually joining the Beach Boys later. What was it like being able to have him on that song and that album?

Jardine: Aw man, yeah. He just knocked it out of the park. There’s a little testimonial to him in the show that I love to play, where he describes his first day as a Beach Boy and the challenges he was up against and my ability to help him out. So it’s a nice little testimonial there!


Al Jardine performs at City Winery on Monday, August 29. For additional details, visit AlJardine.com and CityWinery.com/Chicago.