The Wreck and Revival of the Sloop John B

The oldest song in the Beach Boys catalog is also one of the band’s biggest hits.

In 1966, “Sloop John B.” was a massive international smash for Brian Wilson and company.

“Sloop John B” is the story of an overseas voyage marked by misery and mayhem. The second single released off of the band’s landmark Pet Sounds, it reached #3 in the U.S. before crossing the Atlantic and seizing the #2 slot in the U.K. From there, it washed ashore nearly everywhere, topping the charts in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden.

“Sloop John B” is peak Beach Boys—Brian Wilson and Mike Love trading lead vocals over intricate harmonies, ingenious arrangement, and an unusual stack of instruments that included the glockenspiel, a tack piano, and something called temple blocks.

Putting aside the trademark Beach Boys flourishes, the actual authorship of “Sloop John B” is unknown.

Buried Treasure

The composition actually made its first appearance in print. In 1916, British novelist and poet Richard La Gallienne transcribed its verses for an issue of Harper’s Monthly and gave it the title “The John B. Sails”. One year later, he included a condensed version in a novel about pirates and treachery on the high seas called Pieces Of Eight. The tale takes its protagonist to the Bahama Islands in search of treasure.

Though fictional, the book’s reference to “The John B. Sails” added a touch of authenticity, one likely informed by the author’s own travels.

Poet Carl Sandburg then included those same verses in his 1927 American Songbag.

The American Songbag was a massive hit. (Yeah–poetry books could be massive hits back then). Anyway, Sandburg’s collection remained in print for 70 years, which almost certainly helped raise the profile of “The John B. Sails.”

Around Nassau Town

“The John B. Sails” was already something of an anthem in the Bahamas by this point, with its growing global profile making it a source of some national pride.

A 1935 field recording from the Bahamas captures the composition as it was initially intended to sound. Alan Lomax was a musical historian who devoted his life to capturing folk traditions in the U.S. and throughout the world. The result of his work is a vast compendium of songs and sound that would have otherwise remained oral tradition–and in many cases, would likely have been erased by the passage of time.

On the recording that he captured here, you can hear a deeper history, one that far predates Alan Lomax’s arrival on Cat Island in the Bahamas. This first-known recorded version by the Cleveland Simmons Group is entitled “Histe Up the John B’s Sails.”

Feel So Folked Up

There are no known recorded versions of the song from the subsequent 15 years. But the late ‘40s and early ‘50s marked the emergence of something new—the American folk movement. Left-leaning musicians of the era merged progressive politics with an appreciation for American roots music.

The Weavers—a group which included future folk icon Pete Seeger—played a major role in reviving and recasting many of the folk traditions featured in field recordings by Alan Lomax. So it was that in 1950, the very same year that the Weavers charted a massive #1 hit with Lead Belly’s “Goodnight Irene”, that they released “The Wreck of the John B”.

Though the Weavers offer a decidedly sanitized mainland take on island music, it is also the first modern version of a song that would, in short order, be recorded by countless artists.

In 1952, Blind Blake (Higgs), not be confused with the ragtime blues singer Blind Blake, became the first Bahamian singer to record a modern cut of the tune:

Notable versions followed by Johnny Cash (1959), Lonnie Donegan (1960), and Jimmie Rodgers, who topped the charts in Canada for 3 weeks in 1960.

But it was the 1958 version by the Kingston Trio that caught Beach Boys singer Al Jardine’s attention.

Call For The Captain Ashore

As Jardine tells the story, “I laid out the chord pattern for 'Sloop John B.' I said, 'Remember this song?' I played it. [Brian Wilson] said, 'I'm not a big fan of the Kingston Trio.' He wasn't into folk music.”

In short, Jardine says, Wilson would never go for a song with this level of compositional simplicity. Undeterred, Jardine decided to infuse his sales pitch with some of Wilson’s trademark complexity.

“I put some minor changes in there,” Jardine said, “and it stretched out the possibilities from a vocal point of view. Anyway, I played it, walked away from the piano and we went back to work. The very next day, I got a phone call to come down to the studio. Brian played the song for me, and I was blown away. The idea stage to the completed track took less than 24 hours.”

The result was a masterpiece, and a dramatic reinvention of an ageless song–equally innovative and faithful to its source material (source material Brian Wilson likely hadn’t heard at that point).

Hoist Up the John B. Sails

The Beach Boys entered the studio with the usual cast of Wrecking Crew musicians–including increasingly legendary session aces like Hal Blaine on drums and Carole Kaye on bass. “Sloop John B” was recorded across two sessions in December of ‘65, released in the following spring, and omnipresent during the summer of ‘66.

It moved half-a-million copies in the first two weeks, making it the band’s fastest selling single to that point.

That was hardly the end of the song’s long recorded history. Nearly a century has passed since the Lomax field recording, but The John B remains unsinkable. Hundreds of versions have been pressed in the 60 years since Pet Sounds expanded the sonic palette of popular music.

But we’ll leave you here, back in 1966, with a promotional video for the song upon its release.

Fun fact: The reason you don’t see Dennis Wilson in this video is because he’s the guy behind the camera.