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The Beach Boys in their Pendletons

Fifty years ago, The Beach Boys, then called the "Pendletones," made the Pendleton plaid shirt their wardrobe of choice and created a fashion trend among America's youth. Wearing the wool shirts as jackets over tee shirts and jeans became the band's signature look and appeared on many album covers throughout the 1960s. Today, Pendleton's wool plaid shirts are more popular than ever and are once again gracing a Beach Boys album cover for the band's new "retro" CD recently released by Capitol Records.

A letter from one of our customers:

Hello

I read with interest the copy (on your site) and thought you might want to read a little more Pendleton trivia from the Southern California of the 60s.

I grew up in the Inland Empire -- San Bernardino County. Some of my contemporaries made it pretty big in the music industry. Maybe not as big as the Beach Boys, but big nonetheless. Jimmy Webb (who wrote "Up, Up and Away", "Wichita Lineman" and "MacArthur Park" among other hits, was from Colton, my hometown. Jim Messina, of Loggins and Messina, who also played with Poco and Buffalo Springfield, got his start in Colton in a band called The Pendletons. His bandmates in that group included Dave Archuleta on sax, the Wagner twins on rhythm guitar, a man with the surname Rose on bass, and Walker brothers on piano and drums. They all wore Pendleton shirts.

Messina later formed Jim Messina and The Jesters, and adopted black blazers, foregoing the Pendletons.

I wanted a Pendleton shirt in the worst way, and finally got one. It was too small, but it was used, and the best my parents could do, so I wore it proudly.

The "uniform" back in those days of surfing music was white Levis, black low-cut Converse tennies, and, of course, a Pendleton shirt. In case someone might forget, a local hit had heavy rotation on the local radio stations, KFXM and KMEN -- "White Levis"

"My boyfriend's always wearing
White Levis,
Everywhere he goes he's wearing
White Levis
I'll bet he goes to bed in his
White Levis
And his tennis shoes
And his surfin' hat
And is big plaid Pendleton shirt".

You see, it was de rigeur to wear a Pendleton several sizes too large. That was an unachievable reality for me at 6'7" and 235 lb in my sophomore year of high school.

I did play in a surfer band, though, and we alternated weekends with Messina at the Colton CYO.

Them was the days.

J. Carroll