The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After7
CHANTAYS
“PIPELINE”
(Bob Spickard, Brian Carman)
Dot 16440
No. 4 May 4, 1963
.
.
.
With only eight months of musical experience, Bob Spickard and Brian Carman created “Pipeline,” possibly
the best surfing song ever, and one of only two surfing instrumentals to ever reach Billboard’s Top 10.
.
Spickard (lead guitar) and Warren Waters (bass) were high school buddies. In the summer of 1961, they
decided to learn how to play some instruments and become a surfin’ band. In short order, fellow Santa Ana
High School students Brian Carman (guitar), Bob Marshall (piano), and Bob Welch (drums) were enlisted.
.
“Pipeline” started out as a tough little dual-guitar idea that Spickard and Carman originally called “Liberty’s
Whip” and later “44 Magnum.” But after seeing a surf flick about the notorious Hawaiian Pipeline, they
named their tune “Pipeline.” While playing a dance at the Big Bear, the Chantays were discovered by DJ
Jack Sands, who offered to be their manager and get them a recording contract.
.
A few sides were cut at the Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga, and Sands hawked the sounds around to the
L.A. labels. No one nibbled except Bill and Jack Wenzel’s Downey Record Company. The dinky label was
buzzing with the mild surfin’ success of the Rumblers’ “Boss,” and the Wenzels hoped that in securing the
Chantays, they might continue their winning streak.
.
Within weeks of its release, “Pipeline” was a national hit and, as with the Rumblers disks, Dot Records
stepped in to provide national distribution. An album was churned out, potential singles were cut and
canned, but trouble was brewing. Promotion and touring by the group was limited, since the members were
all full-time high school students. The guys fired Sands on the grounds that he was skimming too much off
the top of the Chantays’ earnings. Follow-up singles were issued–“Monsoon,” “Space Probe,” “Only If You
Care”–but nothing charted or even appeared on Billboard’s “Bubbling Under the Hot 100” chart. After a
three-month tour of Hawaii in the summer of 1964, the Chantays called it quits.
.
Bob Spickard joined his father-in-law’s industrial equipment business. When last spotted [a couple of
decades back], he was the president of the L & A Products Company. Brian Carman was last seen working
at a musical instrument store in Anaheim, California. Bob Welch was working in a clothing store in Los
Angeles. Spickard, Carman, and Welch continued to perform together on occasion as the Catalina Good
Time Band. Rob Marshall played on part time in a C & W band and went on to become a school teacher in
the Chico area of California. Warren Waters worked it, reportedly, as a successful real estate broker.
.