The Beach Boys moved to Fairfield in 1977 to record an album and practice Transcendental Meditation
A 1977 Warner Brothers/Reprise Records promotional photograph of The Beach Boys.
By Kyle Martin
Why would the Beach Boys, one of rock ’n’ roll’s most popular and influential bands known for its hit songs about sun and surf like “Surfin’ Safari,” “Surfer Girl” and “The Warmth of the Sun,” come to Maharishi International University (MIU) in Fairfield in the fall of 1977 to record their 22nd studio album — the “M.I.U. Album” — when it was on the verge of breaking up?
Al Jardine, singer (“Help Me, Rhonda”), songwriter, guitarist-bassist and co-founder of the Beach Boys, said the answer was simple as the band had disagreements about their musical direction after the release of “The Beach Boys Love You” earlier that year and their leader, Brian Wilson, was struggling with his drug addiction and mental illness.
“We decided to record the album in Fairfield to get Brian’s creative juices flowing again and it worked,” said Jardine, who co-produced the album. “The whole ‘M.I.U. Album’ was really about getting Brian back in the studio and we had to fly in all the equipment and build the studio at MIU. It was all about getting Brian to be musically constructive again and I think we succeeded.”
Ron Altbach, the album’s other co-producer, said, “Mike (Love), saxophonist Charles Lloyd and I came back from six months in Europe in July 1977, having spent those months on a deep meditation course in the Alps with Maharishi. Mike had the idea that the whole group should clean up and the best way to do that would be at MIU in Iowa. We sent Chris Roberts and Frank Hutchinson out there to build a studio in one of the uninhabited residence pods. That was July-August. We all went there in September.”
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