As a child growing up in the salubrious suburbs of Southern California, it was only through the television set that I began to suspect there might be other worlds far removed from the one I knew. Big city dramas like Call Northside 777, While the City Sleeps, and Knock on Any Door, provided, what I considered to be, terrifying glimpses of claustrophobic, chaotic, concrete jungles of shadow, darkness, and dread. The visions were disturbing, but hey, it was fiction—right? Certainly, those grainy black and white images could hardly be considered conclusive evidence of the existence of an alternate universe. Such youthfully ignorant reasoning allowed me to maintain a comfortable state of denial until the day I was dropped off at the Helix Theater for the Saturday matinee showing of West Side Story. Believe me, nothing makes an impact on a kid like wide-screen and Technicolor. In a matter of minutes, my vague fears were confirmed—we Southlanders were not alone! I left the theater that day nearly bursting with a renewed appreciation for my homeland and a promise to myself never to stray beyond its borders.
Looking back, it’s easy to see how a kid who had not done much traveling could develop such a mistaken impression. So many years after Southern California was first described as “an island on land,” and “a country within a country,” the characterizations were still valid. The Southland bore scant resemblance to anywhere else in the continental US. Through the 1950s and on into the mid-60s, Southern California was the most celebrated section of real estate in the nation. Even now, when most people hear the words, Southern California, they envision a tropically tinged land of breathtaking beaches, sunny blue skies, and wistfully recall all the delightful and exotic folk arts and practices that were unique to the southwestern coastal region of the United States in the middle of the 20th century. Though the period was so short it could practically be measured in dog years, it was during those years that the region achieved its most extravagant forms of aesthetic expression, and for that reason, the era remains fixed in the collective memory.
A truly remarkable achievement when you consider what a terribly long and arduous struggle it was to reach that pinnacle of pop progress. The first Europeans to land upon the shores of Southern California were not at all impressed. Spain’s conquistadors came expecting to find a terrestrial paradise, and instead, found a dried-up desert that, 300 years later, was still judged to be “so utterly desolate, deserted, and godforsaken that a wolf could not make his living on it.” Thoroughly dejected, they cancelled their colonization plans and stomped off swearing never to return.
But despite the area’s shortcomings, they eventually did return. Southern California’s beguiling atmospherics and strategic location on the mid-eastern quadrant of the Pacific Rim made it inevitable that this most inaccessible and isolated region of north America would not only be colonized, but completely transformed into a tropicalized, and fervently romanticized American Riviera. However, the process would not be easy. It would take all of three nations, a missionary movement, four wars, a gold rush, a transcontinental crossing, a gaggle of mythologizers, two railroads, legions of tourists, an army of hoteliers and chambers of commerce, and a thousand dissimilar individuals of far-flung imagination and fixed purpose over 400 years to turn that arid desert into mid-20th century America’s most preeminent province.
Many unique elements would go into the making of this frothy, mid-century, pop-cultural soufflé, but the most essential of all was simply the accident of geography and atmospheric conditions that produced the picturesque shorelines, the wide-open spaces, and the mesmerizingly mild, sunny, semi-arid climate that naturally elevated the human spirit and kindled the kind of capricious creativity that culminated with the transformation of a seaside desert into the man-made, tropical oasis that once served as the universal symbol for the art of good living.
At the crest of its ascension, it was bankrolled by a cold-war defense and aerospace industry, by a Hollywood fantasy factory, by persistent waves of tourists, and by a host of merchandisers all struggling to keep pace with an insatiable consumer demand set free by high wages and the installment plan. Within this cloistered coastal realm, the pursuit of happiness became inextricably linked with the promise of a future thought to be soaring into a brilliant new world of progress and plenty. Intoxicated by an overpowering sense of optimism, and energized by ambient solar power, Southern Californians created a dazzling world all their own.
Here, home builders replicated the severe architectural styles of Europe, added a touch of tiki, and a pinch of googie, and so perfectly blended modernism into the landscape that it appeared to grow wild as the poppy. Here, teenagers transformed old, worn out heaps into snarling, window rattling, 400-horse power chromed and candy-appled road rockets, and grown-ups toured about in luxurious factory jobs modeled after the latest space-age motifs. It was here that Hawaiian surf riders introduced the mainlanders to the island life, and it was also here that strange rhythms and exotic melodies would seep into the sub-conscious through the Stereo-Activated, Dyna-Grooved vibrations of a million rumpus room woofers and tweeters, and transistorized young primitives, awash in waves of twangy reverb and four-part harmony, celebrated the beach beautiful.
Shoring up this truly intoxicating cultural blend was the community brain trust assembled from the best and the brightest from everywhere else on earth, drawn to the Southland with the promise of good jobs, good schools, livable cities, and opportunities to enjoy the expanding leisure hours of the mid-20th century that could not be matched anywhere else. All these disparate forces converged at one time in one place and forever altered the lives of everyone who dwelled within their sphere. It was a golden era that has continued to define the image of Southern California long after its passing.
In this book, we will trace the period’s development from the earliest flicker to the final fade. What you have before you is a valentine from a loving expatriate born of an affection that can only be achieved through prolonged absence. Yes, unfortunately I was not able to keep my childhood vow of immobility; instead, as a part of my ceaseless effort to make those wondrous Southern California summers last a lifetime, I have created this modest remembrance – California Pop. I hope you enjoy it.
Dorian MacDougall