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Annette’s
Beach Party
(Buena Vista, released July 1963). The first Beach Party record is
actually one of the best that came from the series, given the
quality and variety of the material.
The
cover shows Annette roasting hot dogs with the gang on the beach at
dusk; back shows a classic picture of her with the famous
autographed surfboard (virtually identical to the picture on the
related single shown below).
Side one contains two actual soundtrack songs and three
“re-recordings” of music from the AIP film Beach Party, as
well as a new "surf/beach" piece written just for the LP. Standouts include the title cut as well as two excellent
Styner/Hemric ballads, “Treat Him
Nicely” and “Promise Me Anything,” both
beautifully performed by Annette.
Side
two starts off well with a cover of "California Sun," which
not only is up there in Annette's "career top ten" but also (for
whatever reason) had a minor comeback as a popular spin in
L.A. discos in the early 1980s. It also includes a few
entertaining Disneyesque surf numbers and two Sherman-authored
Hawaiian-themed songs from a prior Annette album
(“Hawaiianette,”
June 1960, BV-3303; my personal favorite of these being “Date
Night in Hawaii,” a wonderful snapshot of a kinder, gentler, and
now screamingly extinct adolescent mindset). 
Annette’s
Beach
Party
was originally released in mono (BV-3316) and stereo
(STER-3316). Rhino
Records also printed a vinyl stereo re-release (RNDF-204) in 1984,
and a Japanese company (Pony Canyon) printed a stereo CD re-release
in 1992 (PCCD-00069, shown to the left). Some posters on various Funicello-related
online bulletin boards have erroneously refrerred to this as a
"Buena Vista issued CD;" it is not, Disney simply licensed the
material to Pony Canyon for re-release, and since it was originally
copyrighted under the Buena Vista label, that name appears in the
footnotes on the CD.
There
is also an obscure, now out of print CD compilation (of
undetermined origin, I suspect also Japanese) of Annette material
that contained a complete copy of this LP, as well as a complete
copy of Annette
Sings Golden Surfin’ Hits,
a later “not-Beach-Party-material-but-closely-related-to-it” album
(which is discussed elsewhere in this
discography). The only reference I’ve seen
to that CD is a single picture on a particular Annette fan web site;
I’ve never seen one for listed for sale
anywhere.
Availability:
as one of the biggest Annette Beach Party sellers, this is actually
among the easiest to find, original copies come up on the web
auction sites quite often. As is the case with
all Annette albums, stereo versions are much less common than mono
ones, and in the case of
“Beach Party” are
only distinguishable on the outside by a bright pink “stereo”
sticker Buena Vista slapped on the upper right hand corner of the
cover. Why the
sticker? Since this was
the first Annette LP ever released in stereo, I suspect the sticker
was a shortcut, i.e. this record was rushed out, timed to appear
with the release of the movie, and in that interest Buena Vista
didn’t want to engage the delay involved in a separate print run
of “stereo” covers.
The Rhino re-release is difficult (but not impossible) to
find. As for the
Pony Canyon CD re-release, it was printed in very small numbers and
only distributed in Japan, so it is extremely difficult to find
(I've seen it at best only once or twice on eBay over the last
four years). As for that other mysterious compilation CD,
again, I’ve never seen one for sale.
One
additional note about the stereo version of the album:
interestingly, the two songs it contains from 1960’s
“Hawaianette”
are also in stereo, even though Hawaianette
was only released in mono.
This little detail may be of major interest to serious
Annette collectors, for it suggests the engineers Buena Vista
retained were mixing Annette recordings into the stereo format as
early as 1960 (years earlier than previously assumed) and that
Disney archives may still contain unreleased stereo master tapes of
some of her earlier, pre Beach Party era albums (ergo,
Annette,
Annette Sings Anka, Italianette, Dance
Annette, and The
Story of My Teens).
Related singles: four -- the most of
any of the films -- and an interesting group at that.
Note that only one is directly related to the LP above; the rest are
listed here because they all tie into the same
film. 
Buena
Vista F-427, Annette, "Treat Him
Nicely"/"Promise Me
Anything," mono, released with picture sleeve (left),
September
1963. Contains the two excellent ballads from the
movie/above LP. Given the classic sleeve (left)
and comparative rarity, this is known to go for $90+ in good
condition
Chancellor
1139, Frankie Avalon, "Beach
Party"/"Don't Stop Now,"
mono, no picture sleeve, released December 1963. Two songs
from the first film, the A side being the Avalon solo version of the
title number that ran during the closing credits in
Beach Party (which isn't as good as
Annette's LP cover, but is better than their duet version in the
film). The other side is the dance number Frankie did in the
first film, which per the review in the score area in this site
really isn't anything special. This single doesn't
show up very often in the market but also isn't in high demand,
so when it appears can be purchased for $20 or
so.
Capitol, 496(? - unknown last
digit), Dick Dale, "Secret Surfin' Spot"/"Surfin' And
Swingin'," mono, no known picture sleeve,
released late 1963 on "orange and yellow swirl" format label.
Dick's two numbers from Beach Party. During his early
60's reign as "king of the surf guitar," Dale released plenty
of LPs but few singles, and this is the only one known to contain
material from any of the Beach Party movies. I've
never seen it for sale anywhere, which suggests it didn't have a
very large print run. That lack of availabilty and the fame of
the artist would generally make this valuable, but I
have no reference for just how much so.
Vee-Jay 63-3404, Lu
Ann Simms, "Treat Him
Nicely"/"Promise Me
Anything," mono, not believed to have been released
with a picture sleeve, issued sometime in August or September of
1963. Probably the most mysterious single ever
produced in conjunction with a Beach Party movie. It was released
by Vee-Jay, which is famous among record collectors for both
being the first American label to issue Beatles recordings, as well
as having had a colorfully litigious relationship with several other
major artists (including the Four Seasons) that eventually put it
out of business in late 1965. This single was apparently
a stand alone, opportunistic replication of the similar
Annette single, released in an attempt to cash in on it and the
simultaneous popularity of the movie. Exactly why Simms -- who
had some success as a pop soloist in the mid and late 50s,
but who had faded in celebrity by 1963 -- came to record
these two particular songs is unclear (although I have a theory,
which is discussed on the How To Stuff A Wild Bikini Original
Soundtrack page. You will
also see there that two years
after Beach
Party, Simms actually did perform a
brief vocal -- in overdub format -- in How To Stuff
A Wild Bikini; the sixth film in the series).
The licensing of these numbers to Vee-Jay is also a mystery; the
firm had no known marketing relationships with AIP, Buena
Vista or Jubilee, Simms' prior label. I've never seen one of
these for sale anywhere. Simms material in general is
quite rare, hardly ever showing up in the vintage record market, so
I can't even guess at the value of this
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