The Beach Boys have often been called “America’s Band”, and Allmusic has stated that “the band’s unerring ability made them America’s first, best rock band.” The group has had 36 United States Top 40 hits (the most by an American rock band) and 56 Hot 100 hits, including four number-one singles. Rolling Stone magazine listed The Beach Boys at number 12 on their 2004 list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. The core quintet of the three Wilsons, Love and Jardine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
The 1980’s and 90’s found The Beach Boys performing at milestone events including: the Live Aid Concert, Farm Aid concerts, the Statue of Liberty’s 100th Anniversary Salute and the Super Bowl. In 1980, they played to over 500,000 people in the first of four Independence Day concerts on the Washington Monument Grounds. On July 4, 1985 The Beach Boys played to an afternoon crowd of an estimated one million in Philadelphia and that evening they performed for over 750,000 people on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Former U.S. Secretary of Interior James Watt’s efforts to ban The Beach Boys from the Washington Monument Grounds in 1983 created an international furor that VH-1 has termed one of the most important moments in rock.