The Beach Boys and the Grateful Dead are my favourite American rock groups. They may be very different but both are strong on guitars and harmony and both came out of the West Coast. This is my favourite Beach Boys song, Sloop John B, performed at a concert in England in 1980, long after their glory days in the early 1960s when they were the most successful American band with their "California sound". A very different California sound from that of the Eagles, whom I don’t dig at all. The lyrics of the Beach Boys’ early songs may be inconsequential, but the harmony is heavenly. Brian Wilson is a genius.