#18: Beach Party by Frankie Avalon

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: January 1964
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #2
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Beach Party”
Lyrics: N/A

Francis Thomas Avallone was born in Philadelphia in 1940. When he was 12-years-old, he appeared in a Christmas episode on The Jackie Gleason Show, playing trumpet in a Honeymooners sketch. RCA signed Frankie Avalon to the label and in 1954 released the trumpet solo he performed in the December 1952 Honeymooners sketch. “Trumpet Sorrento” climbed to #42 on the Cashbox Best Selling Singles chart in March 1954. Avalon also appeared on The Perry Como Show where he played trumpet. With Bobby Rydell, Avalon was in a doo-wop group called Rocco and the Saints. They were backing vocalists for his debut single in 1957, “Cupid”, written by Peter DeAngelis. He appeared in the 1957 rock and roll film Jamboree and performed “Teacher’s Pet” (also written by DeAngelis, and different from “Teacher’s Pet” recorded by Doris Day in 1958). In the film Jamboree, Frankie Avalon got to meet other pop stars in the cast including Fats Domino, Connie Francis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Bowen, Buddy Knox, Charlie Gracie, and jazz singer Joe Williams.

Late in 1957, Peter DeAngelis penned a song that gave Frankie Avalon international exposure: “De De Dinah”. In the lyrics Avalon sang “my Dinah is-a-mine-ah.” The single climbed to #7 on the Billboard pop chart in February 1958. Later that year DeAngelis arranged Frankie Avalon’s second Top Ten hit “Gingerbread”. In these lyrics he repeated the word “gingerbread” eight times, followed by the refrain: “You’re full of sugar, you’re full of spice. You’re kinda naughty, but you’re naughty and nice.” A third release in ’58, “I’ll Wait For You” became his third of three single released that appeared on the Billboard 1958 Year-End Top 100 Songs list.

In 1959 Avalon entered the zenith of his ascendancy as a pop teen idol. “Venus” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks in March and April, landing at the #3 spot for top hits for the year 1959. He also had other singles on the Billboard Year-End Top 100 for 1959: “Just Ask Your Heart”, “Bobby Socks to Stockings” and “A Boy Without A Girl”. 1959 ended with Frankie Avalon topping the Hot 100 with “Why” on December 28th.

In February 1960, teen fans headed to the movies to see Frankie Avalon in a starring role in the logging versus environmentalist film Guns of the Timberland. Though he sang two songs in the film that were subsequently released as singles – “The Faithful Kind” and “Gee Whiz Whillikins Golly Gee” – both were commercial flops. In the summer Avalon provided vocals for an animated film titled Alakazam the Great. In the fall of 1960, Avalon starred along with John Wayne in The Alamo. In 1961 Frankie Avalon returned to the big screen in the science fiction film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He co-starred with Peter Lore, Walter Pidgeon, Joan Fontaine and Barbara Eden. Building on the nautical theme, Frankie Avalon also appeared in late 1961 in Sail a Crooked Ship alongside Robert Wagner and Frank Gorshin (who later played the Riddler in the 1966 Batman film and TV show).

Meanwhile, after “Why” topped the charts, Frankie Avalon struggled to get another hit single. He released over a dozen singles between 1960 and late 1961 with minimal success. Of these only three made the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. In Vancouver (BC) Avalon broke out of the bottom of the chart with his recording of “Ponchinello”.

Frankie Avalon continued his slide away from the pop music spotlight. In the years that followed his twenty single releases, with the exception of a 1976 disco version of “Venus”, failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100.

In the summer of 1962, Avalon was back in the movie theaters with another science fiction thriller about the end of the world: Panic in Year Zero! A mushroom cloud appears over Los Angeles, and people are dying of radiation sickness. At the height of the cold war, the movie played to people’s real fears.

In 1963 Frankie Avalon appeared in a number of films including The Castilian, and Drums of Africa. In addition he appeared in a World War II film about military maneuvers off a coral reef in the Marshall Islands called the Bikini Atoll. The film was titled Operation Bikini. Though it had nothing to do with women wearing bikini’s at the beach, some of the cast subsequently appeared with Frankie Avalon in a series of beach-themed movies. The first of these was Beach Party.

Frankie Avalon with co-star of his beach-themed movies, Annette Funicello

“Beach Party” was cowritten by Gary Usher and Roger Christian. Gary Usher was born in Los Angeles in 1938. In 1962, the Beach Boys released the singles Usher wrote titled “”409”, “Ten Little Indians”, and “In My Room“. The latter reached #23 in November 1963. He wrote “Don’t Give In To Him”, a #15 hit for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap in 1969. As well, Gary Usher wrote songs recorded by Wayne Newton, Sagittarius, and Bobby Sherman. Gary Usher died at the age of 51 in 1990 of lung cancer.

Roger Christian was born in 1934 in Buffalo. He began racing cars in the mid-50s. He began working as a DJ at a radio station in Buffalo, New York, in the mid-50s. He moved to KFXM in San Bernardino in 1959. When Murry Wilson, the father of three of the Beach Boys, heard Christian discuss the song “409” on his radio show he was impressed. Murry Wilson knew that Roger Christian knew a lot about race cars and cars. This resulted in the collaboration between Murry Wilson and Christian to pen “Shut Down”, “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Don’t Worry Baby“. Roger Christian also wrote songs for Jan & Dean, including “Dead Man’s Curve”, “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena”, “Honolulu Lulu” and “Drag City”. At the age of 57, Christian died of complications from kidney and liver failure in 1991.

“Beach Party” is a song about a guy telling how he gets up early in the morning, and drives to the beach where there’s waves big enough to surf. Once they get to the beach, he’ll wax his board, surf all day and be “swinging all night.” He prefers to wax his surf board to looking at the chalk board in school. Frankie Avalon declares now that they’re out of school: “Vacation is here! Beach party tonight.”

“Beach Party” climbed to #1 in Miami, #2 in Fresno (CA), Regina (SK) and Saskatoon (SK).

“Beach Party” might have climbed higher the first week of February 1964 in Saskatoon. However, there was a song that debuted the week of January 26th at number sixteen titled “I Want To Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles. Teens in Saskatoon, along with Canadian and American teenagers, saw The Beatles perform three times on The Ed Sullivan Show: February 9, 16 and 23rd. (They returned to The Ed Sullivan Show on May 24, 1964, September 12, 1965, and March 1, 1970).

It may be that teens in both Regina and Saskatoon, where “Beach Party” reached number-two, were dreaming about surfing. In the Canadian prairies, you had to get to some exotic place like the Pacific Ocean in California or Hawaii, to go surfing. It was a fantasy for most Saskatchewan teens who spent their winters in curling and hockey rinks (and no doubt enjoyed these winter sports too).

Avalon starred in more beach-themed movies through the sixties. These were Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff A Wild Bikini. All of these featured romantic plots with co-star Annette Funicello. A spy-themed film later in 1965 built on the beach-related theme in its title: Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. Avalon appeared in over a half dozen more films between 1965 and 1969. With nearly 25 films under his belt at the end of the Sixties, Frankie Avalon was identified as much as an actor as a pop singer.

In 1978 Avalon appeared as a teen angel singing “Beauty School Dropout” in the film Grease. In the summer of 1985, Frankie Avalon began a 50-city tour with Bobby Rydell and Fabian as “The Golden Boys of Bandstand.” During Vancouver’s Expo ’86, Frankie Avalon appeared on stage at the Expo Theatre on June 15th. In 1987 he appeared with Annette Funicello in a parody of the 1960s Beach-themed movies titled Back to The Beach.  Over the years Avalon has appeared in nearly forty films. His most recent being Papa in 2018 alongside Darryl Hannah, Ann-Margaret, Paul Sorvino and male model on The Price Is Right, Robert Scott Wilson.

When not in the recording studio or in movie production, for many decades Frankie Avalon has spent about six months a year performing in night clubs in the USA. Most recently, he performed in six concerts between March and May 2026 at venues in suburban Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Lancaster (PA).

June 22, 2026
Ray McGinnis

References:
“Frankie Avalon Biography,” Frankie Avalon.com.
Michael Jack Kirby, “Frankie Avalon,” Wayback Attack.com.
Richard Ouzounian, “Frankie Avalon on Beach Parties, the Simplicity of the Past, and Annette Funicello: The Big Interview,” Toronto Star, August 21, 2013.
“Gary Usher; Co-Writer of Beach Boys Hits,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1990.
“Roger Christian: Disc Jockey, Songwriter,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1991.
“Frankie Avalon concert dates,” Frankieavalontour.com.

Fabulous Fifty – CKOM 1250-AM Saskatoon (SK) | January 26, 1964