SALT LAKE CITY — The music of the Beach Boys is timeless, but in their early years, the band that defined the California surf sound actually spent a lot of time in Utah.
The group's first performance outside of California was at Lagoon. They also took part in a photo shoot here on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and even wrote a song about Salt Lake City.
But Shirley England may have Utah's most unique connection to the Beach Boys. After all, she's the girl who had fun, fun, fun until her daddy took the T-bird away.
"I would always be coming into the station in the T-Bird, and the Beach Boys would always see me coming into the station in the T-bird," she told FOX 13 News in 2012.
England's father owned a rock and roll radio station.
"It was called KNAK, and it was very popular in the 50s and 60s," she remembered.
Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys co-founder, dies at age 82:
During those years, Shirley, who still lives in the Salt Lake area, enjoyed the perks of being the station owner's daughter, such as access to her favorite band, The Beach Boys.
"I would go and plop myself down in the window and listen to the whole interview," Shirley recalled, "and just was right there with them."
As Shirley listened, little did she know they we're listening to her.
"I do remember a time when I came down to the station and I'd been grounded from the T-bird and the talk was that I had the car taken away from me," she shared.
Shirley had told her dad that she was going to the library, and she did, but then she went to some other places.
"Get some hamburgers and just cruise around and have fun, and got in trouble a couple of times!"
When the radio station's general manager, Bill Hesterman, was taking the Beach Boys to the Salt Lake City airport, they actually wrote the song "Fun, Fun, Fun" in the back of the car during the trip.
Decades later, Shirley still gets a kick when she hears the massive hit on the radio.
"All my grandkids think I'm famous!" she said back in 2012.
These days, that T-bird is long gone, but Shirley's story will live on forever in song.
"I've told my husband that when I pass on, I want it to say on my headstone she had fun, fun, fun, because I did!"
