Brad Elliott



Brad Elliott is a professional writer and editor, with a wide and varied list of publication credits. He has written and edited books, magazines, newspapers, music album liner notes and documentation for computer hardware and software. He has won several awards for his newspaper reporting on both state and national levels.

Brad is best known as one of the world’s leading authorities on the rock group, The Beach Boys. He is the author of Surf’s Up! The Beach Boys on Record 1961-1981, a 500-page reference discography on the group (click here for information), and has assisted with numerous compilations and reissues of the group’s music. He compiled and annotated the first archival compilation of rare and previously unreleased Beach Boys recordings, Beach Boys Rarities, in 1983.

More recently, he wrote the liner notes for these compact disc releases by The Beach Boys:

Endless Harmony Soundtrack (Capitol Records, 1998, re-released 2000)
Ultimate Christmas (Capitol Records, 1998)
Pet Sounds (mono/stereo reissue, Capitol Records, 1999)
Greatest Hits, Volume 1: 20 Good Vibrations (Capitol Records, 1999)
Greatest Hits, Volume 2: 20 More Good Vibrations (Capitol Records, 1999)
Greatest Hits, Volume 3: Best Of The Brother Years 1970-1986 (Capitol Records, 2000)
Surfin’ (Varese Sarabande Records, 2000)
Christmas With The Beach Boys (Capitol Records, 2004)

(Click on a highlighted title to view the liner notes for that album.)

Brad also selected the tracks and wrote the liner notes for Long Promised Road, a 1999 limited edition CD of Carl Wilson’s work both with the Beach Boys and solo, the sale of which benefited the American Cancer Society. (Click on the title to view the track lineup and liner notes for the album.)

Beyond his work with Capitol Records and the Beach Boys catalog, Brad has freelanced for several other music labels, including Chrysalis Records and Varese Sarabande, writing liner notes for artists as varied as The Babys and Michael Carpenter.

Brad also has served as a researcher or contributor to four video documentaries, The Beach Boys: An American Band (1983), Brian Wilson: A Beach Boy’s Tale (1999), Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story (2000) and Marvel: 75 Years, From Pulp To Pop (2014).


Contact Brad


This page was last updated June 5, 2023.