In the over half-century since The Beach Boys’ maiden single “Surfin,’ ’’ their saga has been celebrated in an endless stream of movies, books and even the historic crossover ballet “Little Deuce Coupe” by the Joffrey Ballet Company. But it was two events in Pomona – an early hotbed of Beach Boys enthusiasm – that marked the beginning and the end of the original “America’s band.”

Just weeks after the band’s ill-received guest performance at the famed Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, The Beach Boys followed a series of benefit appearances with their first professional club performance. The two-night stand was at Pomona’s Rainbow Gardens nightclub located at 150 E. Monterey Ave.

Rainbow Gardens Before it burned down in 1965, the Rainbow Gardens was a popular nightclub featuring some of the biggest names of the big band era in the 1940s. In the 1950s, it transitioned to rock ’n’ roll, according to songwriter/producer Mark Guerrero, who performed there with his band in early 1964. Guerrero recalled the venue as one of the “quintessential and classic places for Latin music, R&B and Chicano eastside sound bands.”

On Feb. 16, 1962, the Beach Boys kicked off a two-night performance sharing the stage with The Mixtures - so named because they were a racially mixed band (a rarity for its time) and proponents of the “eastside sound,” which was a heavily Latin-flavored mix of R&B and rock favored by bands in eastern Los Angeles County. The Mixtures became the house band for the club and celebrated it with one of their only hit records, “Stompin’ at the Rainbow.”

Turning point According to Beach Boys historian and author Jon Stebbins, the band’s performance (for which they were paid $150) didn’t exactly resonate with the primarily Latino fans of The Mixtures, but the Rainbow Gardens marked a key turning point in the band’s lineup and future.

Singer/guitarist Al Jardine departed the band the week before, and The Beach Boys were forced to quickly replace him. After their Rainbow performance, they recruited neighbor David Marks to fill in for Jardine.

Marks was already familiar with the band’s material, having forged a musical partnership with Carl Wilson. The two had both studied with The Walker Brothers’ guitarist John Maus and focused on the decidedly harder rock guitar stylings of Chuck Berry, Duane Eddy and Dick Dale.

With Marks on board, The Beach Boys moved toward a tougher rock ’n’ roll stage presence with a greater emphasis on guitars than vocals – lending them some much needed credence as a surf band.

And 21 years later and less than 3 miles away, a performance at the Los Angeles County Fair at Pomona’s Fairplex marked the end of the original performing Beach Boys on Sept. 26, 1983.

Drummer Dennis Wilson gave his final performance as a Beach Boy and was forbidden by the band to join them onstage the next night because of his drug and alcohol addictions. He was dead four months later.