ame has no boundaries when two superstars from widely different backgrounds become friends.

The year was 1963. The venue was the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The event featured several rock stars including the Ronettes, Chuck Berry, Stevie Wonder, the Righteous Brothers and the Beach Boys, a surfer singing band that would go on to sell over 100 million records in the next 50 years.

In the audience that day was a brash, young, relatively unknown heavyweight boxer named Cassius Clay, who one year later would change his name to Muhammad Ali. This young man from Louisville, Kentucky, went on to become arguably the greatest boxer of all time. That day in San Francisco, Clay was invited backstage after the concert to meet the Beach Boys and thus began his friendship with Mike Love, lead singer and co-founder of the group.

Memories of Muhammad

Recently, Love visited Ali’s former training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, on the day before the Beach Boys were to perform in Wilkes-Barre. After a tour of the refurbished site - now known as Fighter’s Heaven - he sat down to talk about his relationship with the great fighter.

“In 1988, our band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame along with the Beatles and Bob Dylan in New York,” said Love. “Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Al Jardine and I were there to accept our awards. Near the end of my induction speech, I pointed into the audience to recognize Muhammad Ali, who had come to New York to be there for us. I said, ‘As-Salam-u- Alaikum,’ to him, which is a way to say hello in Muslim that also means, ‘Peace be with you’ and he returned the greeting.

“After the ceremony, Muhammad stayed in New York with us. We went out to dinner and he was the great entertainer as you might expect, doing his magic tricks for the kids in the restaurant. He was always the best at being a self-promoter.”

Although Love never attended Ali’s fights in person, he followed the boxer’s career and life right to the end. When asked about Ali’s refusal to be inducted in the military as a conscientious objector to war, Love said that he admired his friend’s conviction to be an advocate for peace in the world.

“Some people questioned why he wouldn’t fight in Vietnam, but at the same time he was using his fists to beat up people in the ring,” said Love. “Boxing is a sport just like football or hockey. It’s competition, but the intent is never to kill anyone like it is in war. He was a peaceful man outside the ring. He did a lot of charity work. He would visit hospitals to lift the spirits of the sick.”

A half century of harmony

“Ali was an ambassador for goodwill and he made a lot of people happy,” Love explained. “I think that’s why he liked our music. We sing fun songs that make people smile and we were popular just like him outside the borders of this country, During the rise of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in England, our ‘Good Vibrations’ became the number one song on the charts in the U.K.”

While Ali drew the attention of millions of boxing fans, the Beach Boys did the same with music fans. His fights were seen by millions of people in person and by those who watched him win the heavyweight championship three times on closed circuit and live network television. The Beach Boys have played outdoor concerts before crowds numbering nearly 900,000 as well as in smaller indoor venues that Love prefers due to the much better acoustics such as those inside Penn’s Peak where the band performed their classic hits in 2017.

The subject of race has been front and center with both Ali and the Beach Boys. At one time, the champ was asked to become a member of a separatist Muslim group, and according to Love, Ali never supported the separation of blacks and whites and that he spent his free time with people of all races and faiths.

“Ali’s life transcended race,” said Love. “He was kind to everyone. Color didn’t matter. The same can be said for the Beach Boys. We were heavily influenced by the music of Motown, a Detroit based record company that featured black singers and groups. “We got similar radio air play as did the Temptations. It’s all about the harmony and not about the race. And if you think of the word, harmony, it’s not just about singing, it’s about people living together in peace.”

Love pointed to a placard on the wall in Ali’s boxing ring cabin at Deer Lake with a quote from the fighter. “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”

The challenge of change

Love, who currently lives in Lake Tahoe, Nevada with Jacquelyne Piesen, his wife since 1994, spoke about the decade of the ’60s and how the Beach Boys’ music was a “bubble of our own sound” that featured the progression of their song writing with their “Pet Sounds” album and with their big hit, “Good Vibrations.”

“We had evolved musically and lyrically from singing beach and surfer songs with Pet Sounds even though we never once considered dropping our early music that built our reputation - songs that people still love to hear us play today.”

When asked which song was his favorite from the 29 studio albums, 11 live albums, 61 compilation albums and the 75 singles recorded by the Beach Boys, Love replied, “I can’t say I have one favorite. I loved recording them all and I love performing them all.”

The greatest visits the greatest

Also at Fighter’s Heaven the day Love visited was Ali’s best friend Gene Kilroy, who originally developed the training facility for the fighter in 1972. Kilroy grew up in Mahanoy City, a town where “you could let the dog outside with no leash and it would always come back home.” Kilroy told the tale about the day he took Ali on a ride to visit Jim Thorpe’s tomb on Route 903.

“Ali was in awe of the mountains that you could see around the town and also at the tomb of Jim Thorpe,” said Kilroy, referring to the man who the King of Sweden once called “The greatest athlete in the world.”

“A man walking by saw Ali in the car and came over to say hello. Ali told the man how thrilled he was to visit the site, but the man said, ‘Yeah, the town paid $10,000 and all we got was a dead Indian.’ That remark hurt Ali’s feelings,” said Kilroy. “He said to me while he was looking at the monument, ‘The poor man can’t even rest in peace.’?”

The road ahead

Kilroy called Ali “the most recognizable man on earth” who inspired a lot of people to do great things that have continued long after the champ’s death in 2016.

Kilroy recalled some advice he gave to Ali when his career was beginning to take off.

“Never look in the rearview mirror,” Kilroy said. “Always keep your eyes on the road ahead.”

They were words that Ali lived by throughout his glorious career.

Keeping their eyes on the road ahead also helped Love and the Beach Boys maintain their fame and staying power throughout the last half century.

It is also something they continue to do to this day.

Love and his band have an itinerary of performing future concerts in Norway, Sweden, Belgium, England and France, among other stops on their European venture.

“We’ll be performing along with the Temptations in what we’re calling the Surf and Soul tour,” Love said.

The road for Love has been long ever since the original Beach Boys band began singing “Surfin’ USA” in 1963. During his travels and encounters with countless numbers of celebrities and fans, only a few have left a lasting impression with him and none greater than Muhammad Ali - the man who was known as “The Greatest.”

It’s a title Love definitely doesn’t dispute.