Remembering Brian Wilson
As a boy from the Bronx who seldom swam in an ocean, let alone surfed in (on?) it, I now find myself living more than half the year in Cardiff-By-the-Sea, California, a surfing town in North San Diego County. Cardiff and Encinitas, its next-door-neighbor, are surfing meccas, with sites like Swami’s Beach (which got a shout-out in “The Big Lebowski”) and South Cardiff Beach drawing surfers from all over California.
Shortly after moving there about a decade ago, my California/Pacific Ocean-loving wife Karen insisted that we go to a local “board swap” event to get a feel for local culture. I discovered, as one might have expected, dozens of surfers swapping and selling their boards with other surfers as they eagerly and vividly discussed the latest waves. My presence was totally useless to all involved.
I thought of this fish out of water story when I heard this week about the death of Brian Wilson, the leader and creative spark of the Beach Boys, at the age of 82. Led by Brian, who played bass along with writing and producing most of the band’s songs and contributing his ethereal voice to their music, the band consisted of Brian’s two younger brothers, drummer Dennis and guitarist Carl, along with guitarist Al Jardine (a friend from high school) and singer Mike Love (a cousin).
From 1962-1966, Brian and his band brought out one hit after another, happy and upbeat rock ‘n roll about surfing, hot cars and girls buoyed by the Boys’ multi-part harmonies on songs like “Surfin’ Safari,” “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Surfer Girl,” “Fun Fun Fun” and “I Get Around.“ Like many ‘60s rockers, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Brian’s songs drew a lot from Chuck Berry’s fast and snappy sound—so much so that the songwriting credit for “Surfin’ USA,” which closely resembled Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” eventually added Berry’s name as a co-writer.
I have to admit that the poppy, preppy and clean-cut persona of the early Beach Boys and their songs about surf and cars didn’t hold much appeal to me; the topical and socially conscious folk singers of the early-to-mid-‘60s, the British Invasion bands and Chicago blues artists were far more affecting and meaningful. (Ironically, Brian once admitted that he didn’t like to surf—The New York Times’ obit quoted him saying, “I tried it once and got conked on the head.”)
But even from the beginning of the Beach Boys’ career, one could hear something almost magical in the melodies and harmonies Brian was creating on songs like “In My Room,” “Please Let Me Wonder” and “Don’t Worry Baby.”
By 1964, Brian, who suffered from a fear of flying, had stopped touring with the band and was devoting his attention to songwriting and creating new sounds in the recording studio. And by 1965 and ’66, he was bringing to the band the best music he would ever create.
Two hits from 1965’s “Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)” album, “Help Me Rhonda” and “California Girls,” were especially catchy and irresistible pop rock confections which still make me happy whenever I hear them.
“Pet Sounds,” released in May ’66, showcased even more exquisite and voluminous harmonies along with more mature lyrics (some co-written by Tony Asher), and the addition of strings and horns. Much of the album was recorded by Brian using studio musicians who often worked with producer Phil Spector, while the rest of the Beach Boys were on tour.
According to many reports, the other Beach Boys’ main contributions were their vocals. “Pet Sounds” included some of Brian’s finest songs, including “God Only Knows” (a tough one for an atheist like me), “Caroline, No” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
The album had a mixed reception from fans, fellow musicians and the music press, although many compared it favorably to the best of the Beatles. But it grew in stature over the years. In 2003, “Rolling Stone” magazine named “Pet Sounds” the No. 2 best rock album of all time, a status it has maintained in subsequent ratings.
These songs set the table for Brian’s masterpiece, “Good Vibrations,” released as a single later in 1966. The song’s New Agey lyrics blended rock and Baroque sounds and were sung on top of a haunting melody, cellos, a church organ, a theremin (an early electronic instrument) and adventurous collages of sounds. The song reached the top of the charts and had a profound influence on other rock bands.
The story of Brian and the Beach Boys’ influence on the Beatles has been told often. Paul McCartney said that Brian’s work pushed the Beatles to continue their own musical experiments in recording studios. One can see a friendly competition between the two bands, with the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” leading to “Pet Sounds,” the Beatles responding with “Revolver” in 1966, and then “Good Vibrations” leading to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 1967. Years later, in 2000, McCartney inducted Brian into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In late 1966 Brian started working, along with fellow Southern California musician Van Dyke Parks, on an album to be titled “Smile.” Brian described his new album as “a teenage symphony to God.” But after months in various recording studios, the album remained unfinished. The other members of the Beach Boys were reportedly upset with the direction Brian was taking with his new music, which was far more complex than their early hits.
Although particular songs from these sessions were re-recorded with simpler arrangements and instruments and placed on an album entitled “Smiley Smile”—including “Heroes and Villains,” a song about the history of the American West—most of the tracks were never released to the public until nearly 40 years later. “Smiley Smile” received mixed reviews from rock critics and turned out to be the worst-selling Beach Boys album since their initial recordings.
Although Brian continued to write songs and work on Beach Boys albums (including “Wild Honey,” “Friends,” “20/20,” “Sunflower,” and “Surf’s Up”) in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, as well as solo releases in the 1990s (including “Brian Wilson” and “I Wasn’t Made For These Times”), he failed to come close to his earlier success.
Like Sly Stone (aka Sylvester Stewart), the pathbreaking Northern California founder and leader of Sly & the Family Stone who also died this week, Brian’s career and life took a heartbreaking turn due to drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness and legal difficulties.
He continued to record, interspersed with long periods of isolation, seclusion and estrangement from his family. He had a complicated and ultimately destructive relationship with a therapist named Eugene Landy before a new love, Melinda Ledbetter, helped him break free from Landy’s rigid control. This part of Brian’s life was told in the 2014 move “Love and Mercy,” starring Paul Dano and John Cusack as Brian at various ages.
In 2004, he released a solo album, “Gettin’ In Over My Head,” which for the most part consisted of previously unreleased songs from the ‘90s, but also included collaborations with McCartney, Elton John and Eric Clapton. And he surprised many fans and critics by beginning a concert tour to perform both old hits and songs from “Smile,” including a rapturous concert in London’s Royal Festival Hall. He then returned to the recording studio, where he re-created the songs on the original “Smile” album with new musicians and none of the surviving Beach Boys (brothers Dennis and Carl had died in 1983 and 1998, respectively).
Later in the year Brian finally released “Brian Wilson Presents Smile,” which was immediately recognized as a major work. He went on to record and perform songs by George and Ira Gershwin and, in 2012 reunited with what was left of the Beach Boys for a new album, “That’s Why God Made The Radio,” and tour. At the same time, Brian released a five-CD box set entitled “The Smile Sessions,” which included outtakes and recordings from the original album. He continued to sporadically record and tour throughout the 2000s and 2010’s, making his final concert appearance in 2022.
Brian Wilson’s legacy is vast. In a literal sense, he left behind Wilson Phillips, a popular vocal trio made up of his daughters Carnie and Wendy Wilson (from his first marriage to Marilyn Rovell), along with Chynna Phillips (the daughter of Michelle and John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas).
But he will be best remembered for his bouncy and beautiful 1960s recordings with the Beach Boys, a body of work that stands alongside the most enjoyable rock music ever made in this country. I can’t imagine anyone listening to “Good Vibrations” and not feeling … good.
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Bruce Dancis spent 18 years as the Arts & Entertainment Editor of the Sacramento Bee, where he also wrote a syndicated column about DVDs. During a long career in journalism, he served as an editor at the Daily Californian, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Mother Jones, M.I. (Musicians’ Industry) Magazine and the Oakland Tribune. He also wrote about politics, history, movies and rock music for these publications, as well as for Rolling Stone’s Record, In These Times, Guitar Player, Keyboard, the East Bay Voice and San Francisco magazine. In the late ‘60s, he was the lead singer in the Ithaca, New York-based rock band Titanic, and was the editor of the SDS-affiliated magazine, The First Issue. He is the author of “Resister: A Story of Protest and Prison during the Vietnam War” (2014, Cornell University Press) and appears in the documentary film “The Boys Who Said No! Draft Resistance and the Vietnam War” (2020). He lives in Cardiff, CA, and Putnam Valley, NY.