Brian Wilson, R.I.P.
Wilson is most likely to be remembered for his mastery of the recording studio, where he pursued his vision with singleminded tenacity. His control has been likened to that of celebrated film auteurs.
Born on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California, Wilson as a boy in the '50s absorbed from rock-n-roller Chuck Berry an appreciation for hard-driving rhythm and catchy lyrics, and from the Indiana-based quartet the Four Freshmen he acquired a taste for pristine harmony and the haunting sound of a high falsetto lead voice.
In high school, Wilson formed a band with his cousin Mike Love; his two younger brothers, Dennis and Carl; and a classmate, Al Jardine. The Pendletones, as they were briefly known (a play on the brand of a popular shirt, Pendleton), recorded Wilson and Love's 'Surfin',' in 1961. The two wrote the song at the suggestion of Dennis Wilson, who was enamored of surfing. Brian Wilson was an avowed non-surfer. In a brilliant bit of marketing, 'Surfin'' was released under the band's new name, the Beach Boys.
Many of the songs that followed in the next four years—'Surfin' Safari,' 'Surfer Girl,' and 'Little Deuce Coupe'—explored similar topics: beach life, California, teenage life.
Wilson's greatest achievement came in 1966 with the album Pet Sounds. By this time, he had absorbed another influence, the 'Wall of Sound' pioneered by producer Phil Spector in his work with the Ronettes and other groups. Relying on multitrack recordings, with layer building on layer, and on the use of a cadre of topflight studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, Wilson brought to pop music a new level of sophistication in Pet Sounds. (Paul McCartney and George Martin attested to the influence of the album on the Beatles' 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.)
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The songs of Pet Sounds, nearly all of them composed by Wilson, explored more serious topics than the Beach Boys had dealt with in the past: the struggle of fitting in ('I Just Wasn't Made for These Times'), the challenge of finding one's true self ('I Know There's an Answer'), and the small hopes and immense promise of love ('Wouldn't It Be Nice' and 'God Only Knows'). 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' packs a symphonic variety in two and a half minutes of music, with harmony vocals darting in and out, tympani strokes lending an air of grandeur, an interlude introducing a dreamier musical atmosphere, and a pronounced slowing down before the resumption of the original tempo.
Pet Sounds was followed by the single 'Good Vibrations,' perhaps the Beach Boys' best-known song. An ambitious follow-up album, SMiLE, was planned but progress ground to a halt. As chronicled in his autobiography, I Am Brian Wilson (cowritten by Ben Greenman), he observed, 'It was too much pressure from all sides: from Capitol [Records], from my brothers, from Mike [Love], from my dad, but most of all from myself.' Wilson's relationship with his father Murry was uneasy, the father subjecting the son to physical and verbal abuse.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, Wilson resorted to alcohol and drugs because his 'head wasn't right.' He would be diagnosed with depression and schizoaffective disorder. In the mid-1970s he came under the care of Eugene Landy, a controversial psychotherapist who inserted himself into Wilson's business dealings in an exploitative way; the first sentence of Landy's 2006 Los Angeles Times obituary says he 'was denounced as a Svengali for his controversial relationship' with Wilson. (Their relationship is examined in the 2014 movie Love and Mercy.)
Wilson worked off and on with the Beach Boys in addition to releasing solo albums, including a self-titled album in 1988. In 1995 he teamed with Van Dyke Parks on 'Orange Crate Art.' Two years later, he performed on The Wilsons, featuring his two daughters Wendy and Carnie Wilson. He won Grammy Awards in 2005 and 2013. His last album, At My Piano, was released in 2021.
Brian Wilson's talents were so considerable that musicians of today remain awed by his creativity. Illustrative is the reaction of Gen-Z producer and composer Isaac Brown, who has a YouTube channel on which he posts videos of himself reacting to older music he'd never heard before. Listening for the first time to 'Good Vibrations,' Brown, at the beginning of the song, wears an engaged look that gives way to one of curiosity. What is he hearing? Where is this song going? When the first chorus arrives ('I'm picking up good vibrations') and the eerie theremin enters, his expression turns to bafflement. 'Really?' he exclaims. 'Whoa.' When the chorus returns, he exclaims, 'I don't even know what to do with this.' As the music comes to an end, he concludes: 'I cannot believe this song exists. I love this.' A follow-up video in which Brown listens to Pet Sounds for the first time ends with him gobsmacked by the creativeness and even bravery of the album's harmonies, lush instrumentation, and production. As Brown's reaction suggests, even after more than a half century, the best work of Brian Wilson retains the power to surprise and delight.
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