The Beach Boys

AN AMERICAN FAMILY
The Beach Boys’ long and turbulent saga is a uniquely American epic, encompassing
triumph and tragedy, innovation and excess, massive success and
crushing disappointment, the highest highs of artistic transcendence and the
lowest lows of showbiz mediocrity—as well as family dysfunction, fi nancial
chicanery, mental illness, drug abuse, unfulfi lled potential, and unexpected
redemption.

The Beach Boys’ story also involves some of the most innovative and original
pop music ever created, thanks largely to the prodigious talents of the
band’s troubled but brilliant leader Brian Wilson. Regarded by many as the
greatest American composer of the rock era, Wilson was the Beach Boys’
sonic architect and main creative force, using the group as the vibrant vehicle
for his innovative songwriting and arrangements, as well as his intricate,
groundbreaking approach to vocal harmony.

To the generation that came of age in the fi rst half of the 1960s, the Beach
Boys will forever be identifi ed with a bucolic vision of an innocent, carefree
pre-Beatles America. The quintet’s lengthy string of early hits mythologized
middle-class teenage life and the mythical ideal of California, extolling the
virtues of hot rods, surfi ng, and youthful romance, with an undercurrent of
melancholy romanticism that would assert itself more strongly in the group’s
later work.
For much of the early 1960s, the Beach Boys were America’s best-selling
rock and roll act. When the British Invasion took hold of the American teen
consciousness in 1964, they posed the only serious threat to the Fab Four’s
chart supremacy. As the decade progressed and rock’s creative vistas
expanded, Brian Wilson’s musical achievements advanced rapidly, sealing
his position as one of the period’s preeminent musical visionaries. His knack
for creating unique sounds and his mastery of the recording studio yielded
such groundbreaking classics as the 1966 album Pet Sounds and the epic
single “Good Vibrations,” which were as advanced—sonically, compositionally,
and harmonically—as anything being made in popular music at the
time.
But those musical highs soon gave way to darker times, as Wilson’s refusal
to stick with the group’s tried-and-true formula led to his ambitious magnum
opus, Smile , being shelved. While Smile became rock’s most famous unreleased
album, Brian Wilson became rock’s best-known casualty. His descent
into mental illness and substance abuse led him to withdraw from his band
and from the world—a retreat from which many assumed he would never
return.
The Beach Boys spent much of the 1970s and 1980s torn between its dual
identities as contemporary recording group and pandering oldies act. Their
story belatedly gained closure of a sort, when a resurgent Brian Wilson
returned from decades in the shadows to launch an unprecedented return to
live performance, and to revive his lost masterpiece Smile on record and on
stage.
By that point, the music of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys had been
embraced by a new generation of listeners raised on alternative rock, for
whom the music’s originality and emotional resonance transcended mere
nostalgia.

CATCH A WAVE
The Beach Boys’ story began in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California,
in the home of Murry and Audree Wilson. Murry worked in the heavy
machinery industry, but was also a part-time songwriter who’d had a brief brush
with success when his novelty tune “Two-Step Side-Step” was performed by
bandleader Lawrence Welk on his national radio show.

Murry could be stern, demanding, and, by most accounts, emotionally and
physically abusive. But he also passed his musical interests on to his sons
Brian, Dennis, and Carl, indulging them with lessons and instruments, and
gathering the family to harmonize around the living-room piano.
The Wilson siblings were often joined in song by their cousin Mike Love, the
son of Murry’s sister Glee. The Love family was also musically inclined, and
often joined the Wilsons for parties that included family musical performances.
Despite being deaf in his right ear (a disability that he would later attribute
to a childhood beating by Murry), eldest brother Brian demonstrated a prodigious
musical ability early on. He became profi cient on multiple instruments,
while revealing a beautiful, remarkably fl exible singing voice and an uncanny
ear for vocal harmony. He was particularly fascinated by the evocative orchestral
pop of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” and by the close harmonies
of the Four Freshmen, who would provide the blueprint for the Beach
Boys’ intricate vocal blend.
Baby brother Carl also emerged as both a skillful guitarist and an excellent
singer, with a beautiful tenor voice that would become an essential element of
the Beach Boys’ sound. He also developed a knack for acting as a peacemaker
when Murry lashed out at his sons. These abilities would prove invaluable in
the Beach Boys’ more turbulent periods.
Although he would eventually develop into a musical talent in his own
right, Dennis Wilson’s teenage years were defi ned mainly by his rebellious
behavior and his contentious relationship with his father. Although Dennis
was too occupied with other pursuits to focus much on music, he was, largely
at Audree’s urging, included in his brothers’ musical pursuits, channeling his
natural aggression into his role as the group’s drummer.
Although his rudimentary saxophone skills left something to be desired,
Mike Love’s cocky, extroverted personality made him a natural frontman.
The group became a quintet with the addition of Brian’s high-school football
teammate Al Jardine, who was a capable rhythm guitarist and harmony
singer.
Although the fi ve teenagers had grown up near the ocean, the only actual
surfer in the bunch was Dennis, who had embraced the popular sport and the
culture that had sprung up around it in southern California. The surfi ng lifestyle
had already inspired the beginnings of a musical genre, personifi ed by
guitarist Dick Dale, an avid surfer whose live performances at the Balboa
Ballroom were popular among surfers. Dale’s propulsive instrumental numbers
replicated the physical sensations of the surfi ng experience, combing
staccato picking with a reverb-heavy “wet” guitar sound.
It was Dennis who suggested that Brian try writing a song about surfi ng.
With Dennis offering some helpful examples of surfer jargon, Brian and Mike
came up with “Surfi n’,” a catchy, if primitive, ode to the sport.
Murry had put Brian in contact with Hite and Dorinda Morgan, who operated
a small music publishing company that had handled some of Murry’s compositions. The Morgans also ran a small studio in Hollywood, and Brian
approached them about doing some recording there.
On Labor Day weekend 1961, Murry and Audree took a short vacation to
Mexico City, leaving their sons with $200 in emergency cash. They used most
of the fund to rent musical equipment from Wallichs’ Music City in Hollywood,
to allow the quintet to polish their performance of “Surfi n’ ” for a
prospective audition for the Morgans. Murry was furious when he found out,
but softened after he heard the song.
On September 15, 1961—just a week after Life magazine had run a sevenpage
photo feature on the California surfi ng craze—the band cut an early take
of “Surfi n’ ” with the Morgans. On October 3, they recorded a more professional
version at World Pacifi c Studios in Hollywood.
By then, the fl edgling combo was calling itself the Pendletones, in honor of
the plaid woolen Pendleton shirts that were popular among surfers. It wasn’t
until “Surfi n’ ” was released as a single in December 1961, on the tiny local
label Candix, that the group learned that Hite Morgan had rechristened them
the Beach Boys. Another alteration was Murry’s decision to speed up the master
tape slightly, on the assumption that that would give the performance a
more youthful sound. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d use that gimmick—
much to Brian’s annoyance.
After making their public performing debut playing three songs at a Ritchie
Valens tribute concert at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium on December
31, the Beach Boys—with Mike as frontman, Brian on bass, Carl and Al on
guitars, and Dennis on drums—embarked on a series of live appearances to
promote “Surfi n’.” Authority fi gure Murry Wilson was often in tow, the better
to put the kibosh on the sort of activities toward which fi ve young men
away from home might naturally gravitate.
Although it was primitive in comparison with the records that the group
would soon be making, “Surfi n’ ” became a regional hit on the West Coast,
and sold well enough to reach number seventy-fi ve on Billboard ’s national
singles chart. The single was such a success that it soon bankrupted Candix
Records, which had shipped so many still-unpaid orders that they couldn’t
afford to meet the demand for more copies.
Murry Wilson immediately appointed himself the Beach Boys’ manager.
Although his abrasive personality would eventually alienate outsiders as well
as his own clients, at this stage Murry was largely a positive infl uence, instilling
focus and discipline in the inexperienced combo.
Murry’s biggest early achievement was winning the band a deal with Capitol
Records, home of Brian’s beloved Four Freshmen. Capitol A&R executive
Nik Venet wasn’t charmed by Murry’s blustery sales pitch. But he was excited
by the band’s demos of a pair of new tunes: Brian and Mike’s “Surfi n’ Safari,”
the surfer slang–fi lled sequel to their fi rst hit; and “409,” an insistent hot-rod
anthem which Brian had written with Gary Usher, the nephew of a neighbor
of the Wilson family.

Usher was Brian’s fi rst collaborator outside of the Beach Boys family, but he
would soon run afoul of Murry’s jealous nature and fi nd himself frozen out of
the band’s inner circle. Following his exile, Usher would become a key fi gure
in the surf music scene. One of his early successes was as leader and producer
of the studio group the Hondells, which scored a Top Ten hit in 1964 with
Brian’s “Little Honda.”
“409” was the fi rst in a long series of car-themed Beach Boys songs that
refl ected the prominence of automobiles in the identity of American male
teenagers of the era. Usher would be one of many songwriting collaborators
for Brian, who had already mastered composing and arranging but generally
preferred to brainstorm lyrics with a co-writer.
By then, the Beach Boys had experienced their fi rst personnel change. Al
Jardine, who had been instrumental in the band’s formation, exited in February,
in order to study dentistry in Michigan. To take his place, the band drafted
David Marks, a fi fteen-year-old neighborhood pal who lived across the street
from the Wilsons. Marks was a competent rhythm guitarist, but would not be
permitted to sing on the band’s recording dates.
“Surfi n’ Safari” and “409” were paired as the Beach Boys’ fi rst Capitol
single in June 1962, and showed the band to be far more accomplished than
the neophytes who’d cut “Surfi n’ ” a few months earlier. Capitol initially
focused on promoting “409,” fi guring that surf-themed material would have
limited appeal outside of California. But “Surfi n’ Safari” broke out on radio
stations in such unlikely locations as New York and landlocked Phoenix,
launching the song’s rise to number fourteen on the national charts, while its
fl ipside stalled at seventy-six.
“Surfi n’,” “Surfi n’ Safari,” and “409” all appeared on the fi rst Beach Boys
LP, Surfi n’ Safari , released by Capitol in October. Although still primitive in
comparison to what the group would soon achieve on a regular basis, the
album was spirited and energetic, and an impressive effort at a time when
rock and roll LPs routinely consisted of one or two hits plus ten tracks of
throwaway fi ller.
While Surfi n’ Safari contained little evidence of the compositional genius
that Brian Wilson would soon reveal, the fact that it was comprised largely of
originals (written by Brian with Gary Usher and/or Mike Love) instantly distinguished
it from most rock albums of the period. Although Nik Venet was
credited as producer, Brian was already largely calling the shots on the Beach
Boys’ recording sessions, and in charge of coaching his inexperienced bandmates
through their performances. Although he lacked studio experience, Brian
gained an able collaborator in recording engineer Chuck Britz, a seasoned
studio pro whom he’d met while the band was cutting demos at Western
Recorders in Hollywood.
Britz became the Beach Boys’ in-house engineer, a position that he would
hold through 1967. His technical expertise would be a major infl uence in Brian
learning to translate the sounds that he heard in his head onto tape. In the 1960s, when record companies still routinely released albums in both stereo
and mono versions, Britz would also be in charge of mixing the stereo versions
of the band’s recordings, while Brian—whose partial deafness contributed
to his natural affi nity for mono—handled the mono mixes.
Britz also served as a useful buffer between Brian and his father, who was
often an overbearing, bullying presence in the studio. Later, the band would
attempt to placate Murry by giving him a fake studio console that wasn’t
actually connected to anything, allowing him to turn the dials to his heart’s
content while Brian and Britz got on with the actual business of making Beach
Boys records.
Brian and the Beach Boys made a remarkable amount of musical and commercial
progress between 1963 and 1965. In addition to their prolifi c recording
output—nine studio albums and one live LP in just three years—the band
maintained a punishing touring schedule. They also cultivated a clean-cut
image that was consistent with the innocent fun portrayed in Brian’s songs,
and the quintet’s wholesome vibe was accentuated by their trademark outfi t
of striped button-down shirts and white pants, which would remain the band’s
stage uniform through 1966.
Although it was recorded just a few months after Surfi n’ Safari , the Beach
Boys’ second album Surfi n’ USA was a considerable progression from its predecessor.
Although it followed the established pattern of surrounding a couple
of hit singles with surf and drag novelties and cover versions, the quality of
Brian’s songwriting and the band’s performances had taken a noticeable
leap.
Surfi n’ USA ’s title track included a checklist of surfi ng hot spots provided
by Jimmy Bowles, brother of Brian’s girlfriend Judy. But it shamelessly borrowed
its melody from Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” and the resulting
legal threats led to the song’s authorship being credited to Berry on
subsequent pressings.
Although its success played a signifi cant role in launching a nationwide
surfi ng fad, Surfi n’ USA also showed Brian to be a truly accomplished melodist
and arranger. Beyond its surf and car material—and no fewer than fi ve
forgettable instrumentals—the album included a pair of breakthrough ballads,
the lilting “Farmer’s Daughter” and the stark, melancholy “The Lonely
Sea.” Both featured evocative minor-key melodies and sensitive lead vocals by
Brian, conjuring a haunting sense of yearning that offered a preview of the
emotional depth that he would soon achieve on a regular basis.
Surfi n’ USA became the Beach Boys’ fi rst gold album, spending eighteen
months on the U.S. album chart, where it just missed making the top slot. It
was also their fi rst to make the charts in Britain, where the group would
remain reliably popular for decades to come.
Despite the continuing presence of the sort of fi ller that was probably
unavoidable in light of Capitol’s constant demand for new product, the September
1963 release Surfer Girl charted Brian’s continuing growth as a composer and producer. The yearning title ballad carried a spiritual component
that transcended its ostensible surf context, with the titular beach bunny
a powerful metaphor for desire of a deeper nature. Surfer Girl also included
Brian’s most ambitious surf number to date in the majestic “Catch a Wave,”
on which Brian, Dennis, and Mike traded lead vocals. But the album’s most
arresting moment may have been “In My Room,” a fragile evocation of solitude
and vulnerability that was a startling demonstration of Brian’s willingness
to confront his fears in song.
Surfer Girl is also generally regarded as the fi rst Beach Boys album to integrate
substantial contributions from outside musicians, a practice that would
become more prevalent in the band’s recordings in the near future.

Del Shannon and Gene Pitney: Turning Heartaches into Hits
Tormented love stories and haunting minor-chord progressions set Del Shannon
(1934–90) apart beginning with his 1961 number one hit, “Runaway.”
The Michigan-born singer/songwriter/guitarist remained a persistent chart
presence for the next four years, thanks to such compelling originals as “Little
Town Flirt,” “Stranger in Town,” and the Top Ten hit “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll
Follow the Sun).” In 1963, Del released “From Me to You”—the fi rst American
cover of a John Lennon/Paul McCartney song to make the U.S. charts—and in
1965 the British duo of Peter and Gordon scored a Top Ten hit with Shannon’s
composition “I Go to Pieces.” In 1982, Del Shannon reached the U.S. Top
Forty for the last time with “Sea of Love,” produced by Tom Petty. He committed
suicide in 1990, after a long battle with depression.
Gene Pitney (1940–2006) began his career as a successful songwriter (“Hello
Mary Lou” by Ricky Nelson). As a recording artist, the versatile Connecticut
native specialized in dramatic orchestrated ballads like “I’m Gonna Be Strong,”
in which muffl ed drumbeats and swelling strings surged beneath his piercing,
reedy voice. Pitney was only twenty-one when his fi rst U.S. Top Twenty hit
“Town Without Pity” was nominated for an Academy Award and he became
the fi rst rock and roller to perform on an Oscars telecast. His recording of
“That Girl Belongs to Yesterday” was the fi rst Mick Jagger/Keith Richards song
to reach the American charts, and he played on the Rolling Stones’ debut
album. Along with Roy Orbison, Gene Pitney was one of the only American
solo artists of the pre-Beatles era who continued to score major hits—“It Hurts
to Be in Love” (1964), “Backstage” (1966), and more—on both sides of the
Atlantic after the British Invasion. He remained a popular international concert
attraction for decades until his death during a 2006 tour of Great Britain.

The Beach Boys’ punishing touring schedule took a particularly heavy toll
on Brian, who had begun missing shows in 1963. That summer, the band brought in Al Jardine, who’d had second thoughts about his earlier decision
to quit, to sub for Brian on bass on some live dates. The original intention had
been to keep the band a sextet in order to ease Brian’s workload. But that plan
fell by the wayside when Murry fi red David Marks a few weeks later, and
Jardine returned to his original rhythm guitar slot.
Although Marks was pictured on the cover of the band’s next album Little
Deuce Coupe , released in October 1963, Jardine was actually back in the
lineup in time to play on the album. Little Deuce Coupe was something of a
concept album, comprising the car songs that had become a popular element
of the Beach Boys’ repertoire. It was also somewhat redundant, with four
tracks recycled from previous LPs, along with several new tunes co-written by
Brian with Roger Christian. Christian was a disc jockey on local Top Forty
station KFWB, as well as an avid hot-rod enthusiast whose familiarity with
the subculture’s lingo added authority to Brian’s auto-inspired tunes.
The only Little Deuce Coupe song not to mention cars is the student-spirit
anthem “Be True to Your School.” It would subsequently become a Top Ten
single in a rerecorded version that added cheerleader-style backup vocals by
the Honeys, a female vocal trio that included Brian’s girlfriend Marilyn Rovell
and her sister Diane.
The Honeys were one of several acts for which Brian wrote songs and produced
records during the Beach Boys’ rise. Also benefi ting from Brian’s extracurricular
pursuits was the popular surf duo Jan and Dean, to whom he gave
“Surf City.” It became a number one single for the pair in the summer of
1963. Murry Wilson was furious that his son had given away a smash hit,
particularly since the Beach Boys had yet to top the charts themselves.
The next Beach Boys album Shut Down Volume 2 —titled in recognition of
a popular recent various-artists Capitol LP that reused “Shut Down” and
“409”—contained such shameless throwaways as the contrived rank-out-fest
“Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson” and the self-explanatory “Denny’s Drums.”
But it also featured one of the band’s best early rockers in the Chuck Berry–
inspired Brian Wilson/Mike Love tune “Fun, Fun, Fun.”
In later years, Love would, with considerable justifi cation, be widely vilifi ed
by Wilson fans for his philistine tastes and his stubborn resistance to Brian’s
more experimental projects. But in the Beach Boys’ early days, Love’s contribution
to the band was invaluable. As both a singer and lyricist, his assertive
persona served as the self-assured counterpart to Brian’s romanticism and
sensitivity, embodying the youthful swagger of the band’s car and surf songs.
Shut Down Volume 2 also introduced a pair of classic Wilson ballads,
“Don’t Worry Baby” and “The Warmth of the Sun.” The former, co-written
by Roger Christian, used a drag race as a vehicle to explore male insecurity,
and featured production as advanced as anything being done in popular music
at the time. Brian had initially offered “Don’t Worry Baby” to the Ronettes,
whose Phil Spector–produced “Be My Baby” was one of Brian’s favorites. But
the prickly Spector rejected it.

Princesses of Pop: The “Girl Group” Sound of the Shirelles,
the Crystals, and the Ronettes
Women’s voices have been part of rock and roll from the music’s earliest days.
In the 1950s, Ruth Brown, Lavern Baker, Etta James, and Esther Phillips represented
the distaff side of rhythm and blues just as Wanda Jackson and Brenda
Lee did for rockabilly and rock and roll.
But the “girl group” sound that fl ourished from 1960 to 1964 represented
the fullest fl owering of female rock and roll talent up to that time. Female
groups and solo artists populated the charts in greater numbers than ever
before, with songs and production that advanced the art of pop music. Behind
the scenes, women achieved new heights of success as songwriters, producers,
and record label entrepreneurs.
The Shirelles were the most successful black female group until the breakthrough
of the Supremes. Beverly Lee, Doris Coley, Addie “Micki” Harris, and
Shirley Owens were New Jersey high school students at the time of their fi rst
mid-chart hit, “I Met Him on a Sunday” (1958). Producer/songwriter Luther
Dixon brought out the soulful innocence of their voices on “Mama Said” and
“Baby, It’s You”—one of two Shirelles songs, along with “Boys,” later recorded
by the Beatles.
In 1960, the Shirelles’ “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” became the fi rst
girl group record to top the chart, and the fi rst number one record written
and produced by the team of Gerry Goffi n and Carole King. Over the next
three years, the Shirelles placed twelve songs in the Billboard Top Forty, including
six in the Top Ten. All were released on Scepter Records, the independent
label founded by Florence Greenberg, a New Jersey housewife.
As temperamental and controlling as he was passionate and talented, Phil
Spector was the greatest and most infl uential producer of girl group recordings.
The Crystals and the Ronettes were the most prolifi c groups to record for
Spector’s upstart Philles label, founded in 1961.
The Crystals gave the twenty-one-year-old producer his fi rst Philles hit with
“There’s No Other Like My Baby” (number twenty). But like many of their
black vocal group predecessors, the Crystals (Barbara Alston, Mary Thomas,
Delores “Dee Dee” Kennibrew, and Dolores “LaLa” Brooks) had no control
over their recording career. When the Brooklyn-based quintet couldn’t make
it to Los Angeles for one hastily scheduled session, Spector simply recorded
“He’s a Rebel” with the Blossoms—a trio of female session singers led by the
great Darlene Love—and released it under the Crystals’ name. In the fall of
1962, this socially conscious and infectiously danceable disc went all the way
to number one.
The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” may be the archetypal girl group record. The
song was written by Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry—one of the genre’s top
songwriting teams, along with Goffi n and King—but the spotlight is on
Ronettes lead singer Veronica “Ronnie” Bennett, who became Ronnie Spector after she and Phil were wed in 1968 (the couple divorced in 1974). Her vulnerable,
soulful vibrato is framed by Spector’s trademark “wall of sound,” a
dense instrumental mélange propelled by thunderous drumming and Jack
Nitzsche’s sweeping string arrangement. “Be My Baby” peaked at number
two in the fall of 1963; it has since been heard in numerous fi lms, television
shows, and commercials. In 1986, Ronnie Spector made an unexpected return
to the Top Five when she sang the “Be My Baby” refrain on Eddie Money’s
song “Take Me Home Tonight.” In 2006, this ultimate girl group survivor
released The Last of the Rock Stars , a solid album of contemporary rock and roll
featuring such longtime admirers as Patti Smith and the Rolling Stones’ Keith
Richards.

“The Warmth of the Sun,” which Brian co-wrote with Love, is a haunting
meditation on loss and acceptance, inverting the imagery of the band’s beachbased
hits to achieve a spiritual depth at which “Surfer Girl” had hinted. The
song’s narrator loses the love of his life, but takes solace in his memories
of her. The lyrics are all the more poignant in light of Brian’s revelation
that he and Love wrote them as an expression of their grief in the wake of
President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963. Both “Don’t
Worry Baby” and “The Warmth of the Sun” were graced by lead vocals that
demonstrated the technical and emotional range of Brian’s soaring falsetto.
In contrast to the scattershot Shut Down Volume 2 , 1964’s All Summer
Long was the most consistent and satisfying Beach Boys album to date. The
title track utilized such exotic instrumental textures as piccolo and xylophone,
and balanced an irresistibly uplifting melody with a wistful, nostalgic lyric.
The song’s bittersweet sense of parting would inspire fi lmmaker George Lucas
to use it as the closing theme of his era-defi ning American Graffi ti a decade
later. “Wendy” similarly combined an upbeat tune with regretful lyrics, while
the surf-themed “Don’t Back Down” mixed a surging arrangement with an
undercurrent of lyrical anxiety that contrasted the self-assurance of the Beach
Boys’ earlier surf numbers. All Summer Long ’s strongest rocker was the infectious
“I Get Around,” which became the band’s fi rst number one single.
The demand for new Beach Boys product was refl ected in the popularity of
the band’s other two 1964 LPs, the live Beach Boys Concert and the holiday
release The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album , which were released virtually
simultaneously in October. The former demonstrated how tight a performing
unit the band had become. The latter combined seasonally themed originals
(including the hit “Little Saint Nick”) with slickly orchestrated standards
and harmony-heavy carols that allowed Brian to indulge his Four Freshmen
fi xation.
The stress of touring, combined with the pressure of carrying the Beach
Boys’ creative load, fi nally pushed Brian over the edge on December 23, 1964.
On that day, the bandleader, who had married Honeys member Marilyn Rovell
just two weeks earlier, suffered an anxiety attack on a fl ight to Houston,
where the Beach Boys were scheduled to begin a series of shows. Returning
home immediately upon his arrival in Texas, Brian announced that he would
no longer be a touring member of the band, instead staying at home to focus
on writing and recording (he would, however, continue to make television
appearances with the band).
Brian’s fi rst replacement in the touring Beach Boys, playing bass and singing
high harmonies while Carl Wilson assumed the lion’s share of his brother’s
lead vocals, was Glen Campbell. Already a busy L.A. studio guitarist and a
participant in many Beach Boys recording sessions, Campbell toured with the
band for three months, but declined an offer to join permanently. Instead, he
opted to return to session work (he would continue to play on numerous
Beach Boys recordings) and pursue his budding solo career.
Brian repaid Campbell’s service by writing and producing a single, “Guess
I’m Dumb,” for him. Although the song wasn’t a hit, it was one of Wilson’s
most memorable outside productions. Within two years, Campbell had settled
into a smooth country-pop style that would make him one of Capitol Records’
biggest-selling artists.
A long-term replacement arrived in April 1965 in the form of Bruce Johnston.
Already a key fi gure in the West Coast surf music scene, Johnston was a
multi-talented singer, instrumentalist, and producer who began playing sessions
while still in high school. Johnston had worked extensively with Terry
Melcher, his fellow staff producer at Columbia Records. Johnston and Melcher
had had a fair amount of success recording surf and drag material under
various guises, scoring hits as Bruce and Terry as well as the Rip Chords,
whose Beach Boys sound-alike “Hey Little Cobra” had been a hit in 1964.
Brian’s decision to quit the road proved to be a major jolt to his creative
evolution. Freed from the demands of touring, he fl ourished musically, creating
multi-layered backing tracks using the cadre of top-fl ight L.A. session musicians
known as the Wrecking Crew, many of whom had already worked on
prior Beach Boys sessions. The Wrecking Crew included such noted players as
Glen Campbell and fellow guitarists Barney Kessel, Billy Strange, and Tommy
Tedesco; bassists Carol Kaye, Ray Pohlman, and Lyle Ritz; keyboardists Larry
Knechtel, Don Randi, and Leon Russell; saxophonists Steve Douglas and Jay
Migliori; and drummer Hal Blaine, who’d supplanted Dennis Wilson on many
Beach Boys tracks since 1964. These were many of the same musicians that
Brian’s idol Phil Spector used on his legendary “Wall of Sound” productions.
The fi rst fruit of Brian’s new status as full-time studio artist was the March
1965 release The Beach Boys Today! , on which Brian’s production and songwriting
took a substantial leap forward. Today! ’s suite-like structure, with the
album divided into a side of fast songs and a side of ballads, presented an
early manifestation of the rock album format being used to make a cohesive
artistic statement—an idea that Brian would soon explore more fully.

Beyond its absence of surf or car songs, The Beach Boys Today! largely
abandoned teenage concerns in favor of a slightly more mature view of love.
Such up-tempo numbers as “Good to My Baby,” “Dance, Dance, Dance,” and
“When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” featured Brian’s most adventurous arrangements
to date. On the ballad side, such introspective numbers as “Please Let
Me Wonder,” “Kiss Me Baby,” She Knows Me Too Well” and the Dennis-sung
“In the Back of My Mind” were startling, both in their lyrical vulnerability
and their distinctive arrangements.
Indeed, The Beach Boys Today! would have been the fi rst Beach Boys LP to
be sublime from beginning to end, were it not for the closing track “Bull Session
with ‘Big Daddys,’ ” a silly bit of faux-spontaneous spoken-word tomfoolery
whose status as obvious fi ller was all the more obvious in this context.
By comparison, the Beach Boys’ next LP Summer Days (And Summer
Nights!!) was something of a step backward, with such energetic but lightweight
fare as “The Girl from New York City” and “Amusement Parks
U.S.A.” recalling the group’s carefree early days. But Summer Days also featured
the musically and emotionally complex “Let Him Run Wild,” as well as
the band’s most sonically sophisticated single yet in “California Girls,” which
marked Bruce Johnston’s recording debut as a Beach Boy. Summer Days also
contained the band’s second number one single, the Jardine-sung “Help Me,
Rhonda,” an upgraded remake of a song that they’d fi rst tackled on Today!
Another milestone on Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) was the Beatlesesque
pop tune “Girl Don’t Tell Me.” The fact that it marked Carl Wilson’s
fi rst lead vocal on a Beach Boys studio album is remarkable, considering the
prominent role he had already began to assume within the band.
One of the most revealing tracks on Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
was one that must have seemed frivolous at the time. The seemingly lightweight
“I’m Bugged at My Ol’ Man” found Brian bemoaning his unjust treatment
at the hands of his cruel dad. Although it’s delivered with tongue in
cheek, the track takes on added gravity in light of the fact that Brian had recently
fi red Murry as the Beach Boys’ manager, following a bitter confrontation during
a recording session.
(Although Murry would retain a hand in the Beach Boys’ business affairs
due to his control of Brian’s publishing catalog, he and Brian would maintain
a strained relationship. In 1969, against Brian’s will, Murry sold Brian’s publishing
company Sea of Tunes, a blunder that ultimately cost millions. When
Murry died in 1973, neither Brian nor Dennis attended his funeral.)
The Beach Boys released a third album in 1965, the informal studio jam
Beach Boys Party! , as well as the non-LP single “The Little Girl Once Knew.”
The latter boasted Brian’s most idiosyncratic production yet, which may have
explained why it was only the fourth Capitol Beach Boys single not to reach
the Top Ten.
Recorded in a mere four days, Beach Boys Party! was a stripped-down, nofrills
respite from Brian’s increasingly elaborate studio work, as well as an early precursor of the “unplugged” trend, with the instrumentation limited to
the band’s own acoustic guitars, bass, and bongos, augmented by party sound
effects taped later at Mike Love’s house. Beyond a pair of reworked Beach
Boys hits, the album comprised covers of some of the band members’ favorite
tunes, including R&B hits by the Olympics and the Rivingtons, an Everly
Brothers ballad, a trio of Beatles numbers, and even Bob Dylan’s protest
anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Beach Boys Party! produced a
surprise smash single in a spirited reading of the Regents’ 1961 doo-wop hit
“Barbara Ann,” on which Brian shared lead vocals with studio visitor Dean
Torrance of Jan and Dean. It became the band’s fourteenth Top Twenty single,
climbing to number two in December 1965.

Dion: Blues from Belmont Avenue
Dion was born Dion DiMucci in 1939 in the Bronx, New York. His musical infl
uences included country music legend Hank Williams and Mississippi Delta
blues singer Robert Johnson: “I don’t sing black, I don’t sing white, I sing
Bronx,” he told the New York Times in 2006. In the late 1950s, as lead singer
for the Belmonts, Dion scored with “A Teenager in Love” and a doo-wop arrangement
of the Rodgers and Hart standard “Where or When.” After going
solo in 1960, he brought a street-smart swagger to such hits as “Runaround
Sue” and “The Wanderer.” Heroin addiction derailed Dion’s career for a time,
but in 1968 he quit drugs and earned (at number four) the highest-charting
single of his career with the inspired folk-rock ballad “Abraham, Martin and
John,” commemorating the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. presidents
Lincoln and Kennedy. The singer/songwriter went on to release many
more albums, including several sets of Christian material and (in 2005) the
country-blues collection Bronx in Blue.

But Party! ’s real purpose was to give Capitol some new Beach Boys product
to sell during 1965’s Christmas season, buying Brian time to work on the new
album that he was planning, which was to be his bravest and most cohesive
musical statement yet.

PET VIBRATIONS
The Beach Boys’ 1966 album 1966’s Pet Sounds is regarded by many as Brian
Wilson’s creative apex. Although it divided opinion within the band and was
considered a commercial disappointment at the time of its release, it’s now
embraced as one of rock’s most beloved and infl uential albums, cited as a
touchstone by multiple generations of fans, critics, and musicians.
Pet Sounds had its genesis when Brian heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul .
Impressed by the album’s cohesiveness, Wilson, who had always regarded his
British labelmates with a combination of admiration and competitiveness, felt
challenged to come up with something equally good.
Wanting to break away from the Beach Boys’ history and his own established
methods, Brian decided not to work with any of his prior co-writers.
Instead, he chose Tony Asher, a recent acquaintance who’d been working
writing advertising jingles, to help craft his thoughts into fi nished lyrics. The
two began writing together in early 1966, and came up with an emotioncharged
song cycle that surveyed the emotional challenges accompanying the
transition from youth to young adulthood.
Pet Sounds ’ lyrics were matched by music that marked a quantum leap in
Brian’s achievements as a composer, arranger, and producer. He cut the instrumental
tracks for Pet Sounds during a four-month period in late 1965 and
early 1966, working at his favorite Hollywood studios: Gold Star, Western
Recorders, and Sunset Sound.
While the Beach Boys were out on tour, Brian toiled in the studio, putting
the Wrecking Crew through their paces to produce the sounds that he envisioned.
Although the self-taught perfectionist couldn’t write or read musical
notation, he often had the complex, elaborate arrangements worked out in his
head, and found other ways to communicate his ideas to the musicians. The
veteran players came to enjoy the creative interaction of Beach Boys tracking
sessions, and to appreciate Brian’s openness to the players’ own suggestions,
as well as his willingness to incorporate accidents and apparent mistakes into
the fi nal product.
Brian achieved Pet Sounds ’ richly textured, almost symphonic arrangements
by employing unconventional combinations of instruments to produce
new and exotic sounds. In addition to having multiple musicians playing guitar,
bass, and keyboard parts simultaneously (a technique he’d borrowed from
Phil Spector), he mixed conventional rock instrumentation with various exotic
stringed instruments, theremin, fl utes, harpsichord, bicycle bells, beverage
bottles, and even the barking of his dogs Banana and Louie.
When the other Beach Boys returned from touring to record their meticulously
layered vocal tracks, some of Brian’s bandmates expressed reservations
about Pet Sounds ’ radical shift in direction. Most vocal in his objections was
Mike Love, who couldn’t have been pleased at having been turfed out of his
position as lyricist by Brian’s decision to write with Tony Asher. Love was
particularly critical of the lyrics of “Hang On to Your Ego,” which he insisted
upon rewriting as “I Know There’s an Answer.”
Lyrically, Pet Sounds encompassed the loss of innocent idealism (“Caroline
No”), the transient nature of love (“Here Today”), faith in the face of heartbreak
(“I’m Waiting for the Day”), the demands and disappointments of independence
(“That’s Not Me”), the feeling of being out of step with the modern
world (“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”), and the longing for a happy,
loving future (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice”). The album also featured a series of
intimate, hymnlike love songs, “You Still Believe in Me,” “Don’t Talk (Put
Your Head on My Shoulder),” and “God Only Knows.” The latter, with a
gentle yet passionate lead vocal by Carl Wilson, would become one of Brian’s
best loved—and most covered—songs.
Also on Pet Sounds was “Sloop John B.,” a rousing adaptation of a traditional
Caribbean folk song that had been suggested by Al Jardine. It had been
cut a few months before the main album sessions and had been a Top Five hit
when released as a single in March 1966.
Pet Sounds also included a pair of richly atmospheric instrumentals, “Let’s
Go Away for Awhile” and “Pet Sounds.” Both had been recorded with the
intention of adding lyrics, but Brian decided that he preferred the tracks without
them. “Pet Sounds” had originally been titled “Run, James, Run,” refl ecting
Wilson’s original intention of submitting it for use in a James Bond movie.
Beyond its alterations to the Beach Boys’ established sound, Pet Sounds felt
more like a Brian Wilson solo effort than any prior album. Although Carl did
standout work on “God Only Knows,” Love sang lead or co-lead on three songs
and Jardine stepped up front for a few a lines on “I Know There’s an Answer,”
Brian sang the remainder of the album’s leads himself, driving home the songs’
melancholy beauty with some of the most expressive vocals of his career.
Whatever problems they may have had with the album’s divergence from
the band’s hitmaking formula, the other Beach Boys graced Pet Sounds with
some of the fi nest harmonies of their career (although Brian overdubbed all of
the vocal parts himself on a few songs).
Upon its release in May 1966, Pet Sounds ’ sales failed to match its artistic
stature. Although it reached the Top Ten and produced an Top Ten single in
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” sales were disappointing in comparison with the
band’s prior LPs. It didn’t help that Pet Sounds received half-hearted promotion
from Capitol, which signaled its lack of confi dence in the album’s potential
by issuing a slapdash greatest-hits set, The Best of the Beach Boys , two
months after its release.
Pet Sounds fared considerably better in Britain, where it was widely recognized
as a major work and celebrated by many of the music scene’s movers and
shakers. It reached number two in England, where the Beach Boys beat out
the Beatles as Group of the Year in New Musical Express ’s infl uential yearend
poll. Paul McCartney, who has long cited Pet Sounds as his all-time favorite
album, acknowledged its infl uence on the Beatles’ psychedelic landmark
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band .
In the years since its release, Pet Sounds has steadily gained in reputation
and prestige. In 1995, a panel of top musicians, songwriters, and producers
assembled by Mojo magazine voted it the Greatest Album Ever Made. In
2004, it was one of fi fty recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be
added to the National Recording Registry. In 2006, the German magazine
Spex voted it the best album of the twentieth century. It also placed in the
number two slot on Rolling Stone ’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,
right behind Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band .
Pet Sounds ’ enduring appeal was confi rmed by the 1997 release of The Pet
Sounds Sessions , a four-CD box set encompassing a new stereo mix of the
album (which was originally only mixed in mono), plus three discs’ worth of
outtakes, rehearsals, and instrumental tracks. Five years later, after Brian’s
return to touring, he staged a well-received tour performing Pet Sounds as a
complete work, backed by a full orchestra.
Brian was not used to having his creative autonomy challenged, and was
accustomed to seeing his experiments achieve commercial success. He was
hurt by his bandmates’ resistance to Pet Sounds , and disappointed by the
album’s failure to gain a wider audience. But the lack of support didn’t stop
him from forging ahead with his plans for the next Beach Boys single, “Good
Vibrations.”
Originally intended for Pet Sounds but pulled from the album so he could
devote more time to its production, “Good Vibrations”—with Tony Asher’s
original lyrics rewritten by Mike Love—introduced Brian’s new technique of
modular recording. Rather than record a complete performance, he broke the
song into sections, recording and rerecording each portion and assembling a
collage of his favorite takes into a backing track. At a time when singles were
routinely cut in an hour or two, “Good Vibrations” was the most elaborate
and expensive track pop music had ever seen, recorded in seventeen sessions
in four studios over the course of six months, using over ninety hours of tape
and racking up a then-unheard-of cost of $50,000.
Although the rest of the band was skeptical about his unconventional
recording approach, Brian’s painstaking efforts proved worthwhile. “Good
Vibrations”—which Brian described as a “pocket symphony”—was unlike any
pop single that had come before it, covering a dizzying amount of musical
ground in just over three and a half minutes. As on Pet Sounds , Brian made
extensive use of instruments rarely heard in pop, with cello and electro-theremin
prominent in the song’s surging, insistent chorus.
Upon its release in October 1966, “Good Vibrations” became the Beach
Boys’ biggest hit yet; it went to number one on both sides of the Atlantic, and
became the group’s fi rst million-selling single. With the song’s success demonstrating
that the general public could embrace his bravest musical adventures,
Brian Wilson moved forward with his most ambitious project yet.

TRYING TO SMILE
The artistic and commercial triumph of “Good Vibrations” set the stage for
Brian’s plans for the next Beach Boys album, an extended suite of musically
and thematically linked pieces that would be recorded using his modular technique.
The project—initially titled Dumb Angel but eventually renamed Smile —would incorporate a wide array of new sounds, textures, and arrangement
ideas, as well as lyrical imagery and themes drawn from American history,
with humor as a key element in the material. The idea of assembling an
entire album from short musical fragments was a bold undertaking, and
Smile —which Brian characterized as “a teenage symphony to God”—promised
to be as much of a leap forward from Pet Sounds as Pet Sounds had been
from The Beach Boys Today!
To provide lyrics for Smile ’s musical vision, Brian tapped Van Dyke Parks,
a young musical wunderkind (and former child actor) who’d already established
himself as an up-and-coming fi gure on the L.A. scene. His new cowriter
had come to Wilson’s attention via producer Terry Melcher, who’d
hired Parks to play on some Byrds sessions. But it was Parks’s talent for evocative
poetic wordplay, and his abiding interest in Americana, that made him
an ideal Smile collaborator.
Wilson and Parks quickly formed a productive partnership; between April
and September 1966, they wrote a series of songs that formed the foundation
of the new album. Many of those tunes were written in the giant sandbox that
Brian had had installed in the living room of his Bel Air home, in order to
replicate the inspirational feel of the beach. Their pair’s fi rst collaboration was
“Heroes and Villains,” followed by such key Smile tracks as “Wonderful,”
“Cabinessence,” and “Wind Chimes.” This period also produced “Surf’s Up,”
which would become Smile ’s spiritual centerpiece; Wilson and Parks reportedly
wrote it in a single night.
At a time when rock had come to be dominated by British sensibilities,
Brian was determined to create a fundamentally American work. At one point,
he described Smile as a musical journey across America, beginning at Plymouth
Rock and ending in Hawaii, and touching upon key points of history
along the way, including the rise of the railroad and automobiles, and the
settlement of the West and its effect on Native American civilization.
Brian began cutting tracks for Smile in August 1966, using many of the
Wrecking Crew regulars and working at Gold Star Studios as well as Sunset
Sound, Western Recorders, and Capitol Records’ in-house studio. He worked
intensively on the album for the next few months. But by the end of the year,
his initial exhilaration had taken a darker turn.
Brian encountered resistance from Capitol, as well as the other Beach Boys,
who worried that the new music was too radical a stylistic shift and that it
would be impossible to reproduce on stage. The group also expressed concerns
that Brian’s artistic judgment may have been clouded by his growing use
of marijuana and psychedelic drugs. Particularly fi erce in his opposition was
Mike Love, who complained about having to sing such poetic Parks lyrics as
“Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfi eld” on “Cabinessence”; the
growing tensions would eventually cause Parks to leave the project.
The pressures of creating such challenging music in the face of heavy opposition,
combined with his increasingly fragile mental state, took a heavy toll on Brian’s previously unshakable creative confi dence. In late November,
while working on “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow”—the “Fire” section of a planned
suite encompassing the elements of earth, air, water, and fi re—he reportedly
became convinced that the music he was creating had been responsible for a
series of blazes in the area. For years afterward, it was rumored that Brian
(who had built atmosphere during the session by having the musicians wear
fi remen’s helmets) had become so distressed that he burned the tapes; although
he did not actually destroy the recordings, he did abandon work on the track.
Brian continued working on Smile through the early months of 1967, tinkering
with various combinations of takes and mixes. Despite his prior reputation
for working effi ciently in the studio, he failed to complete the album,
missing a series of deadlines for its delivery to Capitol. By then, he’d recorded
countless hours of music for the album, although some tracks were still waiting
for the Beach Boys to add their vocals. As a series of proposed release
dates came and went, Capitol sent out promotional materials to distributors
and retailers, and placed ads for Smile in Billboard and various teen magazines.
Meanwhile, 466,000 copies of the gatefold album cover, designed by
artist Frank Holmes, sat in a warehouse in Pennsylvania, where they would
remain for the next two decades.
In early May 1967—just a few weeks before the release of the Beatles’
groundbreaking, Pet Sounds –infl uenced Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band —it was offi cially announced that Smile ’s release had been canceled.
In the decades following its non-release, Smile became a source of endless
speculation and mystique. Its reputation as a lost masterpiece cast a powerful
spell over fans, and was further enhanced by the tantalizing evidence provided
by the handful of Smile tracks that emerged over the years on various Beach
Boys LPs.
While he remained reluctant to discuss the traumatic project, Brian insisted
in several interviews that Smile was unfi nished and did not exist in releasable
form. When bootleg releases collecting large amounts of unreleased Smile
material began to appear in the early 1990s, they strongly suggested that the
album had been much closer to completion than Wilson had admitted. It also
became clear that, even in incomplete form, Smile was a profoundly original and
deeply moving work. That was confi rmed in 1993, when the career-spanning
box set Good Vibrations: 30 Years of the Beach Boys debuted a treasure trove
of rare Smile material.
In 1967, though, the Smile debacle became the catalyst in Brian Wilson’s
abrupt and tragic descent into mental illness and drug abuse. When he had
begun work on the album, Wilson was at the top of his game and the height
of his infl uence, with seemingly unlimited creative horizons. After the abandonment
of Smile , he would retreat from the spotlight and abdicate his leadership
of the band that he had previously dominated. It would take decades of
short-lived comebacks and false starts before Brian would resume a full-time
musical career.

While Smile ’s non-release set its creator on a precipitous decline, its effect
upon the Beach Boys’ career was almost as damaging. Mike Love had derided
Brian’s insistence upon subverting the band’s winning formula. But it seems
likely that, had Smile been released at the time, it would have established the
Beach Boys in the vanguard of the seismic changes that were about to permanently
alter the direction of rock—changes that would render the group’s
original sound commercially unfashionable. As the Beatles continued to open
up new creative vistas, the Beach Boys, who had been making equally adventurous
music, would come to be viewed as a relic of a more conservative age.
Although they still had a fair amount of worthwhile music in their future, the
Beach Boys would spend the rest of their career struggling to regain their lost
momentum as a recording act.
The Beach Boys’ hip credibility took a further hit when the group withdrew
from a commitment to perform at the historic Monterey International Pop
Festival in the summer of 1967. That event, on which they would have performed
alongside the leading lights of the emerging rock counterculture, may
well have given the group a high-profi le shot of relevance amidst the social
and cultural upheavals of the Summer of Love.
In August 1967, the public got a tantalizing taste of the abandoned Smile
with the single release of one of the album’s key tracks, the Wild West fantasy
“Heroes and Villains.” Although the truncated single omitted some of the sections
recorded for the album version, its multi-part structure still exemplifi ed
Brian’s Smile approach, overlaying a relatively simple song with complicated
vocal and instrumental arrangements. “Heroes and Villains” peaked at number
twelve on the U.S. pop chart, and made the Top Ten in England.
A month later, fans who’d been primed for the groundbreaking brilliance of
Smile instead got Smiley Smile , a perplexing hodgepodge that included “Good
Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains” along with drastically scaled-down
rerecordings of several Smile numbers, recorded by the band in Brian’s new
home studio. Although its newly recorded tracks possessed a certain ramshackle
charm, and the album has gained admirers over the years, Smiley
Smile was released to general incomprehension. While Smile might have
divided the Beach Boys’ fans had it been released, Smiley Smile merely baffl ed
them. Although it made the Top Ten in Britain, Smiley Smile peaked at an
ignominious number forty-one in the United States.
Whatever its musical merits, Smiley Smile —the fi rst album to bear the credit
“Produced by the Beach Boys”—was signifi cant in that it marked the beginning
of the other Beach Boys taking up the creative slack in the face of Brian’s
diminishing participation. Hereafter, all of the band members would share
songwriting duties, with Carl Wilson becoming the band’s driving force in the
studio, just as he’d stepped up as leader of the live band when Brian quit the
road.
Although they were distributed by Capitol, Smiley Smile and the “Heroes
and Villains” single were the fi rst releases to bear the logo of the Beach Boys’
new, band-owned imprint, Brother Records. Brother’s formation had originally
been motivated by a desire to maintain creative control in the face of
Capitol’s resistance to Brian’s more daring projects, and by a series of fi nancial
disputes between the group and Capitol.
Wild Honey , released in December 1967, was considerably more cohesive
than Smiley Smile . With Brian once again co-writing with Mike Love, the
album—again recorded at Brian’s house—consisted largely of upbeat, strippeddown
rock and roll, whose unpretentious exuberance contrasted Smile ’s widescreen
grandeur and Smiley Smile ’s druggy haze. Much of its energy arose
from the sound of the Beach Boys playing as a band; indeed, Wild Honey
marked the fi rst album in several years on which the Beach Boys played the
majority of the instruments. Equally notable was Carl’s emergence as a persuasive
lead vocalist on such tunes as the wailing title track and the catchy
“Darlin’,” which became a Top Twenty single. Wild Honey ’s minute-long
coda, “Mama Says,” was originally recorded as a section of Smile ’s “Vegetables,”
making it the fi rst of several Smile numbers to appear as the closing
track of subsequent Beach Boys albums.
Just as Pet Sounds and Smile had refl ected Brian’s preoccupations at the
time, Wild Honey ’s unpretentious simplicity embodied the simpler lifestyle
he’d adopted in the wake of Smile ’s grand failure. The low-key vibe continued
with 1968’s Friends , on which such Brian-led tunes as “Busy Doin’ Nothin’,”
“Wake the World,” and the playful title track offered warmly intimate portraits
of the artist as gentle homebody.
Notably absent from much of Friends was Mike Love, who had recently
become a devotee of transcendental meditation, and was away in India studying
with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (along with the Beatles, Donovan, and
actress Mia Farrow) during most of the recording. A more surprising development
on Friends was the revelation of Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boys’ troubleprone
but charismatic dark horse, as a broodingly soulful songwriter and
singer on two tracks, “Little Bird” and “Be Still.”
Despite the quality of Friends , 1968 saw the Beach Boys’ popularity dip to
perilous new lows. While they remained in demand in England, Friends
peaked at number 126 in the United States—a humbling comedown for the
band that had topped the charts with “Good Vibrations” just two years earlier.
An ill-conceived tour pairing the Beach Boys with the Maharishi was a
fi nancial disaster, with several dates canceled after the New York show drew
a paltry 200 fans.
Coincidentally or not, Friends would be the last Beach Boys album to comprise
mostly songs written by Brian Wilson, whose participation in the group
would grow more limited in the years to come.
Nineteen sixty-eight also saw the release of Stack-O-Tracks , which collected
the instrumental tracks of fi fteen previously released Beach Boys numbers.
Although such archival projects would become commonplace in the CD era,
Stack-O-Tracks was unprecedented at the time, underlining the esteem in which Brian Wilson’s artistry was still held by his peers. Unfortunately, the album’s
release coincided with the band’s decline in popularity, and it became the fi rst
Beach Boys LP to fail to reach the charts on either side of the Atlantic.
In contrast to Friends ’ focused intimacy, 1969’s 20/20 —assembled mainly
to complete the band’s contractual obligation to Capitol—was a patchwork
of singles, leftovers from other projects (including Smile ), and solo efforts by
various members. The album benefi ted from the inclusion of “Do It Again,” a
nostalgic throwback to the band’s early fun-in-the-sun style that had had been
a Top Twenty single the previous summer. 20/20 spawned another minor hit in
Carl’s reworking of the Ronettes’ girl group classic “I Can Hear Music,” whose
layered production demonstrated how much he’d learned from observing his
big brother’s studio methods.
Brian’s limited involvement in 20/20 fi nally gave Bruce Johnston—his
replacement in the touring Beach Boys but also an experienced writer and
producer—a chance to get his own material onto a Beach Boys LP. Fittingly,
Johnston’s moody instrumental “The Nearest Faraway Place” was largely
inspired by Brian’s work on Pet Sounds .
20/20 also featured a trio of contributions from Dennis, including the
haunting “Be with Me” and the sweet “All I Want to Do,” the latter sung by
Dennis’s frequent nemesis Mike Love. The third song credited to Dennis,
“Never Learn Not to Love,” was actually a reworking of “Cease to Exist,”
written by a then-unknown criminal, cult leader, and aspiring songwriter
named Charles Manson, whom Dennis had befriended shortly before work
on the album began. According to some reports, Manson was incensed when
the song was released without his writing credit, and threatened to murder
Dennis. Dennis’s involvement with Manson caused considerable concern
within the Beach Boys camp, and became more frightening after Manson
directed a group of his followers to murder seven people, including actress
Sharon Tate, on August 9, 1969. It was later theorized that Manson’s original
target had been the previous tenant of Tate’s rented house, record producer
(and Bruce Johnston’s former recording partner) Terry Melcher, who had
apparently rebuffed Manson’s earlier attempts to win a record deal.
The Beach Boys followed 20/20 with the non-LP single “Break Away,” on
which Brian’s credited co-writer, Reggie Dunbar, was a pseudonym for none
other than Murry Wilson. Although it was one of the band’s strongest releases
of the period, “Break Away” stalled at number sixty-three (it made the Top
Ten in England). The song’s commercial failure reportedly had a demoralizing
effect on Brian, hastening his retreat from active musical duty.

SAIL ON
With their Capitol commitments complete, the Beach Boys moved to Reprise/
Warner Bros., probably the hippest and most artist-friendly major label of the time. The new deal seemed to offer the prospect of reestablishing the
Beach Boys as a relevant musical entity, and the group rose to the occasion
with their Brother/Reprise debut, 1970’s Sunfl ower , which many fans rate as
their best post– Pet Sounds album. Brian was only prominent on a handful of
Sunfl ower tracks, most notably the magnifi cent “This Whole World,” sung by
Carl. But his infl uence loomed large over the sunny, harmony-driven album,
with the other band members coming up with material that merged the group’s
classic 1960s sound with a more adult sensibility. Despite critical acclaim,
Sunfl ower was a commercial disappointment.
During the Sunfl ower sessions, Dennis Wilson recorded his fi rst solo single,
the Brian-infl uenced “Sound of Free,” credited to “Dennis Wilson and
Rumbo” and released overseas but not in the United States.
As part of the Beach Boys’ Reprise deal, the company had expected the
band to deliver a releasable version of the already-legendary Smile . But Brian,
the only person who could reasonably be expected to assemble the mountains
of tape into a cohesive work, remained unwilling and/or unable to complete
the album.
“Surf’s Up,” one of Smile ’s most powerful songs, became the title track of
Sunfl ower ’s 1971 follow-up. Brian had publicly unveiled the richly poetic epic
four years earlier, performing a solo piano rendition on Inside Pop: The Rock
Revolution , a CBS TV special hosted by conductor Leonard Bernstein, but the
track had never been completed for Smile . “Surf’s Up”—whose 1971 version
was completed by Carl—was a major addition to the Beach Boys canon, as
was Brian’s new “’Til I Die,” whose heart-tugging sonic tapestry recalled
Pet Sounds . Surf’s Up also included a pair of impressive songwriting contributions
from Carl, but lacked the solid group dynamic that had elevated
Sunfl ower .
During the Surf’s Up sessions, Dennis put his hand through a plate glass
window, leaving him temporarily unable to play the drums. Early in 1972, the
Beach Boys’ lineup got some new blood with the additions of guitarist Blondie
Chaplin and drummer Ricky Fataar—both former members of the South
African band the Flame, for whom Carl Wilson had recently produced an
album. The two new members would help to push the band’s live shows
toward a tougher sound, and would lend a more prominent R&B feel to the
next Beach Boys album, the spotty Carl and the Passions—“So Tough,” made
with minimal participation from the increasingly reclusive Brian. Reprise
hinted at its lack of faith in the album by releasing it as half of a two-LP set
with a reissued Pet Sounds , making the underwhelming new disc sound even
weaker in comparison.
Carl and the Passions—“So Tough” marked the departure of Bruce Johnston,
who had become so disenchanted with the band’s new manager Jack
Rieley that he quit the group. Former DJ Rieley won the position with a strategy
to reestablish the Beach Boys’ hip credibility, but his efforts further divided
the already fractious band. Rieley somehow managed to get Reprise to foot the bill to send the Beach Boys, along with family, staff, and a massive amount
of recording equipment, to Holland to record their next album. The change
of scene was an effort to shake the group out of its creative doldrums and
snap Brian out of his unproductiveness. The trip quickly turned rocky, but the
resulting album, titled Holland , was a modest improvement upon its predecessor,
winning the band some FM airplay and spawning a minor hit in “Sail
On, Sailor,” whose lead vocal was provided by Blondie Chaplin and whose
fi ve credited co-writers included Brian and Van Dyke Parks.
Holland was followed by the double album The Beach Boys in Concert ,
which refl ected the band’s growing emphasis on touring. The live album also
marked the fi nal recorded appearances of Chaplin and Fataar, who would
depart in late 1973 and late 1974, respectively. By then, the combination of
fl agging record sales and Brian’s growing reclusiveness didn’t seem to bode
well for the band’s future.
But in June 1974, amidst a resurgence of nostalgic interest in vintage rock
and roll, Capitol Records released Endless Summer , a two-LP compilation of the
Beach Boys’ surf and car hits. The collection became a surprise pop-culture
phenomenon, spending much of that summer at the top of the American
album charts and remaining a top seller for the next two years, making it the
Beach Boys’ longest-charting release.
The success of Endless Summer instantly revitalized the Beach Boys’ fortunes
as a live act, and the group increasingly tailored their concerts to focus
on their crowd-pleasing early hits. While some complained that they’d become
a pandering human jukebox, their new status as America’s highest-grossing
concert act spoke more loudly than any criticism.
While the Beach Boys were on the road reaping the benefi ts of Endless Summer
’s success, Brian Wilson had fallen deeply into mental illness, spending
much of his time in bed and indulging heavily in alcohol, drugs, and binge
eating. A series of psychologists were unable to treat him successfully, until
Brian began seeing the unconventional therapist Eugene Landy in the fall of
1975. Despite the controversy surrounding Landy’s radical twenty-four-hour
treatment, Brian seemingly improved substantially under his care.
Although the Beach Boys had more or less retired from recording after Holland
, the momentum created by Endless Summer built demand for a new
studio album. Brian’s modest upswing was enough to inspire the band and its
label to launch a high-profi le “Brian’s Back” campaign, trumpeting the tragic
hero’s return to the producer’s chair for a new studio LP featuring the Beach
Boys’ classic lineup. Brian even rejoined the band on stage for several concerts,
looking nervous and awkward. He seemed equally uncomfortable in
several high-profi le TV appearances, including a prime-time NBC-TV special
honoring the Beach Boys and a solo performance on Saturday Night Live .
The ballyhoo surrounding Brian’s return to active duty proved premature
when 15 Big Ones was released in June 1976. Despite the hype, the album
was largely a letdown, comprised largely of lackluster remakes of rock and roll oldies, along with a handful of lightweight but charming new songs by
Brian. While 15 Big Ones possessed surprisingly little of the Beach Boys’ classic
sound, it nonetheless produced a Top Five single in a remake of Chuck
Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music.”
A more rewarding comeback project was 15 Big Ones ’ follow-up, The
Beach Boys Love You . The album was entirely written and played by Brian,
whose extensive use of Moog synthesizer gave it a loopy funhouse ambience.
The playfully primitive album sharply divided fans and critics, some of whom
proclaimed it a work of eccentric genius while others dismissed it as childish
and trivial. Like 15 Big Ones , Love You incorporated outtakes originally
recorded for prior albums, which resulted in Brian’s coarse 1977 voice, ravaged
by years of cigarette smoking and other abuse, appearing alongside his
sweeter tone on the Sunfl ower -era “Good Time.”
Also in 1977, Dennis Wilson became the fi rst Beach Boy to release a solo
album with Pacifi c Ocean Blue . Despite the fact that years of hard living had
reduced his voice to a throaty croak, the album was an impressive achievement,
with lush, imaginative production and a distinctive lyrical vision that
surveyed both the California landscape and the artist’s own tortured psyche.
Dennis began work on a second album, to be titled Bamboo , but the distractions
of his turbulent personal life, his escalating substance abuse, and his
increasingly strained relations with the other Beach Boys would help to keep
that project from being completed.
Meanwhile, Brian Wilson once again regressed into drug use and mental
illness. He was credited as executive producer of 1978’s M.I.U. Album , but
the album—a lightweight grab-bag of oldies remakes and Brian compositions
rejected from earlier projects—was overseen by Al Jardine, with the sessions
taking place at Maharishi University in Iowa. Although Brian was present for
much of the recording, his participation was minimal. Carl and Dennis were
largely absent as well, hinting at the band’s internal instability at the time.
One of M.I.U. ’s cover tunes, an energetic Jardine-led revival of the Del-Vikings’
doo-wop classic “Come Go with Me,” later became a Top Ten hit 1981, when
it was included on the compilation Ten Years of Harmony .
Despite Brian’s perilous condition and the band’s general disarray, the Beach
Boys signed a new recording deal with Caribou/Epic, a deal that stipulated
Brian Wilson’s creative involvement in each album. When Brian proved not
to be up to the task, Bruce Johnston—who in his years as an ex–Beach Boy
had written the MOR smash “I Write the Songs” for pop superstar Barry
Manilow—was called in as producer of 1979’s L.A. (Light Album) .
Despite the fact that relations within the group were severely strained, L.A.
featured solid work from all fi ve Beach Boys. Contractual commitments aside,
Brian’s contributions amounted to a pair of older outtakes completed by Carl:
the heavenly “Good Timin’ ” and a tongue-in-cheek reworking of the standard
“Shortenin’ Bread.” The album also found the Beach Boys attempting to jump
on the disco bandwagon with a dance-oriented update of the Wild Honey tune “Here Comes the Night”; although the song got as high as number forty-four,
it proved so controversial with fans that it was removed from the band’s set
list after a handful of shows.
Another attempt to coax Brian back as producer for 1980’s undistinguished
Keepin’ the Summer Alive proved unproductive, leading to Johnston again
taking the reins in the studio. An increasingly volatile Dennis Wilson exited
early in the recording; he would never record with the group again.
Keepin’ the Summer Alive ’s lack of success was one indication of the malaise
that hung over the splintered Beach Boys in the early 1980s. Although
Johnston returned to the performing lineup, Carl Wilson, frustrated with the
band’s reliance on the oldies, temporarily quit to record a pair of solo albums,
and Dennis’s unpredictability got him ejected from the band for a while.
Meanwhile, Brian Wilson’s condition had gone so far downhill that Dr. Eugene
Landy was brought back to treat him in 1983. The existence of a touring
Beach Boys lineup with no Wilson brothers seemed to suggest that the band’s
days were numbered.
Although their recording career had grown moribund, the Beach Boys
maintained their status as an iconic American institution. That status was
demonstrated in 1983, when James Watt, President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary
of the Interior, canceled the band’s annual July 4 concert on Washington,
DC’s Mall, replacing them with the more ostensibly wholesome Wayne Newton.
When Watt’s ban caused a media uproar, the image-savvy Reagan proclaimed
himself a Beach Boys fan and welcomed the group to the White House for a
face-saving visit. The Watt situation proved to be a publicity bonanza for the
group, which would be back playing on the Mall on the following July 4.
When the Beach Boys next won national media attention a few months
after the James Watt fl ap, the news was much sadder. On December 28, 1983,
Dennis Wilson drowned while diving from a friend’s boat, attempting to recover
items that he had angrily thrown overboard.
The fi ve surviving band members regrouped and returned to recording with
1985’s The Beach Boys , recorded with English producer Steve Levine, fresh
from his hit work with Culture Club. While longtime admirers bemoaned the
album’s trendy, synthetic production and noted its paucity of memorable
songs, The Beach Boys got the band back into the Top Forty—and even onto
MTV—with the catchy Mike Love/Terry Melcher song “Getcha Back,” whose
choruses featured a prominent falsetto part by Brian Wilson. In an omen of
things to come, two of Brian’s four new compositions credited Dr. Eugene
Landy as co-writer.
Despite the relative success of The Beach Boys , the band did not record a
follow-up album. Instead, they continued working as a lucrative touring act
while recording individual songs for a series of fi lm soundtracks and variousartists
albums. The most successful of these was the Love/Melcher tune
“Kokomo,” which appeared in the Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail . Although
undeniably catchy, “Kokomo” was derided by purists as evidence of Mike Love pushing the band toward shallowness and irrelevance. But in the summer of
1988, “Kokomo” became the Beach Boys’ fi rst number one single since “Good
Vibrations” twenty-two years earlier.
The fact that Brian Wilson’s voice did not appear on “Kokomo” was reportedly
the result of Dr. Landy forbidding him to attend the session. Many questioned
the ethics of Landy’s unorthodox and expensive treatment, in which
his patient was monitored twenty-four hours a day by the doctor’s staff, who
apparently controlled nearly every aspect of Brian’s life. But Landy did manage
to curb Brian’s drug use and get him into physical shape, making it possible
for him to sign a new record deal with Sire/Warner Bros. and release his
fi rst-ever solo album, Brian Wilson , in the summer of 1988.
Although a somewhat tentative return—thanks in large part to stiff 1980s
production that contrasted the organic sound of his vintage work— Brian
Wilson contained enough moments of emotional and musical truth, such as
the open-hearted ballads “Love and Mercy” and “Melt Away,” to offer hope
to fans.
Indeed, Brian’s return seemed almost miraculous, and it seemed likely that
Landy had saved his life. But Landy’s methods, and the fact that he was now
Wilson’s personal manager and songwriting partner as well as his doctor, was
troubling to many observers. The appearance of impropriety was reinforced
by the voluble Landy’s tendency to make self-aggrandizing media appearances
alongside Brian, who often seemed disengaged.
The situation was apparently a source of concern to Brian’s new label,
which declined to release a second Landy-infl uenced Wilson album, Sweet
Insanity . The apparent confl icts of interest inherent in Landy’s medical, musical,
and business relationships with his patient/client, soon came under legal
and media scrutiny. Brian’s family took legal action, leading to Landy being
forced in 1991 to sever his relationship with Brian, and to surrender his license
to practice psychology in California. By then, Landy had already reportedly
received one third of the $250,000 advance for Brian’s ghostwritten autobiography
Wouldn’t It Be Nice , which portrayed Landy in glowing terms—and
which Brian later claimed not to have even read.
Free of Landy’s infl uence, Brian Wilson turned to more conventional psychiatric
treatment, and tentatively resumed his solo career in the 1990s. He
participated in I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times , a 1995 fi lm documentary
tribute directed by musician/producer Don Was. The same year, Brian rekindled
his collaboration with his Smile -era collaborator Van Dyke Parks on
Orange Crate Art , a collection of California-themed Parks compositions with
Wilson providing lead vocals.
Two years later, Brian teamed with his daughters Carnie and Wendy—
who had already tasted pop stardom as members of Wilson Phillips, a slick
vocal trio that also included Chynna Phillips, daughter John and Michelle
Phillips of 1960s stars the Mamas and the Papas—on the one-off album
The Wilsons .

Meanwhile, the Beach Boys remained a highly profi table touring machine.
1992 saw the band, without Brian, release the oppressively electronic Summer
in Paradise , which served mainly to confi rm fans’ darkest fears of what the
Beach Boys would sound like with Mike Love in charge.
Brian participated in 1996’s equally ill-advised Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1 , a
collection of country artists covering Beach Boys songs, with the band providing
backup harmonies. Brian and the Beach Boys also discussed the possibility
of reuniting for an album of new Wilson songs, but that plan faded when Carl
Wilson died in February 1998, following a long battle with lung cancer.
Brian’s next solo release was 1998’s Imagination , which featured a few
bright spots but suffered from soupy overproduction. More notable than the
album was the fact that, more than three decades after he’d sworn off touring,
Wilson conquered his fears to reinvent himself as a live performer. Fronting a
sympathetic live band that included former Beach Boys sideman Jeffrey Foskett
and the members of the Wilson-infl uenced L.A. alt-pop quartet the Wondermints,
Brian undertook a series of well-received tours, including full
performances of Pet Sounds .
By 1999, no fewer than three Beach Boys–related acts were on the road,
with Brian competing for ticket sales with Mike Love and Bruce Johnston,
who continued to tour under the Beach Boys name, and Al Jardine, performing
with his own group.
In 2004, Brian Wilson shocked even his most optimistic fans by reviving
Smile . Although he’d long declined to discuss his mythic lost album, other than to insist that it would never be released, Brian and band debuted Smile
in concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall on February 20. He released Smile
in a rerecorded studio version recorded with his touring group and incorporating
some newly penned Van Dyke Parks lyrics.
The reappearance of Smile on record and on stage—and the rapturous
response of fans and critics—vindicated Brian Wilson’s expansive musical
vision. Released thirty-eight years after its creator had begun working on it,
Smile still sounded ahead of its time while maintaining a timeless emotional
resonance. The same can be said of all of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys’
best work.

TIMELINE
October 3, 1961
The Beach Boys record their fi rst single, “Surfi n’,” at World Pacifi c Studios in Hollywood.
December 31, 1961
The Beach Boys make their fi rst major public appearance, performing at a Ritchie
Valens Memorial Concert at the Long Beach Civic Auditorium.
May 25, 1963
The Beach Boys score their fi rst Top Ten hit with “Surfi n’ USA,” Brian Wilson’s
reworking of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen.”
December 23, 1964
Brian Wilson suffers an anxiety attack on a fl ight to Houston. He will soon announce
that he will no longer tour with the Beach Boys and will concentrate on writing and
recording.
May 16, 1966
Pet Sounds is released.
August 1966
Brian Wilson begins recording tracks for the projected next Beach Boys album,
Smile .
December 10, 1966
“Good Vibrations” tops the U.S. pop charts.
May 1967
It is offi cially announced that the release of Smile has been canceled.
September 18, 1967
Smiley Smile is released in place of Smile .
August 31, 1970
Sunfl ower , the fi rst album under the Beach Boys’ new deal with Reprise/Warner Bros.,
is released.
June 24, 1974
Capitol Records releases Endless Summer , a compilation of vintage Beach Boys hits
that will spend the next two years on the charts.
June 28, 1976
15 Big Ones , the fi rst Beach Boys album in a decade to be completely produced by
Brian Wilson, is released.
July 12, 1988
Brian Wilson releases his fi rst-ever solo album, simply titled Brian Wilson .
February 20, 2004
Brian Wilson debuts the resurrected Smile in concert at the Royal Festival Hall in
London.
September 28, 2004
Brian Wilson’s newly recorded edition of Smile is released.