Beach Boys' Leader Brian Wilson Passes Away at 82

From the suburbs to the national stage

Brian Wilson was born June 20, 1942. His musical gifts were soon obvious, and as a boy he was playing piano and teaching his brothers to sing harmony. The Beach Boys started as a neighborhood act, rehearsing in Brian’s bedroom and in the garage of their house in suburban Hawthorne, California. Surf music, mostly instrumental in its early years, was catching on locally: Dennis Wilson, the group’s only real surfer, suggested they cash in. Brian and Love hastily wrote up their first single, “Surfin,’” a minor hit released in 1961.They wanted to call themselves the Pendletones, in honor of a popular flannel shirt they wore in early publicity photos. But when they first saw the pressings for “Surfin,’” they discovered the record label had tagged them “The Beach Boys.” Other decisions were handled by their father, a musician of some frustration who hired himself as manager and holy terror. By mid-decade, Murry Wilson had been displaced and Brian, who had been running the band’s recording sessions almost from the start, was in charge, making the Beach Boys the rare group of the time to work without an outside producer.Their breakthrough came in early 1963 with “Surfin’ USA,” so closely modeled on Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” that Berry successfully sued to get a songwriting credit. It was their first Top 10 hit and a boast to the nation: “If everybody had an ocean / across the USA / then everybody’d be surfin,’ / like Cali-for-nye-ay.” From 1963-66, they were rarely off the charts, hitting No. 1 with “I Get Around” and “Help Me, Rhonda” and narrowly missing with “California Girls” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.”For television appearances, they wore candy-striped shirts and grinned as they mimed their latest hit, with a hot rod or surfboard nearby.Their music echoed private differences. Wilson often contrasted his own bright falsetto with Love’s nasal, deadpan tenor. The extroverted Love was out front on the fast songs, but when it was time for a slow one, Brian took over. “The Warmth of the Sun” was a song of despair and consolation that Wilson alleged — to some skepticism — he wrote the morning after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. “Don’t Worry Baby,” a ballad equally intoxicating and heartbreaking, was a leading man’s confession of doubt and dependence, an early sign of Brian’s crippling anxieties.Stress and exhaustion led to a breakdown in 1964 and his retirement from touring, his place soon filled by Bruce Johnston, who remained with the group for decades. Wilson was an admirer of Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” productions and emulated him on Beach Boys tracks, adding sleigh bells to “Dance, Dance, Dance” or arranging a mini-theme park of guitar, horns, percussion and organ as the overture to “California Girls.”By the mid-1960s, the Beach Boys were being held up as the country’s answer to the Beatles, a friendly game embraced by each group, transporting pop music to the level of “art” and leaving Wilson a broken man.

The Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson was driven to keep pace with the Beatles after listening to their album "Rubber Soul" for the first time. He promised himself he would not only match them but surpass them. Wilson spent months working on what became his iconic album "Pet Sounds," and months on the single "Good Vibrations." He hired an outside lyricist, Tony Asher, and used various studios with dozens of musicians and instruments ranging from violins to bongos to the harpsichord.The results were momentous, yet disappointing. "Good Vibrations" was the group's first million-seller and "Pet Sounds," which included the hits "Sloop John B" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice," awed McCartney, John Lennon, and Eric Clapton among others. The album was widely regarded as a new kind of rock LP, more suited to headphones than to the radio.But the album didn't chart as highly as previous Beach Boys releases and was treated indifferently by their U.S. record label, Capitol. Meanwhile, the Beatles were absorbing lessons from the Beach Boys and teaching some in return. "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper," the Beatles' next two albums, drew upon the Beach Boys' vocal tapestries and melodic bass lines.The Beatles' epic "A Day in the Life" reconfirmed the British band as kings of the pop world and "Sgt. Pepper" as the album to beat. All eyes turned to Wilson and his intended masterpiece — a "teenage symphony to God" he called "Smile." It was a whimsical cycle of songs on nature and American folklore written with lyricist Van Dyke Parks.The production bordered on method acting; for a song about fire, Wilson wore a fire helmet in the studio. The other Beach Boys were confused, and strained to work with him. A shaken Wilson delayed "Smile," then canceled it. Remnants, including the songs "Heroes and Villains" and "Wind Chimes" were re-recorded and issued in September 1967 on "Smiley Smile."