Brian Wilson Biography
During more than 30 years in the music industry, Brian Wilson has established himself as one of the most gifted pop songwriters of the 20th
century. As the driving force behind the '60s surf group the Beach Boys, Wilson penned such classics as "Good
Vibrations," "California Girls" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice," songs that have become as much a part of the American psyche as
"Rhapsody in Blue" or "Oklahoma."
Brian Douglas Wilson was born in 1942 in Hawthorne, Calif. He formed the Beach Boys while still in high school with younger brothers Dennis and Carl, cousin Mike Love and their friend Alan
Jardine. Their sound -- intricate harmonies layered over Chuck Berry-style rock 'n' roll -- caught on
immediately; in their first two years of existence, the Beach Boys released seven albums on Capitol Records. By 1966 they had scored nearly two dozen Top 40
hits, including three No. 1 songs, "I Get Around," "Help Me Rhonda" and "Good
Vibrations," all produced by Brian Wilson.
In 1966, at the age of 24, Wilson composed what many believe is his magnum opus, Pet Sounds. Sensing that the tide of American youth culture was turning away from the
vacuous, feel-good pop tunes of the late '50s and early '60s, Wilson sat down and penned 16 highly personal songs about his difficult coming of age in the '60s, with a depth of emotion heretofore unseen in pop music
lyrics. Each track was expertly produced and mixed with multi-layered
instrumentation. It was the Beach Boys first "complete" album.
Pet Sounds was a defining moment in Wilson's career and a turning point in pop music
history. Paul McCartney called the album his "favorite of all time" and the respected British music tabloid New Musical Express named it
"The Greatest Album of All Time."
By the end of the decade, however, Wilson began phasing himself out of the daily operations of the band. Plagued by personal demons that were amplified by his increasing drug
use, Wilson eventually dropped out of the band completely in the early 1970s.
Wilson spent much of the 1970s and '80s living a reclusive lifestyle in his Bel Air mansion under the care of his controversial
therapist, Dr. Eugene Landy. Wilson made sporadic appearances with the Beach Boys, who continued to tour successfully without him on the oldies
circuit.
In 1988 Wilson re-emerged with his long-awaited solo debut, released on Sire
records. The self-titled album, which was, oddly enough, co-produced by Landy, received critical raves but had disappointing
sales.
Wilson teamed up with his longtime friend and collaborator Van Dyke Parks for 1995's Orange Crate Art, a collection of Parks' songs sung by Wilson. That same
year, a documentary feature on Wilson's life, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, was
released. Wilson contributed to the accompanying soundtrack, a collection of Beach Boys
remakes.
In 1998 Wilson experienced a creative rebirth of sorts with the release of Imagination, his first new solo material in 10
years. The up-beat, unified feel of the album, released on Giant Records, is born of Wilson's newfound personal
happiness, including his 1995 marriage to Melinda Ledbetter, his relocation from southern California to rural Illinois and the birth of his daughters Daria and
Delanie. When asked the overall theme of the album, Wilson says, "It's all about this guy named Brian Wilson who's turned his heartaches into
love."
In 2000, the same year that the venerable Pet Sounds finally went platinum, Wilson embarked on an ambitious summer tour, performing Pet Sounds in its
entirety, accompanied by a symphony orchestra
Brian Wilson famously intended the Beach Boys' follow-up to Pet Sounds to be "a teenage symphony to God" that would set a new standard for rock music, trump the Beatles and provide a latter-day crystallization of the American dream. In the summer of 1967, unfortunately, the project he titled Smile was aborted, leaving some of its tracks to be scattered across subsequent albums and others to fester in the vaults. Last year, Wilson and Smile's lyricist, Van Dyke Parks, returned to the material, with a view to tying up its myriad loose ends and giving the work a much-belated public premiere.
Among Wilson aficionados, the response was a very feverish anticipation, which became tangible in the run-up to Smile's February 20th world debut in London's wood-paneled Royal Festival Hall. When Parks took his seat with the band, he received the first of several standing ovations -- and though an introductory set taking in a slew of Beach Boys classics ("God Only Knows," "California Girls") was warmly received, it was clear the audience was desperate to hear the concert's main feature.
When Smile arrived after a twenty-minute interval, it didn't disappoint. Wilson wore his customary cat-caught-in-headlights expression, but he and his ten-piece band -- augmented by strings and horns -- had little to fret about. They capably delivered music that was both complex and epic; better still, Wilson's battle-scarred voice held up admirably well. Even the familiar songs had been retooled and polished anew: The 1967 hit "Heroes and Villains" was stretched into a ten-minute musical drama, and the legendary "Good Vibrations" featured unheard musical passages and changed lyrics.
Perhaps most astonishing of all was a long-lost piece titled "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," originally intended as the "fire" part of a drawn-out "Elements Suite." (In tribute to a celebrated Smile-era recording session, the string players wore toy fire helmets.) By way of reminding us of his talent for altogether more straight-ahead music, Wilson closed the show with a run of early Beach Boys tunes such as "I Get Around" and "Fun, Fun, Fun." The crowd frenziedly danced and hollered along -- and then euphorically spilled out into the
night.
