The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson; their cousin Mike Love; and their friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by their vocal harmonies and early surf songs, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era. The band drew on the music of jazz-based vocal groups, 1950s rock and roll, and black R&B to create their unique sound, and with Brian as producer, composer, and de facto leader, they pioneered novel approaches to popular music form and production. He later arranged his compositions for studio orchestras and explored a variety of other styles, often incorporating classical or jazz elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways.
The Beach Boys began as a garage band, managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, with Brian's increasingly sophisticated talents dominating their creative direction. In 1963, they gained national prominence with a string of hit records reflecting a southern California youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance, later dubbed the "California Sound". After 1964, they abandoned beachgoing themes for more personal lyrics and multi-layered sounds. In 1966, the Pet Sounds album and "Good Vibrations" single raised the group's prestige to the top level of rock innovators and established the band as symbols of the nascent counterculture era. Following the dissolution of the group's Smile project in 1967, Brian gradually ceded production and songwriting duties to the rest of the band, reducing his input because of mental health and substance abuse issues. The group's public image subsequently faltered, and despite efforts to continue their psychedelic ventures and reclaim their hippie audiences, they were dismissed as an embodiment of the values and outlooks shared by early 1960s white, suburban teenagers.
The continued success of their greatest hits albums during the mid 1970s precipitated the band's transition into an oldies act, a move that was denigrated by critics and many fans. Since the 1980s, much-publicized legal wrangling over royalties, songwriting credits and use of the band's name transpired. Dennis drowned in 1983 and Carl died of lung cancer in 1998. After Carl's death, many live configurations of the band fronted by Mike Love and Bruce Johnston continued to tour into the 2000s while other members pursued solo projects. Even though Wilson and Jardine have not performed with Love and Johnston's band since their one-off 2012 reunion tour, they remain a part of the Beach Boys' corporation, Brother Records Inc.
The Beach Boys are one of the most critically acclaimed, commercially successful, and widely influential bands of all time. The group had over eighty songs chart worldwide, thirty-six of them US Top 40 hits (the most by an American rock band), four reaching number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The Beach Boys have sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling bands of all time and are listed at No. 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 2017, a study of AllMusic's catalog indicated the Beach Boys as the 6th most frequently cited artist influence in its database. The core quintet of the three Wilsons, Love and Jardine were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Formation
At the time of his sixteenth birthday on June 20, 1958, Brian Wilson shared a bedroom with his brothers, Dennis and Carl - aged thirteen and eleven, respectively - in their family home in Hawthorne. He had watched his father, Murry Wilson, play piano, and had listened intently to the harmonies of vocal groups such as the Four Freshmen. After dissecting songs such as "Ivory Tower" and "Good News", Brian would teach family members how to sing the background harmonies. For his birthday that year, Brian received a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He learned how to overdub, using his vocals and those of Carl and their mother. Brian played piano with Carl and David Marks, an eleven-year-old longtime neighbor, playing guitars they had each received as Christmas presents.
Soon Brian and Carl were avidly listening to Johnny Otis' KFOX radio show. Inspired by the simple structure and vocals of the rhythm and blues songs he heard, Brian changed his piano-playing style and started writing songs. His enthusiasm interfered with his music studies at school. Family gatherings brought the Wilsons in contact with cousin Mike Love. Brian taught Love's sister Maureen and a friend harmonies. Later, Brian, Mike Love and two friends performed at Hawthorne High School. Brian also knew Al Jardine, a high school classmate. Brian suggested to Jardine that they team up with his cousin and brother Carl. Love gave the fledgling band its name: "The Pendletones", a portmanteau of "Pendleton", a style of woolen shirt popular at the time and "tone", the musical term. Though surfing motifs were prominent in their early songs, Dennis was the only avid surfer in the group. He suggested that the group compose songs that celebrated the sport and the lifestyle that it had inspired in Southern California.
Jardine and a singer friend, Gary Winfrey, went to Brian to see if he could help out with a version of a folk song they wanted to record - "Sloop John B". In Brian's absence, the two spoke with his father, a music industry veteran of modest success. Murry arranged for the Pendletones to meet his publisher, Hite Morgan. The group performed a slower ballad, "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring", but failed to impress Morgan. After an awkward pause, Dennis mentioned they had an original song, "Surfin'". Brian finished the song, and together with Mike Love, wrote "Surfin' Safari". The group rented guitars, drums, amplifiers and microphones, and practiced for three days while the Wilsons' parents were on a short vacation.
In October 1961, the Pendletones recorded the two surfing song demos in twelve takes at Keen Recording Studio. Murry brought the demos to Herb Newman, owner of Candix Records and Era Records, and he signed the group on December 8, 1961. When the boys eagerly unpacked the first box of singles - released both under the Candix label, and also as a promo issue under X Records (Morgan's label) - they were shocked to see their band had been renamed as the Beach Boys. Murry Wilson learned that Candix wanted to name the group the Surfers to directly associate them with the increasingly popular teen sport. But Russ Regan, a young promoter with Era Records - who later became president of 20th Century Fox Records - noted that there already existed a group by that name, and he suggested calling them the Beach Boys.
Beach Themed Living Room Pictures Video
1961-1966: Brian Wilson era
Beach-themed period
Released in December 1961, "Surfin'" soon aired on KFWB and KRLA, two of Los Angeles' most influential teen radio stations. It was a hit on the West Coast, going to number three in Southern California, and peaked at number 75 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. By the final weeks of 1961 "Surfin'" had sold more than 40,000 copies. By this time the de facto manager of the Beach Boys, Murry Wilson landed the group's first paying gig (for which they earned $300, equivalent to $2,400 in 2016) on New Year's Eve, 1961, at the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance in Long Beach, headlined by Ike & Tina Turner. In their earliest public appearances, the band wore heavy wool jacket-like shirts that local surfers favored before switching to their trademark striped shirts and white pants. Murry effectively seized managerial control of the band, and Brian acknowledged that he "deserves credit for getting us off the ground ... he hounded us mercilessly ... [but] also worked hard himself."
In the first half of February 1962, Jardine left the band and was replaced by Marks. The band recorded two more originals on April 19 at Western Studios, Los Angeles: "Lonely Sea" and "409". They also re-recorded "Surfin' Safari". During early 1962, Morgan requested that some of the members add vocals to a couple of instrumental tracks that he had recorded with other musicians. This led to the creation of the short-lived group Kenny & the Cadets, which Brian led under the pseudonym "Kenny". The other members were Carl, Jardine, and the Wilsons' mother Audree.
On June 4, the Beach Boys released their second single "Surfin' Safari" backed with "409". The release prompted national coverage in the June 9 issue of Billboard. The magazine praised Love's lead vocal and said the song had strong hit potential. On July 16, 1962 - after being turned down by Dot and Liberty - the Beach Boys signed a seven-year contract with Capitol Records, based on the strength of the June demo session. This was at the urging of Capitol exec Nick Venet who signed the group, seeing them as the "teenage gold" he had been scouting for. By November, their first album was ready - Surfin' Safari, which reached 32 on the US Billboard charts. Their song output continued along the same commercial line, focusing on California youth lifestyle.
In January 1963, three months after the release of their debut album, the band began recording their sophomore effort, Surfin' U.S.A., a breakthrough for Brian, who began asserting himself as songwriter and arranger. The LP was the start of Brian's penchant for doubletracking vocals, a pioneering innovation. Released on March 25, 1963, Surfin' U.S.A., met a more enthusiastic reception, reaching number two on the Billboard charts. This propelled the band into a nationwide spotlight, and was vital to launching surf music as a national craze. Five days prior to the release of Surfin' U.S.A., Brian produced "Surf City", a song he had written for Jan and Dean. "Surf City" hit number one on the Billboard charts in July 1963, a development that pleased Brian but angered Murry, who felt his son had "given away" what should have been the Beach Boys' first chart-topper.
At the beginning of a tour of the Mid-West in April 1963, Jardine rejoined the Beach Boys at Brian's request. Although he had started playing live gigs again, Brian soon left the road to focus on writing and recording. The result of this arrangement produced the albums Surfer Girl, released on September 16, 1963 and Little Deuce Coupe, released less than a month later on October 7, 1963. This sextet incarnation of the Beach Boys did not extend beyond these two albums, as Marks officially left the band in early October because of conflict with manager Murry, pulling Brian back into touring.
Around this time, Brian began using members of the Wrecking Crew to augment his increasingly demanding studio arrangements. Session musicians that participated on Wilson's productions were said to have been awestruck by his musical abilities. The band released a standalone Christmas-themed single, "Little Saint Nick", in December 1963, backed with an a cappella rendition of the scriptural song "The Lord's Prayer". The A-side peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard Christmas chart.
Following a successful Australasian tour in January and February 1964, the band returned home to face the British Invasion through the Beatles appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Also representing the Beatles, Capitol support for the Beach Boys immediately began waning. This caused Murry to fight for the band at the label more than before, often visiting their offices without warning to "twist executive arms." The band finished the sessions on February 20, 1964 and titled the album Shut Down Volume 2. "Fun, Fun, Fun" was released as a single from the album (backed with "Why Do Fools Fall in Love") and was a major hit. The LP, while containing several filler tracks, was propelled by other songs such as the melancholic "The Warmth of the Sun" and the advanced production style of "Don't Worry Baby".
Brian soon wrote his last surf song in April 1964. That month, during recording of the single "I Get Around", Murry was relieved of his duties as manager. Brian reflected, "We love the family thing - y'know: three brothers, a cousin and a friend is a really beautiful way to have a group - but the extra generation can become a hang-up." When the single was released in May of that year, it would climb to number one, their first single to do so, proving that the Beach Boys could compete with contemporary British pop groups. Two months later, the album that the song appeared on, All Summer Long, reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 charts. All Summer Long introduced exotic textures to the Beach Boys' sound exemplified by the piccolos and xylophones of its title track. The album was a swan-song to the surf and car music the Beach Boys built their commercial standing upon. Later albums took a different stylistic and lyrical path. Before this, a live album, Beach Boys Concert, was released in October to a four-week chart stay at number one, containing a set list of previously recorded hits and covers that they had not yet recorded.
Today! and Summer Days
In June 1964, Brian began recording the bulk of The Beach Boys' Christmas Album with a forty-one-piece studio orchestra in collaboration with Four Freshmen arranger Dick Reynolds. Released in December, it was divided between five new, original Christmas-themed songs, and seven reinterpretations of traditional Christmas songs. It would be regarded as one of the finest holiday albums of the rock era. One single from the album, "The Man with All the Toys", was released, peaking at No. 6 on the US Billboard Christmas chart. On October 29, the Beach Boys performed for The T.A.M.I. Show, a concert film intended to bring together a wide range of hit-making musicians for a one-off performance. The result was released to movie theaters one month later.
By the end of the year, the stress of road travel, composing, producing and maintaining a high level of creativity became too much for Brian. On December 23, while on a flight from Los Angeles to Houston, he suffered a panic attack only hours after performing with the Beach Boys on the musical variety series Shindig!. In January 1965, he announced his withdrawal from touring to concentrate entirely on songwriting and record production. For the rest of 1964 and into 1965, Glen Campbell served as Wilson's temporary replacement in concert, until his own career success pulled him from touring with the group in April 1965. Bruce Johnston was asked to locate a replacement for Campbell; having failed to find one, Johnston himself became a full-time member of the band on May 19, 1965, first replacing Brian on the road and later contributing in the studio, beginning with the vocal sessions for "California Girls" on June 4, 1965.
After Brian stopped touring in 1965, he became a full-time studio artist, showcasing a great leap forward with The Beach Boys Today!, an album containing a suite-like structure divided by songs and ballads, and portended the Album Era with its cohesive artistic statement. During the recording sessions for Today!, Love told Melody Maker that he and the band wanted to look beyond surf rock and to avoid living in the past or resting on their laurels. The resulting LP had largely guitar-oriented pop songs such as "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Good to My Baby" on side A with B-side ballads such as "Please Let Me Wonder" and "She Knows Me Too Well".
Today! established the Beach Boys as album artists and marked a maturation in their lyric content by abandoning themes related to surfing, cars, or teenage love. Some love songs remained, but with a marked increase in depth, along with introspective tracks accompanied by adventurous and distinct arrangements. While the band's contemporaries grew more intellectually aware, Capitol continued to bill them as "America's Top Surfin' Group!" expecting Brian to write more surfing material for the yearly summer markets despite his disinterest.
In June 1965, the band released Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!). The album included a reworked arrangement of "Help Me, Rhonda" which became the band's second number one single in the spring of 1965, displacing the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride". "Let Him Run Wild" tapped into the youthful angst that later pervaded their music. In November 1965, the group followed their US number-three-charting "California Girls" from Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) with another top-twenty single, "The Little Girl I Once Knew". It was considered the band's most experimental statement thus far, using silence as a pre-chorus, clashing keyboards, moody brass and vocal tics. The single continued Brian's ambitions for daring arrangements, featuring unexpected tempo changes and numerous false endings. Perhaps too extreme an arrangement to go much higher than its number 20 peak, it was the band's second single not to reach the top ten since their 1962 breakthrough.
Capitol demanded a Beach Boys LP for the 1965 Christmas season, and to appease them, Brian conceived Beach Boys' Party!, a live-in-the-studio album consisting mostly of acoustic covers of 1950s rock and R&B songs, in addition to covers of three Beatles songs, Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'", and idiosyncratic rerecordings of the group's earlier hits. In December they scored an unexpected number two hit (number three in the UK) with "Barbara Ann", which Capitol released as a single with no band input. Originally by the Regents, it became one of the Beach Boys' most recognized hits.
Pet Sounds
In 1966, the Beach Boys formally established their use of unconventional instruments and elaborate layers of vocal harmonies on their album Pet Sounds. It is considered Brian's most concise demonstration of his production and songwriting expertise. With songs such as "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "Sloop John B", the album's innovative soundscape incorporates elements of jazz, classical, pop, exotica, and the avant-garde. The instrumentation combines found sounds such as bicycle bells and dog whistles with classically inspired orchestrations and the usual rock set-up of drums and guitars; among others, silverware, accordions, plucked piano strings, barking dogs, and plastic water jugs. For the basic rhythmic feel for "God Only Knows", harpsichord, piano with slapback echo, sleigh bells, and strings spilled into each other to create a rich blanket of sound.
Released in May, Pet Sounds peaked at No. 10 in the US and No. 2 in the UK. This helped the Beach Boys become the strongest selling album group in the UK for the final quarter of 1966, dethroning the three-year reign of native bands such as the Beatles. Met with a lukewarm critical reception in the US, Pet Sounds was indifferently promoted by Capitol and failed to become the major hit Wilson had hoped it would be. Its failure to gain a wider recognition in the U.S. combined with Capitol's decision to issue Best of The Beach Boys in July dispirited Brian, who considered Pet Sounds an extremely personal work. Some assumed that the label considered the album a risk, appealing more to an older demographic than the younger, female audience the Beach Boys built their commercial standing on. Pet Sounds sales numbered approximately 500,000 units, a significant drop-off from the chain of million-selling albums that immediately preceded it. Best of The Beach Boys was quickly certified Gold by the RIAA.
Pet Sounds is considered by some as a Brian Wilson solo album in all but name, as other members contributed relatively little to the compositions or recordings. Influenced by psychedelic drugs, Brian turned inward and probed his deep-seated self-doubts and emotional longings; the piece did not address the problems in the world around them, unlike other psychedelic rock groups. As Jim Miller wrote of the album's tone, "[It] vented Wilson's obsession with isolation cataloging a forlorn quest for security. The whole enterprise, which smacked of song cycle pretensions, was streaked with regret and romantic languor." According to Brian, the album was designed as a collection of art pieces that belong together yet could stand alone. In a 1972 retrospective review of the album, music journalist Stephen Davis wrote: "From first cut to last we were treated to an intense, linear personal vision of the vagaries of a love affair and the painful, introverted anxieties that are the wrenching precipitates of the unstable chemistry of any love relationship. This trenchant cycle of love songs has the emotional impact of a shatteringly evocative novel ... nobody was prepared for anything so soulful, so lovely, something one had to think about so much."
Pet Sounds was massively influential upon its release, vaunting the band to the top level of rock innovators. It is one of the earliest rock concept albums, one of the earliest concept albums of the counterculture era, and an early album in the emerging psychedelic rock style, signaling a turning point wherein rock, which previously had been considered dance music, became music that was made for listening to. In 2016, The Guardian's Barbara Ellen reflected that the album was "hailed as a revolution in harmonies and production techniques ... Wilson single-handedly reinvented the album as the in-depth illumination of an artist's soul, kicking open a creative fire-door, liberating the album to exist as a self-contained art form on a par with literature, theatre, art, cinema, dance... anything the artist desired." Reflecting on the album on its 50th anniversary, PopMatters' Danilo Castro added:
The resulting recordings were colossal achievements, as conventional instruments seamlessly meshed with glockenspiels, ukulele, Electro-Theremin, bongos, and harpsichords. ... His insistence upon exact musical cues, unconventional structure, and experimental trickery made for a final product that radiates originality. ... Praised by every rocker from the Beatles to Bob Dylan, the latter who said Wilson's left ear should be donated to the Smithsonian, the Beach Boys were suddenly spearheading the pop revolution. ... Since that day in May ... Pet Sounds has become a pillar of pop excellence. ... it's restructured the landscape of modern music in its image.
In The Album: A Guide to Pop Music's Most Provocative, Influential, and Important Creations, author James Perone championed the album for its complex orchestrations, sophisticated compositions, and varied tone colors, calling it a remove from "just about anything else that was going on in 1966 pop music." In 1976, journalist Robin Denselow wrote: "With the 1966 Pet Sounds album ... Wilson had become America's equivalent of the Beatles with his ability to expand the limits of popular taste." Paul McCartney named it one of his favorite albums of all time on multiple occasions, calling it the primary impetus for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). In 2003, Pet Sounds was ranked second in "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list selected by Rolling Stone, behind only Sgt. Pepper. In 2004, the album was acknowledged as an important historical and cultural work by the Library of Congress.
"Good Vibrations" and Smile
Seeking to expand on Pet Sounds' advances, Wilson began an even more ambitious project: "Good Vibrations". Like Pet Sounds, Brian opted for an eclectic array of instruments rarely heard in pop music. Described by Brian as a "pocket symphony", it contains a mixture of classical, rock, and exotic instruments structured around a cut-up mosaic of musical sections represented by several discordant key and modal shifts. It became the Beach Boys' biggest hit to date, and a US and UK number one single in 1966. Coming at a time when pop singles were usually made in under two hours, it was one of the most complex pop productions ever undertaken, and the most expensive single ever recorded to that point. The production costs were estimated between $50,000 and $75,000, with sessions for the song stretching over several months in at least four major studios. According to Domenic Priore, the making of "Good Vibrations" was unlike anything previous in the realms of classical, jazz, international, soundtrack, or any other kind of recording.
The single was an unequivocal milestone in studio productions, and continued in establishing Brian as an extender of popular tastes. To the counterculture of the 1960s, "Good Vibrations" served as an anthem. Rock critic Gene Sculatti prophesied in 1968, "[It] may yet prove to be the most significantly revolutionary piece of the current rock renaissance." Its instrumentation included Paul Tanner's Electro-Theremin, a manually-operated oscillator with a sound similar to a theremin, which helped the Beach Boys claim a new hippie audience. Upon release, the single prompted an unexpected revival in theremins while increasing awareness of analog synthesizers, leading Moog Music to produce their own brand of ribbon-controlled instruments. Reflecting on this period in 1971, Cue magazine wrote: "In the year and a half that followed Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys were among the vanguard in practically every aspect of the counter culture - psychedelia, art rock, a return to roots, ecology, organic food, the cooled-out sound - anticipating changes that rock didn't accomplish until 1969-1970." The group established a short-lived film production company, called Home Movies, during this time. It was supposed to have created live action film and television properties starring the Beach Boys. However, the company completed only one music video, for "Good Vibrations", though various other psychedelic sequences and segments exist.
Brian met lyricist and musician Van Dyke Parks while working on Pet Sounds. A year later, while in the midst of recording "Good Vibrations", the duo began an intense collaboration that resulted in a suite of challenging new songs for the Beach Boys' forthcoming album Smile, intended to surpass Pet Sounds. Recording for the album spanned about a year, from 1966 to 1967. Wilson and Parks intended Smile to be a continuous suite of songs that were linked both thematically and musically, with the main songs being linked together by small vocal pieces and instrumental segments that elaborated upon the musical themes of the major songs. Surviving recordings have shown that the music incorporated chanting, cowboy songs, explorations in Indian and Hawaiian music, jazz, tone poems with classical elements, cartoon sound effects, musique concrète, and yodeling.
In October 1966 interviews, Brian touted the album as "a teenage symphony to God". His spiritual aims were made explicit in the album's musical contents and lyrics, which also included existential angst, the exploration of human innocence, and the philosophy of childlikeness. Parks has stated: he and Brian were conscious of the counterculture, and the two had felt estranged from it, but it was necessary to adhere to because of a willingness to "get out of the Eisenhower mindset." Parks stresses, "At the same time, he didn't want to lose that kind of gauche sensibility that he had. He was doing stuff that nobody would dream of doing," citing an instance when Brian instructed a banjo player to play only one string, a "gauche" style of playing that "just wasn't done."
Smile would go on to become the most legendary unreleased album in the history of popular music. In the decades following its non-release, it became the subject of intense speculation and mystique. Many believe that, had the album been released, it would have substantially altered the group's direction and established them at the vanguard of rock innovators. Writing about the album for the 33 1/3 book series, Luis Sanchez stated: "If Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were going to survive as the defining force of American pop music they were, Smile was a conscious attempt to rediscover the impulses and ideas that power American consciousness from the inside out. It was a collaboration that led to some incredible music, which, if it had been completed as an album and delivered to the public in 1966, might have had an incredible impact."
If released when intended, composer Frank Oteri believes the album would have been the first piece of album-oriented rock. Its cover artwork, now considered iconic, depicted an illustration of a store selling smiles, also would have been among the earliest covers by a popular music group to feature original, specifically commissioned artwork rather than a photograph of the performers. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, bootlegs from its recording sessions leaked, inspiring many attempts to reassemble the album, and ultimately becoming a progenitor for indie rock.
Many factors combined to put intense pressure on Brian Wilson as Smile neared completion: his mental instability, the pressure to create despite fierce internal opposition to his new music, the relatively unenthusiastic response to Pet Sounds in the United States, and Carl Wilson's draft resistance. Furthermore, Wilson's reliance on both prescription drugs and amphetamines exacerbated his underlying mental health problems. Comparable to Brian Jones and Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson's use of psychedelic drugs led to a nervous breakdown in the late-1960s. As his legend grew, the Smile period came to be seen as the pivotal episode in his decline, and he became tagged as a drug casualty.
1967-1977: fluctuating leadership
Smiley Smile and Wild Honey
Some Smile tracks were salvaged and re-recorded in scaled-down versions at Brian's new home studio. Along with the single version of "Good Vibrations", these tracks were released on the September 1967 album Smiley Smile, which elicited positive critical and commercial response abroad, but was the first real commercial failure for the group in the U.S. Compounding the group's recent setbacks, their public image took a cataclysmic hit following their withdrawal from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival for the reason that they had no new material to play while their forthcoming single and album lay in limbo. Their cancellation was seen as "...a damning admission that they were washed up [and] unable to compete with the new music." This notion was exacerbated by Rolling Stone writer Jann Wenner, who in contemporary publications criticized Brian Wilson for his oft-repeated "genius" label, which he called a "promotional shuck" and an attempt to compare him with the Beatles.
While being interviewed in August 1967 for the aborted live album Lei'd in Hawaii, Brian stated: "I think rock n' roll-the pop scene-is happening. It's great. But I think basically, the Beach Boys are squares. We're not happening." Former band publicist Derek Taylor later recalled a conversation with Brian and Dennis where they denied that the group had ever written surf music or songs about cars, and that the Beach Boys had never been involved with the surf and hot rod fads, as Taylor claimed, "...they would not concede." As a result of their initial target demographic and subsequent failures to blend with the hippie movement, the group was viewed as unhip relics, even though they had once been, as biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote, "the absolute center of the American rock 'n' roll scene," a time when they had ushered the psychedelic era. In early 1969, Brian proposed that the group change their name from "the Beach Boys" to "the Beach", reasoning that the band members were now grown men. Going to the effort of acquiring a contract that would declare a five-way agreement to officially rename the group, Stephen Desper reported, "They all just kind of shrugged and said, 'Aw, come on, Brian, we don't wanna do that. That's how the public knows us, man. And that was it. He put the paper on the piano and it stayed there until I picked it up and took it away."
In 1966, the group had filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court against Capitol Records for over two million dollars, which briefly severed their relationship with the label. At this time the Beach Boys' management (Nick Grillo and David Anderle) created the band's own record label, Brother. One of the first labels owned by a rock group The initial output of the label, however, was limited to Smiley Smile and two resulting singles from the album.
After the cancellation of Smile, some of its tracks continued to trickle out in later albums often as filler songs to offset Brian's unwillingness to contribute. Smiley Smile was followed up three months later with Wild Honey, featuring mostly new songs written by Wilson and Love, including the number-nineteen single "Darlin'". The album fared better than its predecessor, reaching No. 24 in the U.S. Wenner responded to the new album with more optimism, remarking two months later that "[in] any case it's good to see that the Beach Boys are getting their heads straight once again".
Friends and 20/20
After meeting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a UNICEF Variety Gala in Paris, France on December 15, 1967, Love, along with other high-profile celebrities such as Donovan and the Beatles traveled to Rishikesh in India during February and March 1968. The following Beach Boys album Friends (1968) had songs influenced by the Transcendental Meditation taught by the Maharishi. The album reached No. 13 in the UK and 126 in the US, the title track placing at No. 25 in the UK and No. 47 in the US, the band's lowest singles peak since 1962. In support of the Friends album, Love had arranged for the Beach Boys to tour with the Maharishi in the U.S., which has been called "one of the more bizarre entertainments of the era." Starting on May 3, 1968, the tour lasted five shows and was cancelled when the Maharishi had to withdraw to fulfill film contracts. Because of disappointing audience numbers and the Maharishi's withdrawal, twenty-four tour dates were subsequently canceled at a cost estimated at US$250,000 (approximately US$1,630,000 today) for the band. This tour was followed by the release of "Do It Again", a single that critics described as an update of the Beach Boys' surf rock past in a late 1960s style. The single went to the top of the Australian and UK single charts in 1968 and was moderately successful in the US, peaking at No. 20.
For a short time in mid-1968, Brian Wilson sought psychological treatment in hospital. During his absence, other members began writing and producing material themselves. To complete their contract with Capitol, they produced one more album. 20/20 (1969) was one of the group's most stylistically diverse albums, including hard rock songs such as "All I Want to Do", the waltz-based "Time to Get Alone", and a cover of the Ronettes' "I Can Hear Music". The diversity of genres have been described as an indicator that the group was trying to establish an updated identity. The album performed strongly in the UK, reaching number three on the charts. In the US, the album reached a modest 68.
In spring 1968, Dennis befriended Charles Manson, an aspiring singer-songwriter, and their relationship lasted for several months. Dennis bought him time at Brian's home studio where recording sessions were attempted while Brian stayed in his room. Dennis then proposed that Manson be signed to Brother Records. Brian reportedly disliked Manson, and so a deal was never made. The Beach Boys recorded one song penned by Manson without his involvement: "Cease to Exist", rewritten as "Never Learn Not to Love". The idea of the Beach Boys recording one of his songs reportedly thrilled Manson, and it was released as a Beach Boys single. After accruing a large monetary debt to the group, Dennis deliberately omitted Manson's credit on its release while also altering the song's arrangement and lyrics. This greatly angered Manson. Growing fearful, Dennis gradually distanced himself from Manson, whose cult of followers had taken over his home. He was eventually convicted for several counts of murder and conspiracy to murder. From there on, Dennis was too afraid of the Manson family to ever speak publicly on his association, or even to testify against him.
On April 12, 1969, the band revisited their 1967 lawsuit against Capitol Records after they alleged an audit undertaken revealed the band were owed over US$2,000,000 (US$13,060,000 today) for unpaid royalties and production duties. The band's contract with Capitol Records expired on June 30, 1969, after which Capitol Records deleted the Beach Boys' catalog from print, effectively cutting off their royalty flow. In November 1969, Murry Wilson sold Sea of Tunes, the Beach Boys' catalog, to Irving Almo Music, a decision that, according to Marilyn Wilson, devastated Brian. In late 1969, the Beach Boys reactivated their Brother label and signed with Reprise. Around this time, the band commenced recording a new album. By the time the Beach Boys tenure ended with Capitol in 1969, they had sold 65 million records worldwide, closing the decade as the most commercially successful American group in popular music.
Sunflower, Surf's Up, So Tough, and Holland
In 1970, armed with the new Reprise contract, the band appeared rejuvenated, releasing the album Sunflower to critical acclaim in the UK but indifference in the US. The album features a strong group presence with significant writing contributions from all band members. Brian was active during this period, writing or co-writing seven of the twelve songs on Sunflower and performing at half of the band's domestic concerts in 1970. Sunflower reached number 29 in the UK and number 151 in the US, the band's lowest domestic chart showing to that point.
After Sunflower, the band hired Jack Rieley as their manager. Under Rieley's management, the group's music began emphasizing political and social awareness. During this time, Carl Wilson gradually assumed leadership of the band and Rieley contributed lyrics. On August 30, 1971 the band released Surf's Up, named after the Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks composition "Surf's Up". The album was moderately successful, reaching the US top 30, a marked improvement over their recent releases. While the record charted, the Beach Boys added to their renewed fame by performing a near-sellout set at Carnegie Hall, followed by an appearance with the Grateful Dead at Fillmore East on April 27, 1971. The live shows during this era included reworked arrangements of many of the band's previous songs. A large portion of their set lists culled from Pet Sounds and Smile, as author Domenic Priore observes, "They basically played what they could have played at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967."
Johnston ended his first stint with the band shortly after Surf's Up's release, reportedly because of friction with Rieley. At Carl's suggestion, the addition of Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin in February 1972 led to a dramatic restructuring in the band's sound. The album Carl and the Passions - "So Tough" was an uncharacteristic mix that included two songs written by Fataar and Chaplin.
For their next project the band, their families, assorted associates and technicians moved to the Netherlands for the summer of 1972. They rented a farmhouse to convert into a makeshift studio where recording sessions for the new project would take place. By the end of their sessions, the band felt they had produced one of their strongest efforts yet. Reprise, however, felt that the album required a strong single. This resulted in the song "Sail On, Sailor", a collaboration between Brian Wilson, Tandyn Almer, Ray Kennedy, Jack Rieley and Van Dyke Parks featuring a soulful lead vocal by Chaplin. Reprise subsequently approved and the resulting album, Holland, was released early in 1973, peaking at number 37. Brian's musical children story, Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale), narrated by Rieley and strongly influenced by Randy Newman's Sail Away (1972), was included as a bonus EP. Despite indifference from Reprise, the band's concert audience started to grow.
The Beach Boys in Concert, a double album documenting the 1972 and 1973 U.S. tours, was another top-30 album and became the band's first gold record under Reprise. During this period the band established itself as one of America's most popular live acts. Chaplin and Fataar helped organize the concerts to obtain a high quality live performance, playing material off Surf's Up, Carl and the Passions and Holland and adding songs from their older catalog. This concert arrangement lifted them back into American public prominence. In late 1973, the 41-song soundtrack to American Graffiti was released including the band's early songs "Surfin' Safari" and "All Summer Long". The album was a catalyst in creating a wave of nostalgia that reintroduced the Beach Boys into contemporary American consciousness. In 1974, Capitol Records issued Endless Summer, the band's first major pre-Pet Sounds greatest hits package. The compilation surged to the top of the Billboard album charts and was the group's first multi-million selling record since "Good Vibrations". It remained on the charts for two years. Capitol followed with a second compilation, Spirit of America, which also sold well. With these compilations, the Beach Boys became one of the most popular acts in rock, propelling themselves from opening for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to headliners selling out basketball arenas in a matter of weeks. Rolling Stone named the Beach Boys the "Band of the Year" for 1974.
Rieley, who remained in the Netherlands after Holland's release, was relieved of his managerial duties in late 1973. Chaplin also left in late 1973 after an argument with Steve Love, the band's business manager (and Mike's brother). Fataar remained until 1974, when he was offered a chance to join a new group led by future Eagles member Joe Walsh. Chaplin's replacement, James William Guercio, started offering the group career advice that resulted in his becoming their new manager. Under Guercio, the Beach Boys staged a highly successful 1975 joint concert tour with Chicago, with each group performing some of the other's songs, including their previous year's collaboration on Chicago's hit "Wishing You Were Here". Beach Boys vocals were also heard on Elton John's 1974 hit "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me". Nostalgia had settled into the Beach Boys' hype; the group had not officially released any new material since 1973's Holland. While their concerts continuously sold out, the stage act slowly changed from a contemporary presentation followed by oldies encores to an entire show made up of mostly pre-1967 music.
15 Big Ones and Love You
Recorded in the wake of California Music's demise, a supergroup that would have involved Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnston, and record producer Terry Melcher, 15 Big Ones (1976) marked Brian's return as a major force in the group. The album included new songs by Brian, as well as cover versions of oldies such as "Rock and Roll Music", "Blueberry Hill", and "In the Still of the Night". "Rock and Roll Music" peaked at No. 5 in the U.S. Brian and Love's "It's O.K." was in the vein of their early sixties style, and was a moderate hit. The album was publicized by an August 1976 NBC-TV special, simply titled The Beach Boys. The special, produced by Saturday Night Live (SNL) creator Lorne Michaels, featured appearances by SNL cast members John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd.
The album was generally disliked by fans and critics upon release. During its sessions, Brian's production role was belittled as group members overdubbed and remixed tracks to fight against his desire for a rough, unfinished sound. Carl and Dennis disparaged the album to the press while Brian admitted, "[Undoubtedly] the new album is nothing too deep", but remained hopeful that their next release would be on par with the group's "Good Vibrations".
For the remainder of 1976 to early 1977, Brian spent his time making sporadic public appearances and producing the band's next album Love You (1977), a quirky collection of 14 songs mostly written, arranged and produced by Brian. Brian revealed to Peter Ames Carlin that Love You is one of his favorite Beach Boys releases, telling him "That's when it all happened for me. That's where my heart lies." Love You peaked at No. 28 in the UK and No. 53 in the US and developed a cult following; regarded as one of the band's best albums by fans and critics alike, and an early work of synthpop.
Referring to "naysayers" of the album, the underground fanzine Scram wrote, "Fuck [them] ... [the album showcases] a truly original mix of humor and sadness. The original numbers always dance just a step away from the cliché, dealing with simple lyrical themes that make you wonder why they had never been explored before." The A.V. Club - considering the album in "the same vein" as Tonight's the Night (1975), Pussy Cats (1974), The Madcap Laughs (1970), and Barrett (1970) - described Love You as: "something almost desperately optimistic ... Wilson sings frayed songs about roller-skating, road-tripping, and Johnny Carson - like a frazzled man sitting in a corner chanting 'calm blue ocean' over and over. It's a beautiful, noisy, funny, heartbreaking work of art - one not for everybody, yet vital for anyone who wants to understand Wilson's overall worldview."
After Love You was released, Brian began to record and assemble Adult/Child, an unreleased effort largely consisting of songs written by Wilson from 1976 and 1977 with select big band arrangements by Dick Reynolds. Though publicized as the Beach Boys' next release, Adult/Child caused tension within the group and was ultimately shelved. Following this period, his concert appearances with the band gradually diminished and their performances were occasionally erratic.
1978-present
Internal divisions and personal struggles
The internal wrangling came to a head after a show at Central Park on September 1, 1977, when the band effectively split into two camps; Dennis and Carl Wilson on one side, Mike Love and Al Jardine on the other with Brian remaining neutral. Following a confrontation on an airport tarmac, Dennis declared to Rolling Stone on September 3 that he had left the band: "It was Al Jardine who really knifed me in the heart when he said they didn't need me. That was the clincher. And all I told him was that he couldn't play more than four chords. They kept telling me I had my solo album now [Pacific Ocean Blue], like I should go off in a corner and leave the Beach Boys to them. The album really bothers them. They don't like to admit it's doing so well; they never even acknowledge it in interviews."
The band broke up for two and a half weeks, until a meeting on September 17 at Brian's house. In light of a potential new Caribou Records contract the parties negotiated a settlement resulting in Love gaining control of Brian's vote in the group, allowing Love and Jardine to outvote Carl and Dennis Wilson on any matter.
Dennis started to withdraw from the group to focus on his second solo album entitled Bambu. The album was shelved just as alcoholism and marital problems overcame all three Wilson brothers. Carl appeared intoxicated during concerts (especially at appearances for their 1978 Australia tour) and Brian gradually slid back into addiction and an unhealthy lifestyle. Love remembered: "We were in Australia, and the Wilsons were upset that some of us were not trying heroin with them. That was a division. ... Brian, Carl and Dennis were into one lifestyle, whereas myself and Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston were not."
The Beach Boys' last album for Reprise, M.I.U. Album (1978), was recorded at Maharishi International University in Iowa at the suggestion of Love. Dennis and Carl made limited contributions; the album was mostly produced by Jardine and Ron Altbach, with Brian credited as "executive producer". M.I.U. was largely a contractual obligation to finish out their association with Reprise, who likewise did not promote the result. The record cemented the divisions in the group. Love and Jardine focused on rock and roll-oriented material while Carl and Dennis chose the progressive focus they had established with the albums Carl and the Passions and Holland.
After departing Reprise, the Beach Boys signed with CBS Records. They received a substantial advance and were paid $1 million per album even as CBS deemed their preliminary review of the band's first product, L.A. (Light Album) as unsatisfactory. Faced with the realization that Brian was unable to contribute, the band recruited Johnston as producer. The result paid off, as "Good Timin'" became a top 40 single. The group enjoyed moderate success with a disco reworking of the Wild Honey song "Here Comes the Night", followed by Jardine's "Lady Lynda". The album was followed in 1980 by Keepin' the Summer Alive, with Johnston once again producing. Dennis was absent for most of this album.
In 1981, Carl left the touring group because of unhappiness with the band's nostalgia format and lackluster live performances, subsequently pursuing a solo career. He stated: "I haven't quit the Beach Boys but I do not plan on touring with them until they decide that 1981 means as much to them as 1961." He returned in May 1982 - after approximately 14 months of being away - on the condition that the group reconsider their rehearsal and touring policies and refrain from "Las Vegas-type" engagements.
From 1980 through 1982, the Beach Boys and The Grass Roots performed Independence Day concerts at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting large crowds. However, in April 1983, James G. Watt, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, banned Independence Day concerts on the Mall by such groups. Watt said that "rock bands" that had performed on the Mall on Independence Day in 1981 and 1982 had encouraged drug use and alcoholism and had attracted "the wrong element", who would steal from attendees. During the ensuing uproar, which included over 40,000 complaints to the Department of the Interior, the Beach Boys stated that the Soviet Union, which had invited them to perform in Leningrad in 1978, "...obviously ... did not feel that the group attracted the wrong element." Vice President George H. W. Bush said of the Beach Boys, "They're my friends and I like their music". Watt later apologized to the band after learning that President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were fans. White House staff presented Watt with a plaster foot with a hole in it, showing that he had "shot himself in the foot". The band returned to D.C. for Independence Day in 1984 and performed to a crowd of 750,000 people.
Deaths of Dennis and Carl
In 1983, tensions between Dennis and Love escalated so high that each obtained a restraining order against each other. With the rest of the band fearing that he would end up like Brian, Dennis was given an ultimatum after his last performance in November 1983 to check into rehab for his alcohol problems or be banned from performing live with them. Dennis checked into rehab for his chance to get sober, but on December 28, 1983, he fatally drowned in Marina del Rey while diving from a friend's boat trying to recover items that he had previously thrown overboard in fits of rage. Despite his death, the Beach Boys continued as a successful touring act.
On July 4, 1985, the Beach Boys played to an afternoon crowd of one million in Philadelphia and the same evening they performed for over 750,000 people on the Mall in Washington. They also appeared nine days later at the Live Aid concert. That year, they released the eponymous album The Beach Boys and enjoyed a resurgence of interest later in the 1980s, assisted by tributes such as David Lee Roth's hit version of "California Girls". "Getcha Back", released from the album, gave the group a No. 26 single in the U.S. Following this, the group put out "Rock 'n' Roll to the Rescue" (U.S., No. 68) and a cover of the Mamas & the Papas' "California Dreamin'" (U.S., No. 57). In 1987, they played with the rap group The Fat Boys, performing the song "Wipe Out" and filming a music video. It was a No. 12 single in the US and a No. 2 rank in the UK.
By 1988, Brian had drifted from the Beach Boys and released his first solo album, Brian Wilson. During this period the band unexpectedly claimed their first U.S. No. 1 hit single in 22 years with "Kokomo", which had appeared in the movie Cocktail, and soon became the band's largest selling single of all time. They released the album Still Cruisin, which went gold in the U.S. In 1990, the band gathered several studio musicians and recorded the Melcher-produced title track of the comedy Problem Child. The album Summer in Paradise, had no new contributions from Brian because of interference from caretaker Eugene Landy.
A lawsuit was filed by Brian in 1989 to reclaim the rights to his songs and the group's publishing company, Sea of Tunes, which he had supposedly signed away to his father Murry in 1969. He successfully argued that he had not been mentally fit to make an informed decision and that his father had potentially forged his signature. While Wilson failed to regain his copyrights, he was awarded $25 million for unpaid royalties. With Love and Brian unable to determine exactly what Love was properly owed, Love sued Brian in 1992, winning $13 million in 1994 for lost royalties. 35 of the group's songs were then amended to credit Love.
In 1993, the band appeared in Michael Feeney Callan's film The Beach Boys Today, which included in-depth interviews with all members except Brian. Carl confided to Callan that Brian would record again with the band at some point in the near future. A few Beach Boys sessions devoted to new Brian Wilson compositions occurred during the mid-1990s, but they remain largely unreleased, and the album was quickly cancelled because of personal conflicts. In February 1996, the Beach Boys guested with Status Quo on a re-recording of "Fun, Fun, Fun", which became a British Top-30 hit. In June, the group worked with comedian Jeff Foxworthy on the recording Howdy From Maui, and eventually released Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 in August 1996. The album consisted of country renditions of several Beach Boys hits, performed by popular country artists such as Toby Keith and Willie Nelson. Brian, who was in a better mental state at the time, acted as co-producer.
In early 1997, Carl was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer after years of heavy smoking. Despite his terminal condition, Carl continued to perform with the band on its 1997 summer tour while undergoing chemotherapy. During performances, he sat on a stool and needed oxygen after every song. However, Carl was able to stand when he played on "God Only Knows". Carl died on February 6, 1998, two months after the death of the Wilsons' mother, Audree, leaving Brian, Jardine and Love as the three remaining original members.
Band split and name conflicts
Following Carl's death, the remaining members splintered. Love and Johnston, occasionally with David Marks, continued to tour together, initially as "America's Band", but following several cancelled bookings under that name, they sought authorization through Brother Records Inc. (BRI) to tour as "The Beach Boys" and secured the necessary license. In turn, Jardine left the band and began to tour regularly with his band "Beach Boys: Family & Friends" until he ran into legal issues for using the name without license. Meanwhile, Jardine sued Love, claiming that he had been excluded from their concerts. BRI, through its longtime attorney, Ed McPherson, sued Jardine in Federal Court. Jardine, in turn, counter-claimed against BRI for wrongful termination. BRI ultimately prevailed. Love and Johnston continued to tour as "The Beach Boys" with supporting musicians.
Brian Wilson sought treatments for his illnesses that aided him in his solo career. He toured regularly with his backing band consisting of members of Wondermints and other LA/Chicago musicians. Marks also maintained a solo career. The surviving group members appeared as themselves for the 1998 documentary film Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story, directed by Alan Boyd. Following the success of 1997's The Pet Sounds Sessions, many compilations were then issued by Capitol containing new archival material: Endless Harmony Soundtrack (1998), Ultimate Christmas (1998), and Hawthorne, CA (2001).
In 2004, Wilson recorded and released his solo album Brian Wilson Presents Smile, a reinterpretation of the Smile project that he initiated with the Beach Boys 36 years earlier. That September, Wilson issued a free CD through the Mail On Sunday that included Beach Boys songs he had recently rerecorded, five of which he co-authored with Love. The 10 track compilation had 2.6 million copies distributed and prompted Love to file a lawsuit in November 2005; he claimed the promotion hurt the sales of the original recordings. Love's suit was dismissed in 2007 when a judge determined that there were no triable issues.
On June 13, 2006, the five surviving Beach Boys (Wilson, Love, Jardine, Johnston, and Marks) appeared together for the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds and the double-platinum certification of their greatest hits compilation, Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys, in a ceremony atop the Capitol Records building in Hollywood. Plaques were awarded for their efforts, with Wilson accepting on behalf of Dennis and Carl. Wilson began a brief Pet Sounds tour with Jardine later that year.
50th year reunion celebration
On October 31, 2011, the Beach Boys released surviving 1960s recordings from Smile in the form of The Smile Sessions. The album - even in its incomplete form - garnered universal critical acclaim and experienced popular success, charting in both the Billboard US and UK Top 30. The band was rewarded with glowing reviews, including inclusion in Rolling Stone's Top 500 album list at No. 381. The Smile Sessions went on to win Best Historical Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards.
In February 2011, the Beach Boys released "Don't Fight the Sea", a charity single to aid the victims of the 2011 Japan earthquake. The single, released on Jardine's 2011 album A Postcard From California featured Jardine, Wilson, Love and Johnston.
On December 16, 2011, it was announced that Wilson, Love, Jardine, Johnston and Marks would reunite for a new album and 50th anniversary tour in 2012 to include a performance at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in April 2012. On February 12, 2012, the Beach Boys performed at the 2012 Grammy Awards, in what was billed as a "special performance" by organizers. It marked the group's first live performance to include Brian since 1996, Al since 1998, and David since 1999. The Beach Boys then appeared at the April 10, 2012, season opener for the Los Angeles Dodgers and performed "Surfer Girl" and "The Star-Spangled Banner". In April, the new album's title was revealed as That's Why God Made the Radio. The first single from the album, the title track, was released on digital platforms on April 26. That's Why God Made the Radio debuted at No. 3 on U.S. charts, making U.S. chart history by expanding the group's span of Billboard 200 top ten albums across 49 years and one week, passing the Beatles with 47 years of top ten albums.
Later in 2012, the group released the Fifty Big Ones and Greatest Hits compilations along with reissues of 12 of their albums. The next year, the group released Live - The 50th Anniversary Tour a 41-song, 2-CD set documenting their 50th Anniversary Tour. While there were no definite plans, Brian stated that he would like to make another Beach Boys album following the world tour. In August 2013, the group released Made in California, a six disc collection featuring more than seven and a half hours of music, including more than 60 previously unreleased tracks, and concluding the Beach Boys' 50th anniversary campaign.
Resumed band split
Love wrote that on June 1, 2012, he received an e-mail from Wilson's wife and manager Melinda Ledbetter stating "no more shows for Wilson". Love, who is obligated by his license of the Beach Boys name to maintain revenue flow to Brother Records, then began accepting invitations for when the reunion was over. On June 25, Ledbetter sent another e-mail asking to disregard her last message, but by then, Love says, "it was too late. We had booked other concerts, and promoters had begun selling tickets." The next day, Love announced additional touring dates that would not feature Wilson. Wilson then denied knowledge of these new dates. Love writes: "I had wanted to send out a joint press release, between Brian and me, formally announcing the end of the reunion tour on September 28. But I couldn't get Brian's management team on board (Brian himself doesn't make those kinds of decisions)."
In late September, news outlets began reporting that Love and Johnston split from the other 3 members. On October 5, Love responded in a self-written press release to the LA Times that the band would return to its pre-50th Reunion Tour lineup with him and Johnston touring as the Beach Boys without Wilson, Jardine, and Marks:
I did not fire Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. I cannot fire Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys ... I do not have such authority. And even if I did, I would never fire Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. ... This tour was always envisioned as a limited run ... As the year went on, Brian and Al wanted to keep the 50th anniversary tour going beyond the 75 dates ... However ... we had already set up shows in smaller cities with ... the configuration that had been touring together every year for the last 13 years. Brian and Al would not be joining for these small market dates, as was long agreed upon.
Four days later, Wilson and Jardine submitted a written response to the rumors stating: "After Mike booked a couple of shows with Bruce, Al and I were, of course, disappointed. Then there was confusion in some markets when photos of me, Al and David and the 50th reunion band appeared on websites advertising his shows ... I was completely blindsided by his press release ... We hadn't even discussed as a band what we were going to do with all the offers that were coming in for more 50th shows." Love attributed Wilson's statements in this press release to falsification by his agents, again affirming that the presupposed agreements were "well-documented", and that Wilson had halted further touring dates. On December 13, Wilson and Jardine played a Christmas show at which they performed the Beach Boys Christmas songs. Following this appearance, Wilson announced concert dates featuring himself, Jardine and Marks. Love and Johnston continued to perform under the Beach Boys name, while Wilson, Jardine, and Marks continued to tour as a trio, and a subsequent tour with guitarist Jeff Beck also included former Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin at select dates. Reflecting upon the band's reunion in 2013, Love stated: "I had a wonderful experience being in the studio together. Brian has lost none of his ability to structure those melodies and chord progressions, and when we heard us singing together coming back over the speakers it sounded like 1965 again. Touring was more for the fans. ... It was a great experience, it had a term to it, and now everyone's going on with their ways of doing things."
Biographer Jon Stebbins speculated that Love declined to continue working with the group because of the lesser control he had over the touring process, coupled with the lower financial gain, noting: "Night after night after night after night, Mike is making less money getting reminded that Brian is more popular than him. And he has to answer to people instead of calling all the shots himself." Writer Stacey Anderson called Love's arguments "wholly unconvincing", facetiously summarizing: "He insists that the larger ensemble with Wilson would have overpowered the modest venues he'd already booked; as anyone can infer, this really means he would have lost money by including Wilson."
Jardine, Marks, Johnston and Love appeared together at the 2014 Ella Awards Ceremony, where Love was honored for his work as a singer. Marks sang "409" in honor of Love, and Jardine performed "Help Me Rhonda". They closed the show with "Fun, Fun, Fun". Wilson's long time band associate Jeff Foskett also appeared, but not Wilson. On May 15, 2014 the touring Beach Boys (Love and Johnston) announced a tour celebrating "50 Years of 'Fun Fun Fun'", named for their 1964 single. The tour featured the return of Jeff Foskett, who replaced Mike's son Christian. As of September 2014, Jardine has maintained that a continued reunion with the Beach Boys is "really up to him [Love] ... He claims he didn't, that he fired us after the reunion ... He's a brilliant songwriter, and unfortunately he has brilliant lawyers. We wish him all the best, but doggonit, you know, we'd like to be Beach Boys, too. There you go."
In 2015, Soundstage aired an episode featuring Wilson performing with Jardine and former Beach Boys Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar at The Venetian in Las Vegas. In April 2015, when asked if he was interested in making music with Love again, Wilson replied: "I don't think so, no," later adding in July that he "doesn't talk to the Beach Boys [or] Mike Love." On July 25, Love said: "If you get Brian and I, we might go to the piano. But with every band there are cliques that are formed with management, wives, agents, publicists - and the tendency is with some people is they tend to lionize or make one person more important than the others. ... the Beach Boys and all these bands that ever existed are a team. I learned as captain of my cross country team that you don't put a person down to get their best efforts, you encourage them."
Musical style and development
In Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, music theorist Daniel Harrison summarizes:
Even from their inception, the Beach Boys were an experimental group. They combined, as Jim Miller has put it, "the instrumental sleekness of the Ventures, the lyric sophistication of Chuck Berry, and the vocal expertise of some weird cross between the Lettermen and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers" with lyrics whose images, idioms, and concerns were drawn from the rarefied world of the middle-class white male southern California teenager. ... [But] it was the profound vocal virtuosity of the group, coupled with the obsessional drive and compositional ambitions of their leader, Brian Wilson, that promised their survival after the eventual breaking of fad fever. ... Comparison to other vocally oriented rock groups, such as the Association, shows the Beach Boys' technique to be far superior, almost embarrassingly so. They were so confident of their ability, and of Brian's skill as a producer to enhance it, that they were unafraid of doing sophisticated, a cappella glee-club arrangements containing multiple suspensions, passing formations, complex chords, and both chromatic and enharmonic modulations.
The Beach Boys began as a garage band playing 1950s style rock and roll, reassembling styles of music such as surf to include vocal jazz harmony, which created their unique sound. In addition, they introduced their signature approach to common genres such as the pop ballad by applying harmonic or formal twists not native to rock and roll. Early on, Love sang lead vocals in the rock-oriented songs, while Carl contributed crisp guitar lines on the group's ballads. Miller observed, "On straight rockers they sang tight harmonies behind Love's lead ... on ballads, Brian played his falsetto off against lush, jazz-tinged voicings, often using (for rock) unorthodox harmonic structures." Harrison adds, "But even the least distinguished of the Beach Boys' early uptempo rock 'n' roll songs show traces of structural complexity at some level; Brian was simply too curious and experimental to leave convention alone." This new sound was quickly associated with the Modernism movement blooming in the Los Angeles music scene. Among the distinct elements of the Beach Boys' style were the nasal quality of their singing voices, their use of a falsetto harmony over a driving, locomotive-like melody, and the sudden chiming in of the whole group on a key line.
During their early years, the Beach Boys released music that displayed an increasing level of sophistication, a period where Brian Wilson consistently acted as the group's primary bandleader, songwriter, producer, and arranger for the group's most commercially and critically successful work. In a 1966 article that asks "Do the Beach Boys rely too much on sound genius Brian?" Carl responded that every member of the group contributes ideas, but admitted that Brian was majorly responsible for their music. In 1967, Dennis was cited as "the closest to brother Brian's own musical ideals ... He always emphasises the fusion, in their work, of pop and classical music." An appearance by the band on Good Morning America in 1980 was highlighted by journalist Ben Ratliff who explains: "The clip and everything about it - the occasion for its happening, Dennis's shrug, Al Jardine's silence, Carl's gameness, Brian's self-absorption, Mike Love's critical stewardship of the narrative - seems to say a lot, in seven minutes, about who the Beach Boys are and how they worked together."
In early 1964, Brian began his breakaway from beach-themed music. Later in November of the same year, the group expressed desires to advance from the surf rock style for which they initially became known for. New York magazine would later refer to the albums Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile as their "experimental pop phase". The band went on to incorporate many more genres, from baroque pop to psychedelia and synthpop.
Influences
The band's earliest influences came primarily from the work of Chuck Berry and the Four Freshmen. Performed by the Four Freshmen, "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" (1961) was a particular favorite of the group. By analyzing their arrangements of pop standards, Brian educated himself on jazz harmony. Bearing this in mind, Philip Lambert noted, "If Bob Flanigan helped teach Brian how to sing, then Gershwin, Kern, Porter, and the other members of this pantheon helped him learn how to craft a song." Other general influences on the group included the Hi-Los, the Penguins, the Robins, Bill Haley & His Comets, Otis Williams, the Cadets, the Everly Brothers, the Shirelles, the Regents, and the Crystals.
Carl remembers: "Most of [Mike's] classmates were black. He was the only white guy on his track team. He was really immersed in doo-wop and that music and I think he influenced Brian to listen to it. The black artists were so much better in terms of rock records in those days that the white records almost sounded like put-ons." Their eclectic mix of white and black vocal groups - ranging from the rock and roll of Berry, the jazz harmonies of the Four Freshmen, the pop of the Four Preps, the folk of the Kingston Trio, the R&B of groups like the Coasters and the Five Satins, and the doo wop of Dion and the Belmonts - helped contribute to the Beach Boys' uniqueness in American popular music. While the Beach Boys are not often associated with blues, Brian has called this a misapprehension, citing Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder as influences. Regarding surf rock pioneer Dick Dale, Brian clarified that his influence on the group was limited to Carl and his style of guitar playing. Carl himself named Berry, the Ventures, and John Walker for shaping his guitar style, and that the Beach Boys had learned to play all of the Ventures' songs by ear early in their career. On Jimi Hendrix and "heavy" music, Brian said he felt no pressure to go in that direction: "We never got into the heavy musical level trip. We never needed to. It's already been done."
The influence of the Beach Boys' peers combined with Brian's competitive nature drove him to reach higher creative peaks. Sometime around late 1963, he heard the song "Be My Baby" (1963) by the Ronettes for the first time, revamping his creative interests and songwriting. "Be My Baby" is considered the epitome of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound production technique, a recording method that fascinated Wilson for the next several decades. Brian later reflected: "I was unable to really think as a producer up until the time where I really got familiar with Phil Spector's work. That was when I started to design the experience to be a record rather than just a song." Other prominent inspirations for Brian included Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924), the Beatles' Rubber Soul (1965), and composer Burt Bacharach. Brian is quoted: "Burt Bacharach and Hal David are more like me. They're also the best pop team - per se - today. As a producer, Bacharach has a very fresh, new approach."
Experimentation with psychotropic substances proved pivotal to the group's development as artists. In December 1964, Brian was introduced to cannabis before quickly progressing to LSD in early 1965. Of his first acid trip, Brian recalled that the drug had subjected him to "a very religious experience" which enlightened him to indescribable philosophies. The music for "California Girls" (the first Beach Boys song Bruce Johnston participated in) came from this first LSD experience, as did much of the group's subsequent work where they would partake in drug use during recording sessions.
Spirituality
The band members often reflected on the spiritual nature of their music (and music in general), particularly for the recording of Pet Sounds and Smile. Even though the Wilson family did not grow up in a particularly religious household, Carl was described as "the most truly religious person I know" by Brian, and Carl was forthcoming about the group's spiritual beliefs stating: "We believe in God as a kind of universal consciousness. God is love. God is you. God is me. God is everything right here in this room. It's a spiritual concept which inspires a great deal of our music." Carl told Rave magazine in 1967 that the group's influences are of a "religious nature", but not any religion in specific, only "an idea based upon that of Universal Consciousness. ... The spiritual concept of happiness and doing good to others is extremely important to the lyric of our songs, and the religious element of some of the better church music is also contained within some of our new work."
Brian is quoted during the Smile era: "I'm very religious. Not in the sense of churches, going to church; but like the essence of all religion." During the recording of Pet Sounds, Brian held prayer meetings, later reflecting that "God was with us the whole time we were doing [the] album ... I could feel that feeling in my brain." In 1966, he explained that he wanted to move into a white spiritual sound, and predicted that the rest of the music industry would follow suit. In 2011, Brian maintained the spirituality was important to his music, and that he did not follow any particular religion.
The Beach Boys included an interpretation of "The Lord's Prayer" as the B-side to their 1963 "Little Saint Nick" single. Brian expressed apprehensiveness over naming his song "God Only Knows" because, in the 1960s, references to God in pop music were largely unheard of. Carl said that Smile was chosen as an album title because of its connection to the group's spiritual beliefs. Brian referred to Smile as his "teenage symphony to God", composing a hymn, "Our Prayer", as the album's opening spiritual invocation. He spoke of his LSD trips as a "religious experience", and during a session for "Our Prayer", Brian can be heard asking the other Beach Boys: "Do you guys feel any acid yet?". In 1968, Mike Love's interest in transcendental meditation led the Beach Boys to record the original song "Transcendental Meditation".
Vocal ability
Brian identified each member individually for their vocal range, once detailing the ranges for Carl, Dennis, Jardine ("[they] progress upwards through G, A, and B"), Love ("can go from bass to the E above middle C"), and himself ("I can take the second D in the treble clef"). He declared in 1966 that his greatest interest was to expand modern vocal harmony, owing his fascination with voice to the Four Freshmen, which he considered a "groovy sectional sound." He added, "The harmonies that we are able to produce give us a uniqueness which is really the only important thing you can put into records - some quality that no one else has got. I love peaks in a song - and enhancing them on the control panel. Most of all, I love the human voice for its own sake." For a period, Brian avoided singing falsetto for the group, saying "I thought people thought I was a fairy. ... The band told me, 'If that's the way you sing, don't worry about it.'"
Rock critic Erik Davis wrote, "The 'purity' of tone and genetic proximity that smoothed their voices was almost creepy, pseudo-castrato, [and] a 'barbershop' sound." According to Brian: "Jack Good once told us, 'You sing like eunuchs in a Sistine Chapel,' which was a pretty good quote." Writer Richard Goldstein reported that, according to a fellow journalist who asked Brian about the black roots of his music, Brian's response was: "We're white and we sing white." Goldstein added that when he asked where his approach to vocal harmonies had derived from, Wilson answered: 'Barbershop'." On the group's blend, Carl said: "Michael has a beautifully rich, very full-sounding bass voice. Yet his lead singing is real nasal, real punk. Alan's voice has a bright timbre to it; it really cuts. My voice has a kind of calm sound. We're big oooh-ers; we love to oooh. It's a big, full sound, that's very pleasing to us; it opens up the heart." According to Carl, it's "not widely known" that Love also contributed to many of the vocal arrangements; "He would bring out the funkier approaches, whether to go shoo-boo-bop or bom-bom-did-di-did-did. It makes a big difference, because it can change the whole rhythm, the whole color and tone of it."
From lowest intervals to highest, the group's vocal harmony stack usually began with Love or Dennis, followed by Jardine or Carl, and finally Brian on top, according to Jardine, while Carl said that the blend was Love on bottom, Carl above, followed by Dennis or Jardine, and then Brian on top. Jardine explains, "We always sang the same vocal intervals. ... As soon as we heard the chords on the piano we'd figure it out pretty easily. If there was a vocal move [Brian] envisioned, he'd show that particular singer that move. We had somewhat photographic memory as far as the vocal parts were concerned so that [was] never a problem for us."
Striving for absolute perfection, Brian's intricate vocal arrangements exercised the group's calculated blend of intonation, attack, phrasing, and expression. Sometimes, he would sing each vocal harmony part alone through multi-track tape. Jimmy Webb has said, "They used very little vibrato and sing in very straight tones. The voices all lie down beside each other very easily - there's no bumping between them because the pitch is very precise."
As instrumentalists
The group's instrumental combo initially involved Brian on bass guitar and keyboards, Carl on guitar, and Dennis on drums. Nine months after forming, they acquired national success, and demand for their personal appearance skyrocketed. Biographer James Murphy said, "By most contemporary accounts, they were not a very good live band when they started. ... The Beach Boys learned to play as a band in front of live audiences", but asserted that they eventually became "one of the best and enduring live bands".
For the recording of the Beach Boys' instrumental tracks, Brian arranged many of his compositions for a conglomerate of session musicians informally known as the Wrecking Crew. Their assistance was needed because of the increasingly complicated nature of the material. As a result, a number of songs do not credit the Beach Boys as instrumentalists, but nearly invariably as lead, harmony, or backing vocalists. It's the belief of Richie Unterberger that, "Before session musicians took over most of the parts, the Beach Boys could play respectably gutsy surf rock as a self-contained unit."
Carl continued to play beside these musicians whenever he was available to attend sessions. In archivist Craig Slowinski's view, "One should not sell short Carl's own contributions; the youngest Wilson had developed as a musician sufficiently to play alongside the horde of high-dollar session pros that big brother was now bringing into the studio. Carl's guitar playing [was] a key ingredient."
It is often erroneously stated that Dennis' drumming in the Beach Boys' recordings was filled in exclusively by studio musicians. His drumming is documented on a number of the group's singles, including "I Get Around", "Fun, Fun Fun", and "Don't Worry Baby".
Songwriting and production
Brian's experiments with his Wollensak tape recorder provide early examples of his flair for exotica and unusual percussive patterns and arranging ideas that he would recycle in later prominent work. Through attending Phil Spector's sessions sporadically, Brian learned how to act as a producer for records while being educated on the Wall of Sound process. From then on, Brian received some production advice from Jan Berry. As they collaborated on several hit singles written and produced for other artists, they recorded what would later be regarded the California Sound. The positive commercial response to Brian's structurally irregular and harmonically varied pop compositions gave him the prestige, resources, and courage to further his creative aspirations. He proceeded to explore many unusual combinations of instruments while emphasizing inventive percussion and progressively ambitious lyricism.
Although he was often dubbed a perfectionist, Brian was an inexperienced musician, and his understanding was mostly self-taught. He handled most stages of the group's recording process from the beginning, despite Nik Venet being credited for producing their early recordings. At the lyric stage, Brian usually worked with bandmate Mike Love, whose assertive persona provided youthful swagger that contrasted Brian's explorations in romanticism and sensitivity. Luis Sanchez noted a pattern where Brian would spare surfing imagery when working with collaborators outside of his band's circle, in the examples "Lonely Sea" and "In My Room".
After 1967
Foreshadowed by Beach Boys' Party! (1965), much of the group's recordings from 1967 to 1970 displayed sparse instrumentation, a more relaxed ensemble, and a seeming inattention to production quality. Brian briefly experimented with musique concrete and minimalist rock approaches to music before retreating to his home recording studio to record "manic" material in the 1970s, enacting syncopated exercises and counterpoints layered on jittery eighth note tone clusters and loping shuffle grooves. During the infancy of Brian's home studio, the group was forced to improvise many technical aspects of recording. In one instance, they used an empty swimming pool as an echo chamber.
When Brian abdicated from the group, the other members were forced to take a more active production role. This is believed to have faltered the quality of their music. Richie Unterberger believes that after the December 1967 release of Wild Honey, "the Beach Boys were revealed as a group that, although capable of producing some fine and interesting music, were no longer innovators on the level of the Beatles and other figureheads." The album marked the beginning of Carl's increased role as producer, who described it as "music for Brian to cool out by", signaling a mellower approach that pervaded into the 1970s. In 1968, Dennis contributed original songs to Friends, revealing himself as a broodingly soulful songwriter and singer, while Bruce Johnston devised a moody instrumental, "The Nearest Faraway Place", for 20/20 the following year.
Sunflower (1970) marked an end to the experimental songwriting and production phase initiated by Smiley Smile (1967). Of the albums between Surf's Up (1971) and Holland (1973), Daniel Harrison wrote that they "contain a mixture of middle-of-the-road music entirely consonant with pop style during the early 1970s with a few oddities that proved that the desire to push beyond conventional boundaries was not dead." While Harrison adamantly states "1974 is the year in which the Beach Boys ceased to be a rock 'n' roll act and became an oldies act," Love You (1977) is perceived by some as an oddity that sounds like no other record in their catalog with synthesizer-laden arrangements played almost entirely by Brian.
Legacy
Cultural impact and influence
Regarded by some critics as one of the greatest American rock groups and an important catalyst in the evolution of popular music, the Beach Boys are one of the most critically acclaimed, commercially successful, and widely influential bands of all time. The Beach Boys' sales estimates range from 100 to 350 million records worldwide, and have influenced artists spanning many genres and decades. The group's early songs made them major pop stars in the US, the UK, Australia and other countries, having seven top 10 singles between April 1963 and November 1964. They were one of the few American bands formed prior to the 1964 British Invasion to continue their success. Among artists of the 1960s, they are one of few central figures in the histories of rock.
Awards and honors
The group routinely appears in the upper reaches of ranked lists such as "The Top 1000 Albums of All Time." Many of the group's songs and albums including The Beach Boys Today! (1965), Smiley Smile (1967), Sunflower (1970), and Surf's Up (1971) are featured in several lists devoted to the greatest of all time. The 1966 releases Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations" frequently rank among the top of critics' lists of the greatest albums and singles of all time. In 2004, Pet Sounds was preserved in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant." Their recordings of "In My Room", "Good Vibrations", "California Girls" and the entire Pet Sounds album have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. On Acclaimed Music, "Good Vibrations" is ranked the third best song of all time, while "God Only Knows" is ranked 21st; the group itself is ranked No. 11 in its 1000 most recommended artists of all time.
In 1966, a reader poll conducted by the UK magazine NME named the Beach Boys as the world's No. 1 vocal group, ahead of the Beatles and the Walker Brothers. In 1974, the Beach Boys were awarded "Band of the Year" by Rolling Stone. On December 30, 1980, the Beach Boys were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 1500 Vine Street. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Ten years later they were selected for the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. In 2001, the group received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Beach Boys No. 12 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Brian Wilson was inducted into the UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November 2006.
The Wilsons' California house, where the Wilson brothers grew up and the group began, was demolished in 1986 to make way for Interstate 105, the Century Freeway. A Beach Boys Historic Landmark (California Landmark No. 1041 at 3701 West 119th Street), dedicated on May 20, 2005, marks the location.
Grammy Awards
Members
Timeline
See also
- The Beach Boys (touring band)
Discography
Studio albums
See also
- Brian Wilson discography
- Dennis Wilson discography
- Carl Wilson discography
- Mike Love discography
- Al Jardine discography
- Bruce Johnston discography
Selected filmography
- 1976: The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations Tour
- 1985: The Beach Boys: An American Band
- 1996: The Beach Boys: Nashville Sounds
- 1998: Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story
- 2002: Good Timin': Live at Knebworth England 1980
- 2003: The Beach Boys: The Lost Concert 1964
- 2006: The Beach Boys: In London 1966
- 2012: The Beach Boys: Chronicles
- 2012: The 50th Reunion Tour
The Beach Boys appear as performers in the beach party films The Girls on the Beach (1965) and The Monkey's Uncle (1965). They have also made cameo appearances in the television series Full House (1988-1992), Home Improvement (1993), and Baywatch (1995).
The life of the Beach Boys is the subject of two made-for-television films: Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys (1990) and The Beach Boys: An American Family (2000). Love & Mercy is a 2014 biopic that dramatizes Brian Wilson during his time with the Beach Boys.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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