Brian Wilson's row with the Whip Boys (The Beach Boys) earned him the title of one of the true geniuses of pop music.
His poems, most notably "Surfin 'USA", "california girls", "I Get Around", "Good vibrations" and "God Only Knows", have become classics.
His vision, which included complex melodies, intricate harmonies, and avant-garde themes, became a turning point in popular music, elevating it from the boy-meets-girl narrative dominant in the genre.
But the pressure of fame combined with a growing drug addiction created a prison from which Wilson found it increasingly difficult to escape.
Against all expectations, he returned in the new millennium to the general delight of old fans and delighted a new generation of music lovers.
He passed away on June 11, 2025..
Brian Douglas Wilson was born on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California.
His domineering and abusive father encouraged his son to practice on toy musical instruments; by the age of eight he was already an accomplished pianist and a regular in the local church choir.
Wilson often encouraged his younger brothers Carl and Dennis to sing along with him in the complex harmonies he was already devising.
In school, he excelled in sports, both on the track and as a useful football quarterback.
But at the age of 19, Wilson, who was deaf in his right ear, finally discovered the musical talent that would define his life.
He got a tape recorder and soon learned the skill overdose, a vital part of what would become a defining characteristic of the Beach Boys' sound.
Substances from youth
Staying home with his brothers Dennis and Carl while their parents were on vacation in Mexico, Brian invited cousin Mike Love and close friend Al Jardine to try out a song he and Mike had written.
The two hundred and fifty dollars that Mr. and Mrs. Wilson left for the boys to buy food was spent on renting musical equipment.
And so, with the song "Surfin'", the Beach Boys were born.
The following year, when "Surfin'" proved to be a popular debut song, the group signed to Capitol Records.
Riding the wave of the "surfing boom" that was sweeping the United States at the time, the Beach Boys soon achieved spectacular success on the charts.
Songs like “Surfin'Safari", "Surfin 'USA", "Fun, Fun, Fun", "I Get Around" and "Help Me Rhonda" celebrated teenage dreams of surfing, hot rod racing and first love.
And while the band often traveled the California surf scene, posing with boards on the beach, only Dennis Wilson actually enjoyed the sport.
Many of these early hits were written and arranged by Brian Wilson, who also showed a more mature and introspective side in tracks such as "In My Room".
As the only American band that could rival the Beatles, the Beach Boys endured a relentless pace of recording, touring, and promotional work that Wilson came to both despise and shy away from.
Magnificent
"I had stage fright at every concert I ever performed at," he later recalled.
"I feel it intensely for at least four or five minutes. It's absolutely unbearable hell."
The first disclosure of his fragile condition came in 1964 when he suffered a nervous breakdown during a plane flight.
At just 22 years old, he decided to stop touring with the band to focus on writing and producing.
Listening to the enchanted album Rubber Soul The Beatles, Wilson responded with his own masterpiece Pet Sounds.
An album with magnificent songs "God Only Knows", "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "Sloop John B," was a huge critical success.
But the change in artistic direction he represented, as well as some of the angst-filled songs, confused many listeners.
When the Beatles responded with Revolver in 1966, Brian Wilson was thrown into writing, as he put it, "his teenage symphony to God."
But the album in question, Smile, which would take him 37 years to complete, led to Wilson's complete nervous breakdown and virtually ended all his ties to the Beach Boys.
Chaotic study session
Written in collaboration with songwriter Van Dyke Parks and recorded with the help of an endless clique of studio musicians, the original album Smile he had revolutionary songs like "Good vibrations", "Heroes and villains" and "Surf's Up".
Wilson, by this stage increasingly paranoid, built a huge sandpit in the living room and worked on the album using a piano on the sand.
During chaotic studio sessions, there was even a burning bucket there, as well as musicians chewing vegetables.
The other members of the Beach Boys dismissed this work as too experimental.
Most painfully of all, Mike Love, co-writer of many of the Beach Boys' biggest hits with Wilson, slandered Smile as "an album made of Brian's madness".
Discouraged by the reception he received Smile and afflicted with mental illness, Brian Wilson abandoned work on this unfinished album in 1967.
Despite occasional limited work with the Beach Boys, which included collaborating on their 1968 hit single "Do it again", Wilson became a hermit, staying at home in bed with his own thoughts and his own cocaine.
Povratak
Increasingly concerned about their brother, Carl and Denise hired Dr. Eugene Landy, a controversial psychotherapist, in 1976.
Moving into Wilson's house, Landy instituted a 24-hour drug watch, enforced by a group of burly caregivers.
At first, the results were encouraging, as Wilson lost a good portion of his excess weight and made a partial recovery from his drug addiction.
But after establishing himself as Wilson's business partner and acting as executive producer on his albums, Landy was found guilty of breach of doctor-patient confidentiality and promptly left the scene.
However, in the 1990s, things began to take a turn for the better.
Wilson married a second time - his first wife Marilyn left in 1978 - returned to the studio with, at first, little success and reconciled with his daughters Carney and Wendy.
But his discovery of the young Californian band Vondermints (The Wondermints) will finally bring Wilson new recognition, after inspiring him to return to albums Pet Sounds i Smile.
After a 30-year battle with personal demons, he made a spectacular comeback with covers of his own Beach Boys classics and the revival of his legendary long-lost album. Smile.
Complex
Wilson performed the significantly reworked album live for the first time Smile at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 2004 and then continued to delight audiences around the world.
What stunned critics and fans was the obvious joy on Wilson's face as he performed.
A man who stopped touring at the age of 22 due to his inability to cope with live performances has finally conquered his fears.
This marked a return to creative form as he embarked on a series of recordings in the following years, including a rendition of Gershwin classics that reached number one on the Billboard Jazz Charts.
"Gershwin inspired me a lot. The concept for 'That Lucky Old Sun' was inspired by 'Rhapsody in Blue' - he wasn't influenced by it, just inspired by it," Wilson said.
In 2012, he officially reunited with the surviving members of the Beach Boys, both for a tour and an album, That's Why God Made The Radio, which features his first original recordings with the band in more than 15 years.
The reunion also followed the publication of The Smile Sessions, a five-CD box set featuring a comprehensive collection of recordings and unused versions from the famous "lost" album, finally giving fans the chance to imagine the record as it might have been.
The compilation became a critical hit, finishing on Rolling Stone's 2012 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and winning a Grammy Award for Best Historical Album in 2013.
However, the band's reunion was short-lived, and by 2014, Wilson was recording songs he had written for the Beach Boys' next record as a solo musician, with the help of guest stars such as actress Zooey Deschanel and country star Kacey Musgraves.
A biographical film about his life and career, Love and Mercy (Love&Mercy), starring John Cusack and Paul Dano as Wilson at various stages, was met with critical acclaim the same year.
He continued to tour into the late 2024s, but suffered a painful blow in 77, when his wife Melinda died at the age of XNUMX.
Shortly thereafter, the musician was placed under official guardianship, with his family claiming he was "unable to meet his own needs in terms of physical health, food, clothing, or shelter."
This development only confirmed the musician's image as a fragile, almost boyish figure, which nevertheless inspired thousands of musicians to follow in his footsteps.
The combination of his creativity as a writer and technical skills in the studio turned him into one of the greatest figures in popular music of the 20th century.
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