Beginning
their career as the most popular surf band in the nation,
the Beach Boys finally emerged by 1966 as America's
preeminent pop group, the only act able to challenge
(for a brief time) the over-arching success of the Beatles
with both mainstream listeners and the critical community.
From their 1961 debut with the regional hit "Surfin,"
the three Wilson brothers -- Brian, Dennis, and Carl
-- plus cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine constructed
the most intricate, gorgeous harmonies ever heard from
a pop band. With Brian's studio proficiency growing
by leaps and bounds during the mid-'60s, the Beach Boys
also proved to be one of the best-produced groups of
the '60s, exemplified by their 1966 peak with the Pet
Sounds LP and the number one single, "Good Vibrations."
Though Brian Wilson's escalating drug use and obsessive
desire to trump the Beatles (by recording the perfect
LP statement) eventually led to a nervous breakdown
after he heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
the group soldiered on long into the 1970s and '80s,
with Brian only an inconsistent participant. The band's
post-1966 material is often maligned (if it's recognized
at all), but the truth is the Beach Boys continued to
make great music well into the '70s. Displayed best
on 1970's Sunflower, each member revealed individual
talents never fully developed during the mid-'60s --
Carl Wilson became a solid, distinctive producer and
Brian's replacement as nominal band-leader, Mike continued
to provide a visual focus as the frontman for live shows,
and Dennis developed his own notable songwriting talents.
Though legal wranglings and marginal oldies tours during
the '90s often obscured what made the Beach Boys great,
the band's unerring ability to surf the waves of commercial
success and artistic development during the '60s made
them America's first, best rock band.
The origins of the group lie in Hawthorne, California,
a southern suburb of Los Angeles situated close to the
Pacific coast. The three sons of a part-time song-plugger
and occasionally abusive father, Brian, Dennis and Carl
grew up a just few miles from the ocean -- though only
Dennis Wilson had any interest in surfing itself. The
three often harmonized together as youths, spurred on
by Brian's fascination with '50s vocal acts like the
Four Freshmen and the Hi-Lo's. Their cousin Mike Love
often joined in on the impromptu sessions, and the group
gained a fifth with the addition of Brian's high-school
football teammate, Al Jardine. His parents helped rent
instruments (with Brian on bass, Carl on guitar, Dennis
on drums) and studio time to record "Surfin',"
a novelty number written by Brian and Mike Love. The
single, initially released in 1961 on Candix and billed
to the Pendletones (a musical paraphrase of the popular
Pendleton shirt), prompted a little national chart action
and gained the renamed Beach Boys a contract with Capitol.
The group's negotiator with the label, the Wilsons'
father Murray, also took over as manager for the band.
Before the release of any material for Capitol, however,
Jardine left the band to attend college in the Midwest.
A friend of the Wilsons, David Marks, replaced him.
Finally, in mid-1962 the Beach Boys released their major-label
debut, Surfin' Safari. The title track, a more accomplished
novelty single than its predecessor, hit the Top 20
and helped launch the surf-rock craze just beginning
to blossom around Southern California (thanks to artists
like Dick Dale, Jan & Dean, the Chantays, and dozens
more). A similarly themed follow-up, Surfin' U.S.A.,
hit the Top Ten in early 1963 before Jardine returned
from school and resumed his place in the group. By that
time, the Beach Boys had recorded their first two albums,
a pair of 12-track collections that added a few novelty
songs to the hits they were packaged around. Though
Capitol policy required the group to work with a studio
producer, Brian quickly took over the sessions and began
expanding the group's range beyond simple surf rock.
By the end of 1963, the Beach Boys had recorded three
full LPs, hit the Top Ten as many times, and toured
incessantly. Also, Brian began to grow as a producer,
best documented on the third Beach Boys LP, Surfer Girl.
Though surf songs still dominated the album, "Catch
a Wave," the title track, and especially "In
My Room" presented a giant leap in songwriting,
production, and group harmony -- especially astonishing
considering the band had been recording for barely two
years. Brian's intense scrutiny of Phil Spector's famous
Wall of Sound productions were paying quick dividends,
and revealed his intuitive, unerring depths of musical
knowledge.
The following year, "I Get Around" became
the first number one hit for the Beach Boys. Riding
a crest of popularity, the late 1964 LP Beach Boys Concert
spent four weeks at the top of the album charts, just
one of five Beach Boys LPs simultaneously on the charts.
The group also undertook promotional tours of Europe,
but the pressures and time-constraints proved too much
for Brian. At the end of the year, he decided to quit
the touring band and concentrate on studio productions.
(Glen Campbell toured with the group briefly, then friend
and colleague Bruce Johnston became Brian's permanent
replacement.)
With the Beach Boys as his musical messengers to the
world, Brian began working full-time in the studio,
writing songs and enlisting the cream of Los Angeles
session players to record instrumental backing tracks
before Carl, Dennis, Mike and Al returned to add vocals.
The single "Help Me, Rhonda" became the Beach
Boys' second chart-topper in early 1965. On the group's
seventh studio LP, The Beach Boys Today!, Brian's production
skills hit another level entirely. In the rock era's
first flirtation with an extended album-length statement,
side two of the record presented a series of downtempo
ballads, arranged into a suite that stretched the group's
lyrical concerns beyond youthful infatuation and into
more adult notions of love.
Two more LPs followed in 1965, Summer Days (And Summer
Nights!!) and Beach Boys' Party. The first featured
"California Girls," one of the best fusions
of Brian's production mastery, infectious melodies,
and gorgeous close harmonies (it's still his personal
favorite song). However, dragging down those few moments
of brilliance were novelty tracks like "Amusement
Parks USA," "Salt Lake City" and "I'm
Bugged at My Old Man" that appeared a step back
from Today. When Capitol asked for a Beach Boys' record
to sell at Christmas, the live-in-the-studio vocal jam-session
Beach Boys' Party resulted, and sold incredibly well
after the single "Barbara Ann" became a surprise
hit. In a larger sense though, both of these LPs were
stopgaps, as Brian prepared for production on what he
hoped would be the Beach Boys' most effective musical
statement yet.
In late 1965, the Beatles released Rubber Soul. Amazed
at the high song quality and overall cohesiveness of
the album, Brian began writing songs -- with help from
lyricist Tony Asher -- and producing sessions for a
song suite charting a young man's growth to emotional
maturity. Though Capitol was resistant to an album with
few obvious hits, the group spent more time working
on the vocals and harmonies than any other previous
project. The result, released in May 1966 as Pet Sounds,
more than justified the effort. It's still one of the
best-produced and most influential rock LPs ever released,
culminating years of Brian's perfectionist productions
and songwriting. Critics praised Pet Sounds, but the
new direction failed to impress American audiences.
Though it reached the Top Ten, Pet Sounds missed a gold
certificate (the first to do so since the group's debut
LP). Conversely, worldwide reaction was not just positive
but jubilant. In England, the album hit number two and
earned the Beach Boys honors for best group in year-end
polls by NME -- above even the Beatles, hardly slouches
themselves with the releases of "Paperback Writer"/"Rain"
and Revolver.
The Beach Boys' next single, "Good Vibrations,"
had originally been written for the Pet Sounds sessions,
though Brian removed it from the songlist to give himself
more time for production. He resumed working on it after
the completion of Pet Sounds, eventually devoting up
to six months (and three different studios) on the single.
Released in October 1966, "Good Vibrations"
capped off the year as the group's third number one
single and still stands as one of the best singles of
all time. Throughout late 1966 and early 1967, Brian
worked feverishly on the next Beach Boys' LP -- a project
named Dumb Angel, but later titled Smile -- that promised
to be as great an artistic leap beyond Pet Sounds than
that album was from Today. He drafted Van Dyke Parks,
an eccentric lyricist and session man, as his songwriting
partner, and recorded reams of tape containing increasingly
fragmented tracks that grew ever more speculative as
the months wore on. Already wary of Brian's increasingly
artistic leanings and drug experimentation, the other
Beach Boys grew hostile when called in to the studio
to add vocals for Parks lyrics like, "A blind class
aristocracy / Back through the opera glass you see /
The pit and the pendulum drawn / Columnaded ruins domino
/ Canvas the town and brush the backdrop" (from
"Surf's Up"). A rift soon formed between the
band and Brian; they felt his intake of marijuana and
LSD had clouded his judgment, while he felt they were
holding him back from the coming psychedelic era.
As recording for Smile dragged on into spring 1967,
Brian began working fewer hours. For the first time
in the Beach Boys' career, he appeared unsure of his
direction. If Smile ever appeared salveagable, those
hopes were dashed in May, when Brian officially cancelled
the project -- just a few weeks before the release of
the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
In August, the group finally released a new single,
"Heroes and Villains." Very similar to the
fragmentary style of "Good Vibrations," though
a distinctly inferior follow-up, it missed the Top Ten.
That fall, the group convened at Brian's Bel Air mansion-turned-studio
and recorded new versions of several Smile songs plus
a few new recordings and re-emerged with Smiley Smile.
Carl summed up the LP as "a bunt instead of a grand
slam," and its near-complete lack of cohesiveness
all but destroyed the group's reputation for forward-thinking
pop.
As the Beatles were ushering in the psychedelic age,
the Beach Boys stalled with the all-important teen crowd,
who quickly began to see the group as conservative,
establishment throwbacks. The perfect chance to stem
the tide, a headlining spot at the pioneering Monterey
Pop Festival in summer 1967, was squandered. Though
the Beach Boys regrouped quickly -- the back-to-basics
Wild Honey LP appeared before the end of 1967 -- their
hopes of becoming the world's preeminent pop group with
both hippies and critics had fizzled in a matter of
months.
All this incredible promise wasted made fans, critics,
and radio programmers undeniably bitter toward future
product. Predictably, both Wild Honey and 1968's Friends
suffered with all three audiences. They survive as interesting
records nevertheless; deliberately under-produced, including
song fragments and recording-session detritus often
left in the mix, the skeletal blue-eyed soul of Wild
Honey and the laidback orchestral pop of Friends made
them favorites only after fans realized the Beach Boys
were a radically different group in 1968 than in 1966.
Sparked by the Top 20 hit "Do It Again" --
a song that saw the first shades of the group as an
oldies act -- 1969's 20/20 did marginally better. Still,
Capitol dropped the band soon after. One year later,
the Beach Boys signed to Reprise.
The first LP for Brother/Reprise was 1970's Sunflower,
a surprisingly strong album featuring a return to the
gorgeous harmonies of the mid-'60s and many songs written
by different members of the band. Surf's Up, titled
after a reworked song originally intended for Smile,
followed in 1971. Though frequently loveable, the wide
range of material on Surf's Up displayed not a band
but a conglomeration of individual interests. During
sessions for the album, Dennis put his hand through
a plate glass window and was unable to play drums. Early
in 1972, the band hired drummer Ricky Fataar and guitarist
Blondie Chaplin, two members of a South African rock
band named the Flame (Carl had produced their self-titled
debut for Brother Records the previous year).
Carl and the Passions - So Tough, the first album released
with Fataar and Chaplin in the band, descended into
lame early-'70s AOR-rock. For the first time, a Beach
Boys album retained nothing from their classic sound.
Brian's mental stability wavered from year to year,
and he spent much time in his mansion with no wish to
even contact the outside world. He occasionally contributed
to the songwriting and session load, but was by no means
a member of the band anymore (he rarely even appeared
on album covers or promotional shots). Though it's unclear
why Reprise felt ready to take such a big risk, the
label authorized a large recording budget for the next
Beach Boys album. After shipping most of the group's
family and entourage (plus an entire studio) over to
Amsterdam, the Beach Boys re-emerged in 1973 with Holland.
The LP scraped the bottom rungs of the Top 40, and the
single "Sail On, Sailor" (with vocals by Chaplin)
did receive some FM radio airplay. Still, Holland's
muddy sound did nothing for the aging band, and it earned
scathing reviews.
Perhaps a bit gun-shy, the Beach Boys essentially retired
from recording during the mid-'70s. Instead, the band
concentrated on grooming their live act, which quickly
grew to become an incredible experience. It was a good
move, considering the Beach Boys could lay claim to
more hits than any other '60s rock act on the road.
The Beach Boys in Concert, their third live album in
total, appeared in 1973.
Then, in mid-1974, Capitol Records went to the vaults
and issued a repackaged hits collection, Endless Summer.
Both band and label watched, dumbfounded, as the double-LP
hit number one, spent almost three years on the charts,
and went gold. Endless Summer capitalized on a growing
fascination with oldies rock that had made Sha Na Na,
American Graffiti, and Happy Days big hits. Rolling
Stone, never the most friendly magazine to the group,
named the Beach Boys their Band of the Year at the end
of the year. Another collection, Spirit of America,
hit the Top Ten in 1974, and the Beach Boys were hustled
into the studio to begin new recordings.
Trumpeted by the barely true marketing campaign "Brian's
Back!," 1976's 15 Big Ones balanced a couple of
'50s oldies with some justifiably exciting Brian Wilson
oddities like "Had to Phone Ya." It also hit
the Top Ten and went gold, despite many critical misgivings.
Brian took a much more involved position for the following
year's The Beach Boys Love You (it was almost titled
Brian Loves You and released as a solo album). In marked
contrast to the fatalistic early-'70s pop of "Til
I Die" and others, Brian sounded positively jubilant
on gruff proto-synth-pop numbers like "Let Us Go
on This Way" and "Mona." However idiosyncratic
compared to what oldies fans expected of the Beach Boys,
Love You was the group's best album in years. (A suite
of beautiful, tender ballads on side two was quite reminiscent
of 1965's Today.)
After 1979's M.I.U. Album, the group signed a large
contract with CBS that stipulated Brian's involvement
on each album. However, his brief return to the spotlight
ended with two dismal efforts, L.A. (Light Album) and
Keepin' the Summer Alive. The Beach Boys began splintering
by the end of the decade, with financial mismanagement
by Mike Love's brothers Stan and Steve fostering tension
between him and the Wilsons. By 1980, both Dennis and
Carl had left the Beach Boys for solo careers. (Dennis
had already released his first album, Pacific Ocean
Blue, in 1977, and Carl released his eponymous debut
in 1981.) Brian was removed from the group in 1982 after
his weight ballooned to over 300 pounds, though the
tragic drowning death of Dennis in 1983 helped bring
the group back together. In 1985, the Beach Boys released
a self-titled album which returned them to the Top 40
with "Getcha Back." It would be the last proper
Beach Boys album of the '80s, however.
Brian had been steadily improving in both mind and body
during the mid-'80s, though the rest of the group grew
suspicious of his mentor, Dr. Eugene Landy. Landy was
a dodgy psychiatrist who reportedly worked wonders with
the easily impressionable Brian but also practically
took over his life. He collaborated with Brian on the
autobiography Wouldn't It Be Nice and wrote lyrics for
Brian's first solo album, 1988's Brian Wilson. Critics
and fans enjoyed Wilson's return to the studio, but
the charts were unforgiving, especially with attention
focused on the Beach Boys once more. The single "Kokomo,"
from the soundtrack to Cocktail, hit number one in the
US late that year, prompting a haphazard collection
named Still Cruisin'. The group also sued Brian, more
to force Landy out of the picture than anything, and
Mike Love later sued Brian for songwriting royalties
(Brian had frequently admitted Love's involvement on
most of them).
Despite the many quarrels, the Beach Boys kept touring
during the early '90s, and Mike Love and Brian Wilson
actually began writing songs together in 1995. Instead
of a new album though, the Beach Boys returned with
Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1, a collection of remade hits
with country stars singing lead and the group adding
backing vocals. Also, a Brian Wilson documentary titled
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times aired on the Disney
Channel, with an accompanying soundtrack featuring spare
renditions of Beach Boys classics by Brian himself.
Just as the band appeared to be pulling together for
a proper studio album though, Carl died of cancer in
1998.
Ten years after his first solo album, Brian became aware
of his immense influence on the alternative-rock community;
he worked with biggest-fans Sean O'Hagan (of the High
Llamas) and Andy Paley on a series of recordings. Again,
good intentions failed to carry through, as the recordings
were ditched in favor of another overly produced, mainstream-slanted
work, Imagination. By early 1999, no less than three
Beach Boys-connected units were touring the country
-- a Brian Wilson solo tour, the "official"
Beach Boys led by Mike Love, and the "Beach Boys
Family" led by Al Jardine. In 2000, Capitol instituted
a long-promised reissue campaign, focusing on the group's
long out-of-print '70s LPs. |
