I AM BRIAN WILSON Brian Wilson October 11th, 2016 OVERVIEW: As a cofounding member of The Beach Boys in the 1960s, Brian Wilson created some of the most groundbreaking and timeless music ever recorded. Derailed in the 1970s by mental illness, excessive drug use, and the shifting fortunes of the band’s popularity, Wilson came back again and again over the next few decades, surviving and ultimately thriving. In his memoir entitled I Am Brian Wilson, he details the exhilarating highs and lows of his life from his failing memory, including the sources of his creative inspiration throughout the decades. - - - - - - - - - EARLY LIFE: Brian Wilson was born on June 20th, 1942 to Audree and Murry Wilson. Growing up in Hawthorne, California, Wilson exhibited unusual musical abilities, such as being able to hum the melody from When the Caissons Go Rolling Along after only a few verses had been sung by his father before the age of one. Surprisingly, a few years later, he was discovered to have diminished hearing in his right ear. The exact cause of this hearing loss is unclear, though theories range from him simply being born partially deaf to a blow to the head from his father, or a neighborhood bully, being to blame. While Wilson’s father was a reasonable provider, he was often abusive. A minor musician and songwriter, he also encouraged his children in this field in numerous ways. At an early age, Brian was given six weeks of lessons on a toy accordion and, at seven and eight, sang solos in church with a choir. In high school, Brian would play piano obsessively after school, deconstructing the harmonies of the Four Freshmen by listening to short segments of their songs on a phonograph, then working to recreate the blended sounds note by note on the keyboard. In his senior year, he enlisted his cousin Mike Love as well as his brother Carl for a fall arts program at his high school. To entice Carl into the group, Brian named the newly formed membership Carl and the Passions. The performance was notable for the impression which it made on a classmate of Brian in the audience that night named Al Jardine, who later joined the group. - - - - - - - - - THE BEACH BOYS: Wilson, his brothers Carl and Dennis, Mike Love and Al Jardine first appeared as a music group in the summer of 1961, initially under the name The Pendletones. After being prodded by Dennis to write a song about the local NOTABLE QUOTES water-sports craze, Wilson and Mike Love together created what became the first single for the band, Surfin. Over Labor Day weekend 1961, Brian took advantage of the fact that his parents were in Mexico City for several days, and the boys “Any minute playing ‘Good used the emergency money his parents had left to rent an amplifier, a microphone, and a stand-up bass for Jardine to play. After the boys rehearsed for two days in the Wilsons' music room, his parents returned home from their trip. Despite initial Vibrations’ is a minute that I feel outrage, Murry eventually became impressed and soon proclaimed himself the group's manager. In quick succession, the spiritually whole. I hope that any band embarked on serious rehearsals for a proper studio session. As Wilson writes about his dad, “There were days with my dad that I wished never happened, and not just a few of them. They added up to months or even years, and they had a big minute hearing it is the same.” effect on almost everything that came later — every friendship, every decision I made about people, probably every - - - - - - - - - - - - - decision people made about me. I said before that there are parts of my life that are hard to talk about. Lots of the things “For me, when I think back across that happened with my dad are in that category. It’s not that I can’t talk about them. It’s just that I don’t want to talk about them before I talk about other things, because it’s easy to misunderstand them, even for me. The things with my dad my own life, there are so many happened almost from the beginning, but I’ll talk about them later. They happened later, too, but I don’t want to talk about things that are painful. Sometimes I them now, at the beginning [of the book].” In January 1963, the Beach Boys recorded their first top-ten single, Surfin' U.S.A., which began their long run of highly successful recording efforts at Hollywood's United Western Recorders. The Surfin' don’t like discussing them. U.S.A. album was also a big hit in the United States, reaching number two on the national sales charts by early July 1963. By Sometimes I don’t even like this point, The Beach Boys had become a top-rank recording and touring band. Wilson was for the first time officially credited as the Beach Boys' producer on the Surfer Girl album, recorded in June and July 1963 and released that September. remembering them. But as I get Yet feeling that surfing songs had become limiting, Wilson decided to produce a set of largely car-oriented tunes for the older, the shape of that pain has Beach Boys' fourth album, Little Deuce Coupe, which was released in October 1963, only three weeks after the Surfer Girl LP. changed. Sometimes memories Yet The Beach Boys' rigorous performance schedule increasingly burdened Wilson, and following a panic attack on board a flight from L.A. to Houston on December 23, 1964, he stopped performing live with the group in an effort to concentrate come back to me when I least solely on songwriting and studio production. It was during that December that Wilson was introduced to cannabis hesitantly expect them.” by a friend. Attracted by the drug's ability to alleviate stress and inspire creativity, Wilson completed the Beach Boys' forthcoming Today! album by late January 1965 and quickly began work on their next, Summer Days. Sometime in April of 1965, Wilson experienced his first acid trip, which had a profound effect on his musical and spiritual conceptions. For instance, the music for California Girls came from this first LSD experience, a composition which would later be released as a number three charting single. Wilson continued experimenting with drugs for the next few years. However, as Wilson explains, a week after his first LSD trip he began suffering from auditory hallucinations, which have persisted throughout much of his life. Discussing the hallucinations at length, he details how they largely coalesced around the music he was writing. But likewise, “Sometimes they just skip the music and go right for me. We’re coming for you, Brian. This is the end, Brian. We are going to kill you, Brian.” - - - - - - - - - PET SOUNDS AND SMILE: In late 1965, Wilson began working on material for a new project entitled Pet Sounds. Upon hearing what he had initially created for the record in 1965, the group, particularly Mike Love, was somewhat critical of their leader's music, and expressed their dislike of the experimentation. At this time, Wilson still had considerable control within the group and, according to Wilson, they eventually overcame their initial negative reaction, as his newly created music began to near completion. The album was released May 16, 1966, and, despite modest sales figures at the time, has since become widely critically acclaimed, often being cited among the greatest albums of all time. During the Pet Sounds sessions, Wilson had been working on another song, which was held back from inclusion on the record as he felt that it was not sufficiently complete. The song Good Vibrations set a new standard for musicians and for what could be achieved in the recording studio. Recorded in multiple sessions and in numerous studios, the song eventually cost $50,000 to complete within a six-month period. In October 1966, it was released as a single, giving the Beach Boys their third US number one hit after I Get Around and Help Me, Rhonda, to which Wilson explains alleviated his anxiety, albeit only mildly. By the time of the universal success of Good Vibrations, Wilson was already underway with his next great project, SMiLE, which Wilson described as a “teenage symphony to God.” Moreover, it was intended to be a tribute to America with all of its sounds and sporadic ideas blended together. Soon, however, conflict within the group and Wilson’s own growing personal challenges propelled the project into terminal disarray. Originally scheduled for release in January of 1967, the date was continually pushed back until the project was officially cancelled in May of 1967. - - - - - - - - - MENTAL ILLNESS: Wilson spent a great deal of the two years following his father's June 1973 death secluded in the chauffeur's quarters of his home; sleeping, abusing alcohol, taking drugs, overeating, and exhibiting self-destructive behavior. He attempted to drive his vehicle off a cliff, and at another time, demanded that he be pushed into and buried in a grave he had dug in his backyard. Marilyn, his wife of the time, and the Wilson family were dismayed by Brian's continued deterioration and were reluctant to payroll him as an active partner in the touring Beach Boys (an arrangement that had persisted for a decade). They enlisted the services of radical therapist Eugene Landy in October 1975. Landy diagnosed Brian as paranoid schizophrenic (a diagnosis later retracted), and the treatment prompted a more stable, socially engaged Brian whose productivity increased again. However, it didn’t last.