Brian Wilson: 1942-2025
A tribute to musician Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson the visionary creative behind iconic American band The Beach Boys has passed away.
Wilson was arguably the most important and influential creator of popular music in the 20th century, taking composition and arranging to heights that even other acknowledged pop geniuses like Burt Bacharach or The Beatles had never managed to scale before.
With some reviews from our archives plus some new content, we take a look back through various points in Wilson' solo career.
Firstly though, we'd like to share a personal remembrance from our Fiction Specialist Neil, who was lucky enough to see Brian Wilson play live multiple times, as well as meeting the man himself.
Brian Wilson: A personal Remembrance
The music world and beyond will be in mourning at the passing of the musical genius, and leader of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson. To say he was one of the musical greats and a genius who will be impossible to replace is easy, but I wanted to try to say why his passing will so deeply affect many of his fans, including myself.
I have been obsessed by the music of the Beach Boys, but in particular Brian Wilson, for as long as I can remember music. As a kid growing up in the 1970’s I can remember hearing Good Vibrations for the first time. I can’t remember much else from that time, but I can remember being amazed and also slightly frightened by the track. It just didn’t sound like anything else. ”It still doesn’t”. It sounded like music that came from another realm, so impossibly beautiful, strange, ethereal and magical.
This obsession deepened, just grew and grew. I have listened to all the Beach Boys and Brian’s solo albums, some good, some bad, some sublime. And I read all about Brian’s troubled upbringing and breakdown, which was to see him laid low for many years.
Due to his frail mental health from the 70’s onwards I never expected to see him play live, but in Clyde Auditorium in 2002 I did. People were in disbelief. They were not even sure he would turn up, never mind be able to sing or play. In the end, the gig was electrifying and deeply emotional. He played all of Pet Sounds, “arguably his finest masterpiece” with his exceptional backing band The Wondermints. It remains one of the best gigs I have ever been to, and every song ended with a rapturous standing ovation. Glasgow Hard Men in their sixties and seventies, not known for displaying emotion, were openly weeping, unable to talk listening to the music.
And, it is that ability to move people that is at the core of why people love Brian Wilson and his music: his ability to touch people’s deepest emotions, both through his songs and his creative personality. They knew that, like themselves, he had gone through darkness and might even still be struggling, but he was willing to put his vulnerability and compassion into his work, in a raw yet beautiful way that spoke directly to people. There was a real childlike quality to him. I saw him several times after and it was always very special, but that first gig was different.
In 2016 my wife paid an exorbitant amount of money for me to meet him in person, at one of those strange V.I.P meet and greet things at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. Which made for a truly surreal and dreamlike day, as he mistook me for one of this friends at the soundcheck and chatted to me about his dog from the stage. During the soundcheck he played a solo version of In My Room, an early classic, just his voice and a piano. It was sublime. During the gig he left it to the band to play the music and cover most of the vocal duties. He struggled with stage fright all his life.
One reviewer said of one Love and Mercy a late 80’s masterpiece “it’s a song that notices a lack of something in the world, while simultaneously filling that lack with compassion” And that can be said of much of all of his greatest work.
Below are some of my favourite Brian Wilson musical moments...
Brian Wilson ( the 80s comeback album )
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
(Neil J)
Courtesy of Neil Johnstone
Neil, Brian Wilson, Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin and a giraffe.
The Albums:
Brian Wilson (1988)
Mark says: His first solo album received a mixed response, due in most part to the sterile 80's production & uneven quality, along with the strange circumstances of its recording. However, it is still regarded fondly by many fans, who had been waiting for a new album of fully original material for over a decade. It does feature a couple of great songs, including 'Melt Away' and 'Love & Mercy', a track that would become a defining statement of his musical resurrection. There were also the lovely layered harmonies of 'One for the Boys', and the loopy, expansive 'Rio Grande', which showed he still retained his exploratory musical inclinations.
Brian Wilson - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (1995)
Mark says: These stripped down performances recorded as a soundtrack to the documentary of the the same name became Wilson's default second solo release. Recorded with Don Was and his band, there is nothing revelatory here that surpasses the originals, with perhaps the exception of the SMiLE era track 'Wonderful'. The album's real success is in moving away from the 60s hits that everyone was familiar with, by having most of the material be covers of post 1967 Beach Boys tracks. It also includes the previously unreleased 'Still I Dream of It', a piano demo recorded by Brian in 1976, once of the most poignant tracks he ever made, with its unique blend of both touching melancholy and hopeful optimism.
Brian Wilson -Imagination (1998)
Despite the slick overproduction that blanketed everything, Brian's voice was in strong form on this 1998 solo effort. He was still able to weave intricate harmonies and arrangements that were so uniquely the 'Brian Wilson' sound, that they managed to make the album seem perhaps better than in actually was. The title track was catchy if somewhat slight, but he proved he could still deliver an almost unrivalled sense of poignancy and pathos with tracks like 'Cry' and especially 'Lay Down Burden' which he dedicated to his brother Carl Wilson, who had passed away from cancer earlier in that year. Both songs would arguably get better versions on his next album, his first live solo affair.
Brian Wilson - Live at the Roxy Theatre (2000)
Mark says: The first solo Live album is actually pretty solid. His 10 piece backing band included the cult retro-pop band The Wondermints, who greatly aided in recreating the sound of Wilson's classic 60's Beach Boys recordings. The concert is a good overview of his career to this point, with a good balance of hits and obscurities, along with a couple of new tracks. There is also a very ironically placed tribute to the Barenaked Ladies' track Brian Wilson.
Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun (2008)
Mark says: Not so much a solo album as a collaborative effort with his band mates, Wilson's new CD is a 'conceptual' reflection on the Southern California of his youth, or more accurately the Southern California of his band 'The Beach Boys' during the hey-day of his twenties. A thematic song cycle , that includes spoken word narrative passages written with long time collaborator Van Dyke Parks, 'That lucky old sun' lovingly recreates the sound and feel of the classic Beach Boys albums, without being a shameless wallow in nostalgia. Rather it comes across like an ode to a city he loves, and a 'diary' of sorts, of someone looking back on his life (including all the bad parts & regrets - 'At 25 I turned out the light/Cause I couldn't handle the glare in my tired eyes', 'All these voices/All these memories/Made me feel like stone/All these people/Make me feel so alone') and choosing to embrace living ('I'm filling up my lungs again/And breathing in life'). Sure some of the spoken word passages and lyrics in general are slightly cheesy, but his voice sounds stronger than it has in years, and the backing vocals by his band are outstanding.
Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010)
Shinji says: It is probably not surprising that Brian Wilson has made a Gershwin album as he often mentions that he is a big fan of his music. He showed his love of Gershwin, when he finally completed the legendary abandoned Beach Boys album 'Smile' in 2004, by playing a piano medley of "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Heroes and Villains" from Smile. However, it was surprising and exciting that the Gershwin Estate, which strictly manages Gershwin's copyright, gave Wilson a permission to complete two unfinished works by Gershwin. The album opens and ends with "Rhapsody in Blue" sung acappella in Wilson's unmistakable harmony, and these two new songs, which both sound like Wilson's songs, are put after and before them. In between these are well known Gershwin's numbers, but the music here is wonderfully coloured as a Brian Wilson's sound. 'I Got Plenty O' nuttin' becomes an instrumental number, reminiscent of 'Pet Sounds' or 'Smile'; there is a lovely bossa nova, 'S Wonderful'; and 'I Got Rhythm' is marvellously transformed to a surf rock number which creates an illusion that 'Surfin' USA' is revived. As the title indicates, this is not just a cover album, it's more like a collaboration album by two American geniuses, and there is a warmth and happiness.
Brian Wilson - At My Piano (2021)
Mark says: 2004's distinctly patchy Gettin' in Over My Head, perhaps set the template for the remainder of his solo career, which would vacillate between ensemble 'friends/collaborations/tribute' type sessions, and live & studio recreations of albums like 'Pet Sounds' & Smile. While the live albums & the reimagined 'Smile' were amazing in themselves, his best original solo material in the later part of his career, as the Guardian's Alexis Petridis said in a nice piece on Wilson, could be found on the last few tracks of the Beach Boys 50th Anniversary studio album That's Why God Made The Radio. However his last studio album, 2021's 'At My Piano', was really a fitting bookend to his solo career, coming full circle as it does to just one man and the melodies he could create on a single instrument. Spare renditions peel back the layers of arrangements and, as my colleague Neil alluded to in his personal remembrance of Brian Wilson, take you straight to the direct joy and tenderness of his musical message.
Some additional content to explore from our catalogue.
The Beach Boys:
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) / The Beach Boys
Mark says: The height of their 'beach culture' albums peaked with the sophistication of 'California Girls' & 'Girl Don't Tell Me'. Summer still Meant New Love but the dark clouds of adulthood were hovering.
All Summer Long / The Beach Boys
Mark says: The Beach Boys embodied summer. Harmonizing, and riding around on Honda's with the girls on the beach. No other band defined the pop of teenage fun, cars & girls in this era of America like the Beach Boys early albums.
Pet sounds [mono & stereo] [bonus track] / Beach Boys
Neil says: Often regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time. The Beach Boys masterpiece is a bittersweet lyrical sun-soaked anthem to young love.
Smiley Smile; Wild honey / Beach Boys
Neil says: After the train wreck that was the 'Smile' session the Beach Boys regrouped to release one of there most mellow and chilled albums aptly named Wild Honey. The music is infused with sunlight.
Some more extended CDs & multi-disc sets that explore The Beach Boys catalogue, and various specific recording periods, include:
Made in California (6CDs - Tracks from 1961-2012)
Feel flows : the Sunflower & Surf's up sessions, 1969-1971
Wild Honey" originally released in 1967 - includes 20 bonus tracks Plus 34 previously unreleased "Smiley smile" tracks.
Expanded reissue of the albums Carl and the Passions – "So Tough", 1972 and Holland, 1973