Brian Wilson, the legendary singer, composer and founding member of The Beach Boys, has passed away at the age of 82. He is considered one of the most gifted songwriters and producers in the history of American pop music and leaves behind a legacy of music that helped define an entire generation. His family revealed the news through social media today although a cause of death was not immediately announced. “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” Wilson’s family said in a post on Instagram.
Brian Wilson was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood on June 20, 1942, later moving to the nearby city of Hawthorne at the age of two. Wilson had two younger brothers, Dennis and Carl, and his natural musical talent was evident at an early age. He was able to reproduce melodies at an extremely early age and was soon after taking accordion lessons and performing choir solos at church. Unfortunately, some of Wilson’s childhood was marred by emotional and physical trauma delivered by his overbearing father Murry, according to a 2016 memoir.
He would go on to graduate from Hawthorne High School where he played quarterback, ran track and made it known through a written essay submitted that he was looking to make a name for himself in the music industry. It was here, along with his two brothers and cousin Mike Love, that he formed his first band called Carl and the Passions, performing cover songs from Dion and the Belmonts and the Four Freshmen. In 1961, fellow classmate Al Jardine would join the band and they renamed themselves The Pendletones before their first label, Candix Records, went ahead and changed their name to The Beach Boys based on their first single released entitled “Surfin’.” The song was later included on the band’s debut album in 1962, Surfin’ Safari.
The Beach Boys started as a neighborhood act, rehearsing in Brian’s bedroom and in the garage of their house in Hawthorne but they would go on to cultivate and define the “California sound” of rock and roll that emerged in the 1960s with the success of their sophomore effort, Surfin’ U.S.A., and two subsequent albums also released in 1963, Surfer Girl and Little Deuce Coupe. Brian Wilson was even starting to find success outside of the band and co-wrote “Surf City” for their 1963 hit which topped the U.S. charts and revitalized the group.
However, critical success and pressures from a marriage to Marilyn Rovell wore on Wilson and led to the first of multiple nervous breakdowns suffered by him which would eventually result in him no longer touring with the band. It would mark the beginning of his experience with depression, which Wilson said never really went away.
His prowess in the recording studio, however, never seemed to diminish and he would go on to compose, arrange and produce the legendary Pet Sounds which was released in 1966. Wilson said his goal was to create the “greatest rock album ever made” and came close to doing so. Pet Sounds was voted No. 2 in a 2003 Rolling Stone list of the Best 500 Albums, losing out to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Wilson’s rivalry with The Beatles, partly spurred on by the media, would both torment and define much of his career. The album’s lead single, “Caroline, No”, released in March 1966, became Wilson’s first solo credit.
For the rest of the year, Wilson would devote himself to work on another one of his masterpieces, “Good Vibrations” which topped the U.S. charts. However, he would later succumb to more doubts of depression and became deaf in his right ear. This would lead to bouts of self-destructive behavior before Wilson went into reclusion after his father’s death in June 1973. It was during this time that he reportedly put his piano inside a huge indoor sandbox inside his house and then never left it for two years.
He made a brief comeback in 1976, helping produce the album The Beach Boys Love You, before falling back into more issues stemming from drug and alcohol abuse. After getting psychological therapy, he would return to work on the Beach Boys’ 15 Big Ones album, the first one to list him as sole producer since Pet Sounds. Later that year, he even resumed regular performances with the band for the first time since 1964, singing and alternating between bass guitar and piano. Unfortunately, he would later relapse once again and require treatment for alcohol abuse and intensive, and increasingly expensive, psychological care at the hands of Dr. Eugene Landy. This would lead to years of feuding with Wilson’s family and friends who claimed the doctor had far too much control over the troubled artist’s life.
Brian Wilson had one last career resurgence, which saw him going back into the studio and performing onstage again in the 1990s. He also released several solo albums including his much anticipated 2004 release Brian Wilson Presents Smile, which was his version of a previously uncompleted Beach Boys’ record that was intended to be the sequel to Pet Sounds.
Wilson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The Beach Boys in 1988 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000. He was also recognized by the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007 and earned a Golden Globe nomination in 2016. He earned nine Grammy Award nominations in all, most of those early on with the Beach Boys. But his two wins were for his solo work in 2005 and 2013. The Beach Boys rank among the most popular groups of modern day rock, with more than 30 singles in the Top 40 and worldwide sales of more than $100 million.
In early 2024, it was announced that he was suffering from dementia, and a conservatorship was established at that time.
Wilson is survived by daughters Carnie and Wendy, who themselves achieved huge chart success in the ’90s as members of the pop unit Wilson Phillips, as well as five adopted daughters from his second marriage, Daria, Delanie, Dakota, Dash and Dylan.
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