Tag Archives: Beach Boys

RIP, Brian Wilson

What does one say about the death of a man whose musical genius comes along just once in any normal human being’s lifetime.

Brian Wilson was the rarest of geniuses. He founded a musical group, the Beach Boys with his brothers, a cousin and a boyhood pal. They made music for 60 years that stands the test of time to this very day.

He blended exquisite harmonies with extraordinary production values and left a legacy that will live far beyond Wilson’s 82 years on this Earth. Indeed, they might, indeed, live forever.

Wilson led a well-chronicled troubled life. He was beset with drug addiction, personality disorders, emotional fragility caused in large part by his well-known stage fright. He fought through it all.

He continued to make music that will last through the ages.

I am not equipped rhetorically to pay appropriate tribute to this once-in-a-lifetime talent. I just know in my heart that his music helped me come of age in the 1960s … and for that he will have my eternal gratitude.

These are the Beach Boys?

Check out the picture. It is of the Beach Boys, the iconic band from the 1960s. Except for this little item: The Beach Boys that I used to listen to comprised five members; this bunch totals nine men.

What’s more, two of the original Beach Boys are dead: brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson. And . . . the creative genius behind the band, Brian Wilson, no longer plays with the band he founded.

Check out the two men in the hats. The one on the left is Mike Love, the lead singer of the Beach Boys dating back to their glory days; the guy on the right is Bruce Johnston, a long time band member, but he was a part-timer back when Dennis and Carl were still with us.

Oh, and then we have Al Jardine, a friend of the Wilson family, who also was a member.

I guess my point is that the Beach Boys whose music I used to enjoy no longer exists.

I hope they can at least sound like the Beach Boys.