Dave Sweetmore's blog - Thursday 19th June 2025

Last week was a sad week for the music world. First of all on June 9th, the news broke that Funk and Soul legend Sly Stone had passed away at the age of 82, followed by the news two days later thatthe Beach Boys’ icon Brian Wilson had also died, also aged 82. 

Both deaths were tragic for the music world, but losing Brian Wilson meant that we had not just lost a legend and hero, but an absolute musical genius. It was his work with the Beach Boys which made him a great, with songs such as Barbara Ann, Surfin’ USA, California Girls, I Get Around, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Darlin’, Good Vibrations and God Only Knows, becoming all time classics. God Only Knows is one of the most beautiful and perfect records ever made. His vision, melodies, harmonies and themes were pioneering in popular music, and he quickly became a pop icon. 

Sadly, the pressure of fame combined with increasing dependence on drugs created a world in which he found it increasingly difficult to escape. Despite all of this, he came back in the new millennium to delight his old fans and capture a new generation of music lovers. 

Brian Douglas Wilson was born on 20 June 1942 in the city of Inglewood, California, USA. It was his domineering and abusive father who encouraged a young Brian Wilson to play on toy musical instruments, and by the age of eight he was an excellent piano player and a regular in a local church choir. Despite being deaf in his right ear, he would develop and learn complex harmonies at a very young age. He would often encourage his younger brothers Carl and Dennis to sing along with him with the complex harmonies he was already devising. 

At the age of 19, he discovered a musical talent which would define his life. Brian had been given a tape recorder and quickly learned the art of overdubbing, a vital part of what would become the trademark Beach Boys’ sound. Whilst his parents were on holiday, Brian and his brothers Dennis and Carl, would invite his cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine to rehearse a song that he and Mike had written. The $250 left by his parents for the brothers to buy food was used instead to hire musical equipment. With this, the song ‘Surfin’ was born. The following year, with Surfin’ having proved a popular debut, the group were signed by Capitol Records. 

Riding on the current surf craze which was sweeping America, The Beach Boys, as they named themselves, were soon enjoying spectacular chart success. They became the only US band to rival The Beatles in the early 1960s. Songs such as ‘Surfin’ Safari’, ‘Surfin’ USA’, ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’, ‘Help Me Rhonda’ and their first US number one single ‘I Get Around’, celebrated the teenage dreams of surfing, hot rod racing and first romance. While the band traded heavily on the California surfing scene, posing with boards on the beach, it was only Dennis Wilson who was actually keen on the sport. 

Many of the early hits were written and arranged by Brian Wilson, who also showed a more mature and introspective side on tracks such as In My Room. As the only US band to rival The Beatles, The Beach Boys endured a breathless schedule of recording, touring and promotional work, something that Wilson soon came to both despise and fear. He later said ‘I have stage fright at every single concert I’ve ever done, I have at least four or five minutes of it. It’s absolute living hell’. 

In 1964 he had a mental breakdown during an airline flight. Aged just 22, he decided to stop touring with the band in order to concentrate on writing and producing. Having listened to The Beatles’ ‘Rubber Soul’ album, Wilson responded with his own masterpiece, Pet Sounds. It became an album of true song writing genius. Featuring songs such as ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Sloop John B’, the album was a huge critical success. By the late 1970s, addicted to drugs, he would suffer from paranoia and became a recluse. 

During the 1990s, things were looking better for him, and he discovered a young Californian band, called ‘The Wondermints’, who inspired him to revisit both Pet Sounds and the ‘Smile’ album. After 37 years in the making, the ‘Smile’ album was finally released in 2004. After fighting his personal demons for 30 years, he made a spectacular comeback with re-workings of his own Beach Boys classics and the revival of the legendary, long-lost, Smile album. He gave the first live performance of the substantially reworked Smile at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 2004 and went on to delight audiences around the world. What struck critics and fans was the obvious joy on Wilson’s face as he performed. The man who stopped touring at 22 because of his inability to cope with live performances had finally conquered his fears. 

In 2012, Brian Wilson officially reunited with the surviving members of the Beach Boys, both for a tour and an album, ‘That’s Why God Made The Radio’, that represented his first original recordings with the band in more than 15 years. The reunion was also accompanied by the release of ‘The Smile Sessions’, a five-CD box set that featured a huge collection of recordings and outtakes. The compilation was a critical hit - earning a place on Rolling Stone’s 2012 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and winning best historical album at the 2013 Grammy Awards. 

The reunion was short-lived, and by 2014 Wilson was recording the songs he’d written for the next Beach Boys record as a solo artist, with the help of guest stars including actress Zooey Deschanel and country star Kacey Musgraves. 

A biopic of his life and career, ‘Love & Mercy’, starring John Cusack and Paul Dano playing Brian Wilson at different stages, was released to critical acclaim in the same year. He continued to tour into his late 70s, including a legendary performance at Glastonbury in 2005, but suffered a tragic loss in 2024 when his wife, Melinda, died at the age of 77. 

Brian Wilson was a true genius, with a unique combination of unmatched creativity as a writer, and remarkable technical skills in the studio, just two of the things which made him one of the great figures of 20th Century popular music. Brian Wilson, God Only Knows what the music world would have been like without you.