Brian Wilson, the co -founder of Beach Boys, died on Wednesday, June 11, at 82. The announcement was made by the artist’s family.
Brian Wilson/Photo: X.
Brian Wilson, the visionary and fragile leader of the Beach Boys band, whose genius for song, arrangements and sincere expression inspired “Good Vibrations”, “California Girls” and other summer hymns and made one of the most influential artists in the world, died at 82, writes Euronews.
The artist’s family posted on Wednesday the news of his death on his website and his social accounts, but no additional details were available immediately.
The largest and the last survivor between the three musician brothers, Brian played in the bass, carl on solo guitar and Dennis at drums. He and his colleagues from Beach Boys became in the 1960s, from a local band from California, creators of national hits and international ambassadors of the Surf and Sun.
Who was Brian Wilson
Born in Inglewood, in the south of California, in 1942, Brian Wilson was an innate musician, with absolute hearing, who could repeat sentences sung when he was a baby, writes The Guardian.
He learned to play the piano while he and his younger brothers, Carl and Dennis, fell in love with R&B, Rock’n’roll, Doo-Wop and Pop.
Despite the fact that he remained partially deaf by an ear (probably as a result of an attack by a boy from the locality), he and Carl joined their cousin Mike Love to form the Carl and the Passions high school, bringing Dennis and Jardine’s friend to form Pendletones. They were encouraged by Wilson’s father, Murry, with whom Wilson had a complex relationship – he later said that Murry was also physically violently with him.
Wilson’s first song for the group, which was soon renamed “Beach Boys”, was “Surfin“From 1961-the first in a series of hits written by Wilson, such as”Surfin ‘safari ““Surfer Girl“And”Surfin ‘USA”The last one reaching 3rd place in the US charts and strengthening their success.
“Good Vibrations” by Beach Boys/ Photo: Flickr/ Badgreeb Records
Wilson became a producer, as well as a composer, for the third album, “Surfer Girl, and pushed the group through an amazingly high working rate, released 15 albums before the late 1960s.
Wilson’s ambition was not limited to being a novelty band that sang about surfing and cars, but deepened the art of the band’s musical composition-including in “Pet Sounds”, which was conceived as a general statement rather than a series of discreet songs, with complex arrangements that included from orchestra instruments.
After the death of his father, the early 1970s was a difficult time for Wilson, because his drug use increased and became isolated again. He returned to the Beach Boys band for the 1976 album, 15 Big Ones, but he fell again in alcoholism, drug and overeat abuse towards the end of the decade; He also suffered the death of Dennis, drowned in 1983.
Wilson continued to do tournaments and occasionally release solo albums and finally brought together with Beach Boys in 2011 (now without Carl, who died in 1998) for a tournament and the album that god made the radio. The group broke up again, Love doing tournaments under the band’s name, and Wilson and Jardine do tournaments together, including for the 2016 Pet Sounds tournament, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary.
Wilson sold his publication rights to the Universal for $ 50 million in 2021 and held his last concert in a common tournament with Chicago a year later.
Wilson was married twice, the first time with Marilyn Rovell in 1964, with whom he had two daughters, Carnie and Wendy (who later formed his own vocal group, Wilson Phillips, and won three singles in 1st place in the US). Wilson and Rovell divorced in 1979. In 1995, he married Melinda Kae Ledbetter, with whom he began to meet in 1986 and who became his manager. They adopted five children together. Melinda died in January 2024.
