Surf's Up
THE SOUND AND SPIRIT OF THE BEACH BOYS RESURFACES WITH NEW RELEASES AND A TOUR BY BAND MASTERMIND BRIAN WILSON For the Beach Boys devout, the “Endless Summer” turned out to be an endless bummer. Never has a group with so much promise f
As the mostly recovered, post-depression Wilson arrives for a performance Tuesday in the Avalon Theatre at the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort, the idealized California his former band came to represent with its harmony-laden, peerless pop music is poised for a bit of a renaissance.
The long-lost works of the late Dennis Wilson have finally been granted their deluxe-edition CD; a massive, 16-disc box set encompassing all of the Beach Boys’ biggest ’60s singles has hit the streets to strong consumer response (despite its daunting price tag); and the elder Wilson is preparing to release what is rumored to be his strongest work in decades, “That Lucky Old Sun,” due out in September.
Surf’s up once again, folks.
L’enfant terrible
The story of the Beach Boys is an American tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. This tragedy’s roots can be traced to Wilson patriarch Murry, a musician and record producer who would eventually groom his three sons –Brian, Dennis and Carl –for their commercial breakthrough, not to mention managing and overseeing publishing concerns for the group. The elder Wilson is said to have been a domineering man, a tough nut who fought hard on his sons’ behalf, but was just as hard on those sons themselves. As is made plain in Timothy White’s definitive Beach Boys bio “Nearest Faraway Place,” Wilson could be cruel and demeaning when he wasn’t just plain overbearing and obsessive, concerning himself with every aspect of the group’s presentation.
All of his sons would struggle with their ambivalence toward the man responsible for bringing out their considerable talent –especially Brian, who, as the songwriter, suffered his old man’s slings and arrows increasingly as he moved away from the straight surf-pop of the band’s early works toward the full flowering of what turned out to be a rather unique brand of musical genius.
Brian would, perhaps inevitably, collapse beneath the weight of his own musical ambition, the never-completed “Smile” album sitting in the can for several decades before its creator would finally recover enough mental composure to complete it, in 2004.
Murry –by the time of the collapse, a presence that had taken up residence in Brian’s head, when he wasn’t hanging over his shoulder in the corporeal sense –probably assisted in the creation of his son’s mental fugue state. Regardless, Brian retreated from the band, only poking his head out of his cave on occasion, in so doing serving to further baffle the fans still hoping for a return to the heady days of surf symphonies.
Dennis, meanwhile, continued to fulfill all the expectations friends and family had placed on him – which essentially whittled down to living wild and crashing hard. He was, after all, the best-looking guy in the band, the only one who’d actually been a surfer, the good-natured stud the others stuck behind the drum kit because no one believed he could do much else.
The kid seemed fine with all of this, indulging in his taste for wine, women and song, and offering no intimation of hiding much substance beneath his sun-kissed skin and golden beach-bum looks. That is, until he became the first Beach Boy to release a solo album. No one was quite prepared for “Pacific Ocean Blue” when it was first released in 1977. The middle Wilson brother, it turns out, was a pianist and composer in the mode of a genius savant.
The album was expected to be a collection of good-time beach-party anthems, throwaway stuff delivered with a Cheshire cat’s grin and a booze-lover’s glassy twinkle in the eye. Instead, Wilson poured his heart out across the span of 12 tracks. “Pacific Ocean Blue” blended pop, rock, funk, R&B and progressive tendencies with impeccable, left-of-center balladry. Unbeknownst to most, the self-taught drummer boy was capable of summoning incredibly rich, sophisticated chord voicings. It was as if he’d been stumbling blind-drunk through life, only to trip over an immense pot of musical gold on the way to yet another happy hour.
“Pacific Ocean Blue” sold well, and Dennis was on the way to making its follow-up, “Bambu,” when he fell off the wagon with some considerable force. The record ended up being abandoned, Dennis sold his interest in the recording studio he built with brother Carl, and the man who’d created such idiosyncratic pop music gems sailed off into a sunset of broken relationships, drugs and drink.
He’d drown, drunk, in Marina Del Ray, Los Angeles, in 1983, “Bambu” still languishing in the tape vaults.
Last week, the Legacy label released the deluxe edition of “Pacific Ocean Blue,” and tossed in the lovingly remastered “Bambu” sessions as a bonus disc. Both albums cement the middle Wilson brother’s long-held reputation as an unsung genius whose best work was perhaps on the same level as his older brother’s.
More good vibrations?
Anyone who’s seen, heard or read Brian Wilson interviewed in the 10 years since he made his return to the public eye, and the six since he finally delivered the pretty-close-to-brilliant “Smile,” has probably noted him saying something about having his mind blown by the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album. Wilson has repeatedly insisted he crafted “Pet Sounds” as a sort of response to the Fabs’ watershed.
More often than not, it has appeared that Wilson wasn’t kidding. His 20-yard stare, nervous stammering and tendency to repeat standard phrases like a man clinging desperately to a flotation device amid some severe surf, suggested a seriously fractured ego –indeed, a “blown mind.”
Behind the piano, though, Wilson remains fairly articulate, at his best, offering deeply felt, nigh-on-sublime renderings of his “pocket symphonies.” The strength of both the finally completed “Smile” and Wilson’s subsequent live shows has aided in the spreading of considerable buzz for the forthcoming “That Lucky Old Sun,” which finds Wilson working with lyricist and longtime friend Van Dyke Parks. It’s rumored to be an ambitious work in the “Pet Sounds/Smile” mold, a return to form for Brian.
Whether or not it will be is any-one’s guess. But it’s nice that the sole surviving Wilson brother –youngest Carl succumbed to cancer in 1998 – is here to see the music he crafted with his siblings get its due.
Few have suffered so greatly for their art. Even fewer are responsible for a body of work that has aged with such grace.
