So once again, the reporters and the writers came storming in. But not all of them were being guided by the sound of the music. Early that spring, the gothic side of the Brian Wilson saga had also come floating to the surface, this time in the form of charges mounted against Landy by the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance. Some of the assertions were actually about another patient—a woman alleging that Landy had given her cocaine and other drugs while also compelling her to have sex with him. Landy called the charges “frivolous and malicious,” but when giving a sworn deposition in an accompanying civil suit, he limited his responses to repeatedly pleading his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself. Those unrelated allegations added a little zest to the story, but the real attention-grabber had to do with Landy’s relationship with the client who happened to be a multimillionaire rock ’n’ roll star. According to the state’s complaint, Landy had created “…various dual, triple, and quadruple relationships [that have] caused severe emotional damage, psychological dependency, and financial exploitation to his patient.”
Unsurprisingly, the writers charged with reporting on Brian’s new life and career all wanted to get to the bottom of the matter. Unsurprisingly, what they heard veered wildly from one extreme to the other. One minute, Brian was mounting stirring defenses of his psychologist-turned-friend-turned-partner-and-collaborator. “Right now I’m in the best emotional, physical, intellectual, and financial shape I’ve been in for many years, maybe my whole life,” Brian wrote in a statement to the Los Angeles Times Magazine that was meant to refute an investigative piece written by Nancy Spiller. “I want to publicly thank [Landy] for helping me regain control of my life and art.” But only a day or two later, Brian told Rolling Stone’s Michael Goldberg that he heard voices in his head threatening to kill him. “I get calls in my head from people in the vicinity or maybe ten, twenty miles out,” he whispered to Goldberg. “They get to me.” Talking to Timothy White (writing this time for the New York Times Magazine), Brian first defended Landy. “I don’t know what I would have possibly done without him.” But when Landy left the room, his client’s tune changed dramatically. “I have to stand on my own two feet,” he insisted. “Especially when it comes to my music or the Beach Boys’ music.”
Whether the thrum of controversy helped or hindered the buzz surrounding the album is unclear. But when the album finally did arrive in early July, critical response ranged from ecstatically positive (“A remarkable work that recalls the exhilarating sweep of the Beach Boys’ most endearing recordings,” Robert Hilburn sang in the Los Angeles Times) to something less than that (“Let’s be honest…Brian Wilson can’t compare with any of the early ’60s Beach Boys classics,” opined the AP’s David Bauder). Other critics hailed the mere fact of the record’s existence (“Despite all he has been through, the mood of Brian Wilson is disarmingly innocent and optimistic,” wrote Paul Grein in the Los Angeles Times), while still others looked at the vast team of producers, coproducers, and collaborators who shared credit on the cover with Executive Producer Dr. Eugene E. Landy and figured the whole thing for a scam. (“The first solo album by Wilson…is often appalling,” concluded People’s Ralph Novak.)
If some reviews were obviously softened by the critics’ sympathy for Brian, and others were made more jagged by suspicion about Landy and the star chamber of producers and executives, the album itself existed somewhere in between, veering between moments of sweet, redemptive beauty and songs that were overwhelmed by their own ambition, to some that actually did combine the tactics of the past with the tools of the present into a wholly new sound. And then there were a few that seemed either so out of character or so desperate to be in character that they sounded like the product of extremely talented forgers.
But for anyone who had despaired of ever hearing another structurally inventive, harmony-rich Brian Wilson song—let alone one featuring multiple layers of his own soaring falsetto—Brian Wilson defied expectations twenty seconds into the album’s opening song, when the opening verse (“I was sittin’ in a crummy movie with my hand on my chin…”) gave way to a chorus whose plea for spiritual generosity (“…So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight”) described the very heart of what Brian’s life had been lacking for so long. To hear him singing it in his clear, boyish tenor was breathtaking enough, but after its third verse, “Love and Mercy” shifted to a completely different pattern of descending instrumental/vocal chords, which gave way to an entirely a cappella section whose wordless voices traced still another series of descending chords, meandering slowly back to a reprise of the “love and mercy…” chorus.
The second song, the stompingly rhythmic “Walkin’ the Line,” was another of Brian’s deceptively autobiographical songs, combining the percussive sound of footsteps, drums, sleigh bells, synth bass, synthesizer, electric guitars, and three layers of interlocking voices into a description of his own impossibly rigid life (“I walk the line, I walk the line every day for you…”). The tune climaxed with a statement of purpose (“If I don’t get my way this time I’ll die, and that’s no lie”) that Brian spat out beneath a sharp-edged falsetto wail that echoed the cry of freedom at the end of “Fun, Fun, Fun.” The gentle, lovely “Melt Away” borrowed the sleigh bells and percussive blasts of snare from “God Only Knows” but blended them into an entirely different feeling, with words that emphasized the scars of experience while the interweaving paths of the bass and melody conspired with the billowing ooohs and aaahs to describe the soothing balm of love. Similarly, the booming, blasting “Baby, Let Your Hair Grow Long” updated the mournful first line of “Caroline, No” (“Where did your long hair go?”), only with the voice of a seasoned veteran who knows that innocence and hope can be regained. Brian emphasized the climactic bridge—“I can’t wait to see that change in you/You can do it just the way you used to do”—by singing it in a falsetto (just the way he used to do), then swerving into a four-bar string interlude that swerved unexpectedly back to the root chord of the verse.
From that solid opening quartet, the album turned quirkier and less satisfying. “Little Children” lifted the chorus of “Mountain of Love” (last heard on the Beach Boys Party album) for a calliope-like dash through Brian’s dreamy/nightmarish reflections on childhood. “There’s So Many” played off the same celestial/romantic images introduced in 1977’s “Solar System,” only with a much better vocal and lyrics from Landy and his girlfriend Alexandra Morgan that have the clunkiness of the earlier song but miss its wide-eyed charm. The full-bore rocker “Nighttime” weighed down an engagingly layered backing track with a dull melody and rote lyrics, while the Jeff Lynne collaboration “Let It Shine” was so dominated by its guest that it sounded more like an Electric Light Orchestra outtake than a new Brian Wilson tune. “Meet Me in My Dreams Tonight” fared better, thanks largely to its indelible melody and loping rhythm.
The eight-minute-plus final track, “Rio Grande,” was meant to be the album’s standout and perhaps a signpost to what would lie ahead on future albums. Building from Waronker’s suggestion of a frontier-themed suite (much like the Smile tracks “Heroes and Villains” and “Cabinessence”), Brian and Paley had constructed a series of musical vignettes that portrayed a trip across a frontier filled with marauding Indians, terrifying thunderstorms, and sweet, unspoken mysteries as a metaphor for life. Recorded with different groups of musicians in different studios—including a bluegrass group Paley recorded during a trip to Boston—the piece strived for the same picturesque sound as the Smile songs, with the same jarring shifts in tone and texture. The opening sequence had the chugging rhythm of a riverboat, then faded to a brief campfire vignette that drifted into the sound of a Native American rain dance. The sound of thunder and rain signaled the plucked mandolins and guitars that led off the “Take Me Home” segment, with its layers of soft harmonies. But then the “Night Bloomin’ Jasmine” section took one last look back at the erotic mystery of the unknown, before the opening “Rio Grande” the
me came back for a brief reprise. And even if “Rio Grande” lacked the wild inspiration of Brian’s Smile-era work, along with the elegant abstractions in Van Dyke Parks’s lyrics, it succeeded at giving Brian Wilson the forward-looking perspective of a legitimate comeback. Brian had finally delivered on his oft-given promise to “really stretch out and blow some minds” with his sheer ambition. When the needle finally lifted at the end of side two, it was easy to imagine that he really might be back on his journey to the distant frontier.
But now that the record was done, the daily schedule of writing and recording—which came with its own crew of non-Landy collaborators—gave way to the treadmill of interviews, record signings, and other public appearances. And these were controlled almost exclusively by Landy, whose taste and needs dictated many of the key decisions made during the vital period of post-release publicity. Anticipating solo performances of the new music, Landy had the stage-shy Brian drilled in the ways of lead singer–dom, with an emphasis on dance. Thus, when Brian was booked to play the popular Late Night with David Letterman show on NBC in August, he sang “Nighttime” in tight leather pants, lurching across the stage with all the grace of a traffic cop whose jockey shorts have caught on fire. Other TV performances went just as badly, with Brian too obviously terrified, his hands shaking and his eyes darting around like a guy with fear in his heart and ghosts on his mind. Nothing about it made him look like the brilliant but reasonably sane guy audiences seem most comfortable seeing in front of them. All great reviews and geysers of publicity aside, Brian Wilson stalled at number fifty-two on the Billboard charts and sank quickly from there.
The Beach Boys, meanwhile, were on the verge of hitting a surprising new high point. Asked to come up with a beachy song about the Caribbean to go along with a scene in Cocktail, a movie starring Tom Cruise as a celebrity bartender, they had gotten their hands on “Kokomo,” a song former Mamas and Papas leader John Phillips (who had also been a neighbor of Brian’s in Bel Air) had written several years earlier with Scott McKenzie, whose song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” had been a smash in 1967. The existing song had a pleasant, Jimmy Buffett–like sensibility, but as Mike gave it a listen and took up his pen, he made a few changes, shifting the lyrics into the present tense and adding a bass vocal part that gave the song the percussive, Chuck Berry–like alliteration he’d put into so many of his early collaborations with Brian. As produced by Terry Melcher (who also had enough of a hand in revising the song to earn a composing credit), the song had a layered, Brian-like sound, thanks largely to the unlikely combination of steel drums and accordion (played by Van Dyke Parks, oddly enough) that leads the ensemble. Better yet, the group’s vocals—particularly on the Carl-led chorus—sound as rich as they had been on a single since “Good Timin’,” and perhaps as far back as “Do It Again.” Released in late summer with the momentum of Cocktail behind it, “Kokomo” rode all the way to the top of the Billboard charts. It was the group’s first number one single since “Good Vibrations,” almost exactly twenty-two years earlier. And Brian Wilson had nothing to do with it.
Perhaps this shouldn’t have been surprising. Although Brian was still an official Beach Boy, his burgeoning solo career—fed by Landy’s hostile relationship with the other group members and his increased power over his patient’s creative life—had created an even larger than usual gulf between the Beach Boys and their original visionary. Naturally, the production of “Kokomo” and its unexpected success left plenty of room for the usual hurt feelings and outrage on both sides. According to Landy, Brian’s absence on the song was a result of the group’s deliberately keeping him away from the session. According to the group, it was Landy who had kept Brian away to avenge the group’s unwillingness to give him a producer’s credit on the song. As usual, interpretations of what had actually happened varied wildly.
But as the group rode its latest burst of glory to a new album contract with Capitol, you might have expected them to invest themselves into making a killer album that would leverage “Kokomo” into a full-fledged commercial renaissance. You would be wrong. Instead, the group cobbled together three recent singles (“Kokomo,” “Wipeout,” and “Make It Big,” which had appeared in a movie called Troop Beverly Hills) with three oldies (“I Get Around,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and “California Girls,” all of which had been featured in recent movies) and four highly mediocre new songs, two of which, including the title track, “Still Cruisin’,” were part of an endorsement deal they’d reached with Chevrolet to feature the car maker’s Corvette sports car prominently in their work. The Love/Melcher–written “Still Cruisin’” was an obvious “Kokomo” rewrite, though the punch line of the chorus depended on a reference to Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” for its wit. The other song in the commercial deal was Brian’s “In My Car,” which had a few interesting chord changes and rhythmic ideas, but these were buried beneath a frantically busy synthesizer arrangement and Landy/Morgan–written lyrics that featured magical lines such as, “I’m master of my fate/When I accelerate/My new ’Vette is my throne.” The album’s two remaining songs, the Jardine-written “Island Girl” and a Phillips/Melcher/Love/ Bruce Johnston collaboration called “Somewhere in Japan,” sounded just like anyone else’s late ’80s synth-pop. Who needed it? More than 750,000 record buyers, as it turned out, though most of them were probably trying to find an LP version of “Kokomo” for their collections.
If the Beach Boys had squandered yet another opportunity to reestablish themselves as contemporary musicians, it certainly didn’t seem to bother them. They could always go back to touring on the same set of oldies, which was far easier than writing and recording new songs, anyway. And whenever the subject of new records came up, that would bring Brian back into the mix. And as it turned out, none of the remaining band members were particularly eager to see that happen. By 1989 the touring Beach Boys had achieved a balance of egos and interests that was delicate, yet functioning. Adding Brian, particularly when he was feeling his oats, only threw everything back into chaos. As a result, the one song Brian did contribute to Still Cruisin’ was essentially a solo track with an obviously overdubbed vocal from Carl. And while Brian felt the same ambivalence about the group that had spent twenty years rejecting his most personal work, he also couldn’t bear the thought that they didn’t need him. When he realized in the spring of 1990 that the group had started scheduling their recording sessions deliberately so he wouldn’t be able to attend, Brian felt, as his lawyer, John Mason, wrote, like “a very depressed and demoralized Beach Boy.” As Mason recounted in a letter to Brother Records president Elliott Lott, Brian complained that he had twice offered to write and produce albums for the group in the late ’80s, only to be sent away. “This kind of treatment hurts me very much in my chest,” Brian told Mason. “It’s obvious the boys don’t want me…I am very hurt.”
And it wasn’t just a professional divide. As the letter went on, Mason recounted Brian’s attempts to go out to dinner with Carl, only to be stood up twice in one week. “Both times Carl left Brian alone and waiting for a phone call,” Mason wrote. Perhaps Carl was reluctant to go to dinner with Brian because he knew that he was about to enter the legal battle being waged to separate his brother from the psychologist Brian credited publicly with saving his life. Maybe Brian didn’t really believe Landy was the all-knowing visionary he described to reporters. Or maybe Landy had him so doped up he had lost track of what he did and didn’t believe. Either way, Carl obviously wasn’t eager to explore the issue with Brian over sushi. Already, the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance was moving forward with its case against Landy. And it was only a matter of weeks before the extended Wilson/Beach Boys family was going to file a case in the civil courts. And though Carl had avoided getting involved for months, he was beginning to realize he had no choice.
Strangely, it had been left to Stan Love, the cousin who had served as Brian’s assistant/keeper in the mo
nths before Landy’s first appearance in late 1975 and then for several years after the psychologist had been dismissed in late 1976, to pursue the case. The ex-pro basketball player had moved up to Oregon by then, living with his wife and kids in Lake Oswego, a leafy suburb about fifteen minutes south of Portland. He had settled down quite a bit by then, but Stan still hadn’t found a career that fulfilled him. So when he got a call in 1987 from Rick Nelson, another former Beach Boys staffer, and heard all the whispers about Landy’s financial and psychological abuses, Stan had both the outrage and the time to do something about it. “The real killer was that Audree kept calling me in tears, saying, ‘I can’t call Brian. The girls can’t call Brian. Landy tells him we’re bad influences and won’t let him talk to us,’” he says. Stan might also have identified a win-win type of situation in which he could simultaneously help a cousin he cared about while also working his way back into the lucrative family business. No matter his motivations, Stan found a lawyer in San Diego who not only specialized in psychological abuse but also turned out to be a fan of Brian’s music. The lawyer, Tom Monson, waived his usual retainer, and together they began turning up a trail of witnesses and documents that confirmed all of their worst suspicions.
Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson Page 37