Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson

by Peter Ames Carlin

  So the group convened in the studio, first laying down group vocals behind Carl’s lead on “Soul Searchin’.” They all came back a day later to sing the background parts behind Brian’s lead on “Still a Mystery,” their voices merging easily into the intricate structure Brian had arranged. Things were moving so quickly and easily that it seemed like the old days. “Everyone was so happy to be there,” Paley says. “First I thought: ‘Wow, this could really happen.’ And when Carl sang ‘Soul Searchin’,’ it was like…wow, this really is going to happen!” But then something changed. And just like the still-unreleased song says, it’s still a mystery.

  “I have no idea why that didn’t come together,” Mike says. “I think everyone was willing to do it. I’m not sure how eager, but certainly willing.” In 1998 Brian pointed the finger at Carl. “Well, a month after Carl sang ‘Soul Searchin’, he said he didn’t like it and didn’t want it on an album. That he didn’t like it and had changed his opinion.” According to Melinda Wilson, the real problem was that Carl didn’t think Brian’s new music was commercial enough. As a counterproposal, he and the other Beach Boys proposed teaming Brian with Sean O’Hagan, the leader of the British avant-pop band the High Llamas. But Brian wasn’t interested in doing that. “He didn’t pick up a positive vibe,” she says. “And Brian was really hurt that he had gone to them and asked them to work with him, and they had turned him down.”

  But given the excitement the new songs had already drummed up—Don Was’s enthusiasm might have been a tip-off—why didn’t Brian just finish the songs on his own and release them as a solo album? At this, Paley doesn’t seem mystified, as much as purposefully mystifying. “A lot of people didn’t want it to happen. I can’t really go into it.” You might think that Brian would be crushed that his latest project for the Beach Boys—the product of months of writing, arranging, and recording—had withered on the vine. But he was remarkably sanguine about it—as if the prospect of releasing an elaborately staged album full of his best work might put him into the position of competing with his own legacy. And for a man who had spent nearly three decades hiding in his own shadow, that was not something he felt prepared to do.

  Instead, he drifted happily into the next Beach Boys project: a Mike-led journey to Nashville to help a handful of popular country musicians (Lorrie Morgan, Kathy Troccoli, Collin Raye, and so on) put their stamp on the group’s biggest hits. It was an interesting idea, and certainly Willie Nelson did a splendid job of making “The Warmth of the Sun” his own, while T. Graham Brown added impressive fire and grit to “Help Me, Rhonda.” But the vast majority of the songs were less inspired, with most being simplified versions of the original arrangements, with only the occasional fiddle or pedal steel guitar to place the recordings somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. The financial backers of the album had insisted that Brian be a visible part of the project, and he was credited as a coproducer, along with pop-country producer Joe Thomas. But according to Melinda, the other Beach Boys could never bring themselves to take him seriously. “They treated him like an invalid, all the time saying, ‘Do this, don’t do that, are you okay?’” They became particularly tense, she says, when the time came for the band to perform at Nashville’s annual Fan Fair concert. “Basically, they were afraid he was going to sing. They were worried he was going to embarrass them, somehow.”

  Still, some of the footage captured by Alan Boyd for a companion video certainly made it seem like the guys were enjoying one another’s company. In one hilarious moment, Brian compels Al to help him imitate Mike’s nasal voice by pinching his nose shut while he sings a verse of “Fun, Fun, Fun.” “Mike’s not gonna like that!” Brian giggles at the camera. Unfortunately, neither country nor rock fans liked Stars and Stripes Vol. 1, and the projected Vol. 2 never materialized.

  Neither did the “Pet Sounds Sessions” box set that Capitol had planned to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the landmark album’s release in May. Although Brian couldn’t bear the idea of moving beyond the shadow of his 1960s legacy, the latter-day Beach Boys could no longer bear having it loom over them, too. And though the group had agreed to let Brian oversee the preparations for Capitol’s four-CD set of Pet Sounds session tapes and alternative mixes, Mike, Carl, and Al were something less than enthusiastic about the prospect of yet another project that would emphasize Brian’s role as the Beach Boys’ sole visionary. Mike, in particular, freaked out when he read the elaborate liner notes that had been prepared by David Leaf, whom he had despised ever since the writer had portrayed him as a mean-spirited troglodyte in the pages of The Beach Boys and the California Myth. And just when the box set was put in turnaround, Carl vetoed an offer that had been made for the group to play a ten-show tour that would feature full performances of Pet Sounds. Brian’s elaborate studio arrangements would simply be too hard to play onstage, Carl said. And besides, his big brother would never be able to recreate his own vocals on the stage. “He told me he didn’t want to see Brian embarrassed in public, and there was no way Brian would be able to do it,” Melinda says. “I never told Brian that. But he picks up on things, you know. No one had to tell him anything.”

  Still, Capitol was determined to get the box set out. They negotiated a compromise with Mike, allowing him to preface Leaf’s writings with his own original essay. He led the piece with his recollection of the day he actually suggested the new record be called Pet Sounds and emphasized the other members’ contributions to the group’s sound. “Brian, for certain, was the master gardener,” Mike concluded. “Without him, the fruits of our efforts would never have been so distinctive or prolific.” The Pet Sounds box set came out in late 1997, a year and a half after the album’s actual anniversary. By then the Beach Boys were confronting a far more devastating crisis.

  Late in 1996, Carl, who had been feeling sluggish and dizzy as of late, went to see his doctor. He emerged from the hospital with a devastating diagnosis: He had lung cancer, and the disease had already spread its tentacles into his liver and his brain. His prospects were grim, but Carl stayed hopeful, figuring the best medicine for him would be to go right on living as he always had. This meant going on the road with the Beach Boys, of course, so though the disease had sapped his strength and the chemotherapy had taken his hair, Carl went right back out with the group in the spring of 1997 and kept right on going through the summer tour. Performing at the Jones Beach amphitheater outside New York City that August, Carl came out to a rapturous ovation, which he greeted with a big smile and bows. And though his voice was breathier than usual on “Sail On, Sailor” and though he had to lean on a stool at times to preserve his strength, the lead guitarist was all business, belting out the old songs with all the sleek professionalism he’d shown for so much of the last thirty-five years. The group’s next concert, held in New Jersey the next night, would be Carl’s last. His strength depleted, Carl headed home to rest, leaving the group to cancel their next few shows.

  Carl intended to get back on the road with the group when their next set of shows began in October, but at that point Mike said he would no longer appear in public with a bandmate who was so obviously ill. “Carl was very sick,” the group’s manager, Elliott Lott, explained a year or two later. “He had lost his hair and had to wear a wig. He needed oxygen after every song. Mike didn’t want to appear with Carl out of love for him.” And yet, Mike still wanted to play those shows. So with an eye locked simultaneously on the glories of the past and the promise of the future, he managed to get in touch with David Marks, the first-ever replacement Beach Boy. Marks hadn’t been a part of the group for more than thirty-five years, and though he’d been a member of several other bands, pursued his musical education at the Berklee Conservatory in Boston, and worked with a lot of leading musicians (Warren Zevon, for one), he’d wasted quite a few years indulging his own appetites for drugs and alcohol. Nevertheless, when the curtain came up on the band in October 1997, David Marks was standing in Carl’s spot, playing his guitar parts and singing
into his microphone. Just like old times, Mike was heard to say.

  Audree Wilson, who had been noticeably enfeebled for the last few years, passed away in late December 1997 at the age of 78. Carl made it to the funeral, looking so vibrant that some observers wondered if all the talk about his meditating his cancer into remission was actually true. But when Brian and Melinda went to his house to watch the Super Bowl a few weeks later, Carl was obviously nearing the end. “We just knew,” Melinda says. “When we left, Brian said, ‘I don’t think we’re ever gonna see him again.’”

  The brothers had been distant for years—they’d never really regained the closeness that had evaporated when Brian abandoned his post and ceded control of the group to Carl in the late ’60s. “We didn’t really talk to each other for twenty-five years,” Brian said a few months after his brother’s death. “We couldn’t deal with each other, so we didn’t talk to each other.” But that last day gave the brothers a chance to move beyond the professional and personal frustrations that had driven them apart for so long. “They came from a family that had a hard time communicating with one another,” Melinda said a few months after Carl died. “I think the only real tension they had was trying to figure out how to love each other.” Brian had already written a musical elegy for his brother, an affectionate farewell he’d called “Lay Down Burden.” He’d hoped to record it as a duet with Carl, but fate had conspired against him. And when he got to his baby brother’s funeral, the enormity of Carl’s absence overwhelmed him. “I’d never seen my mom and dad cry together like that,” Carnie Wilson says. “He just fell into her arms wailing, ‘He’s gone! Carl’s gone and I don’t know where he went!’”

  Suddenly, Brian was the only surviving member of the Wilson family that had lived on West 119th Street. “I’m the last of the Wilsons,” he said that spring, heaving a big sigh toward the ceiling. “It’s tough, sure. But I have plenty of will in my name. That’s what I call myself, the Great Will. I will. I will. I WILL!” Hearing the ferocity in his own voice, Brian laughed out loud. But Carl’s death had changed something. For the first time in his life, Brian no longer had to measure up to—or feel guilty about disappointing—his family’s expectations. It was terrible to feel so alone in the world. But in a strange way, the death of his brother had also made him free.

  CHAPTER 17

  On the verge of restarting his career yet again, Brian Wilson is in his basement recording studio, listening to the Four Freshmen. A young recording engineer is sitting next to him; a guest is walking in through the office door. But Brian is alone, his eyes staring off into the empty air in front of him. Except to him the air isn’t really empty. It’s full of voices singing “Day by Day,” and now Brian’s eyes are closed, his face tilted upward as if the music were washing over him. When the song ends, his eyes flicker open and he smiles. After a while the interview starts.

  It is the spring of 1998, and he has a new record coming out in just a few weeks. It’s called Imagination, and he’s very excited to talk about it. “I think this album represents a rebirth in my life,” he says. “I was a little bit scared, but after ten minutes, it was a breeze. I’m a little happier than I used to be. It’s a pretty big thing for me to have a family and know that my wife loves me, trusting her and everything. There’s no way to describe how comfortable I’ve been feeling.”

  He’s accustomed to retailing his personal life in exchange for column inches—that’s been part of his job for more than thirty years. But Brian works hard to keep things light and simple. Once his relationship with his older daughters was screwed up, he says. Then they recorded some songs together a couple of years ago, and everything changed. “Three cuts on their album healed my wounds. Theirs, too. Three bitty songs!” Now Brian is talking about his toddler daughters, recently adopted from an unwed mother somewhere in the Midwest. “Little kids are an inspiration. As soon as we had Dari, I started writing tunes. Three or four songs right after she was born. Really, there’s no way to describe how comfortable I’ve been feeling.”

  Then he starts to relax, his gestures becoming more expansive, his sentences growing longer. He looks deeper into himself and can’t help but tell what he sees. “I’m the last of the Wilsons, I call it, and it’s scary. I keep thinking I’m going to get assassinated like John Lennon did. I manage to get through my fears, but sometimes I get these crazy notions that someone is going to kill me or something. Then I have to go somewhere and think about that for a while and say, ‘Well, is that really probable?’ I have to use logic in my thinking.”

  Logic is a circular thing for him. A few minutes after he celebrates the joys of his life in St. Charles, he mentions how desperate he is to leave. “It’s peaceful here. But now and then I feel a little bit like I really want to go back to L.A. Sometimes I really feel like I need to get away from here. All the phones and all the recording and all the practice sessions.” Asked about Smile, Brian makes a face and rolls his eyes. “I thought too much. Smile was just a bunch of weird stuff that didn’t even amount to anything.” Noting the aghast expression on his guest’s face, he shrugs. “But I guess we did that album pretty good.” Asked to name his favorite Beach Boys albums, he lists 15 Big Ones and The Beach Boys Love You. “That’s when it all happened for me. That’s where my heart lies. Love You, Jesus, that’s the best album we ever made.”

  At one point Brian gets up to help himself to a soda and returns with a can of Diet Rite, which he drains in two long gulps, then discards with a wickedly accurate line drive into a garbage can sitting against a wall thirty feet away. When he wants to have fun, he says, he goes to see a movie. “But most of the movies I see are for shit. Same old bullshit. Explosions, gun fights, chases. It’s ridiculous. I don’t go to too many movies anymore.” Instead, he goes to his piano and tries to find a new song to sing. “You have to live up to your name. I have to make music to keep people satisfied, but my particular fans aren’t ever going to be satisfied. It’s like a mom taking care of her baby. It’s a basic life idea.”

  Later he sums up the prospects of his future. “I think there’s going to be plenty of scared feelings to have, plenty of being scared of this, plenty of being scared of that, and plenty of trying to live up to my name.” He pauses to consider this. “What a mess, huh?” Then he laughs and jumps to his feet. “Hey, thanks a lot, man. This was, like, the best interview I’ve ever done!” He heads up the stairs, taking them two-by-two, and a moment later the family room TV blazes to life.

  It’s hard to know what to believe. “You know what? It’s all true,” says one friend. “Brian never lies. When he tells you something, that’s what’s true for him at that moment. It might change a moment later, but when he says it, it’s the absolute truth to him.”

  Brian’s 1997 move to St. Charles—a rural village about an hour west of Chicago—had been spurred by his new partnership and friendship with Joe Thomas, the coproducer of the Stars and Stripes album. A onetime professional wrestler (he worked with the stage name “Buddy Love: The woman’s pet, the men’s regret”), Joe had jumped to the music business in 1984, opening a recording studio/record company called River North. Joe focused first on commercial jingles, then moved into pop music, signing and producing artists ranging from country balladeer Kathy Troccoli to ex-Chicago singer Peter Cetera to British art-rocker Alan Parsons. A tall, sturdy man with a waterfall-like mullet, the Chicago-bred Thomas made yet another unlikely musical partner for Brian. Particularly considering the vast majority of the records he’d produced, which tended to slide down the glossiest lanes in the middle of the road. But the slick sound of Joe’s work—and the entrée it might allow Brian into the lucrative adult contemporary market—was a large part of his appeal. The Wilsons and the Thomases found homes next door to one another in a deluxe hillside subdivision outside of St. Charles. When a 102-track recording studio had been installed in the Wilsons’ basement, they moved in and started to work.

  From the beginning, the goal was to make a hit record. “Bri
an said, ‘You know, I want to make songs that I can hear on the radio,’” Joe said, sitting in Brian’s studio in St. Charles that spring. “Back when he was happiest, he’d get into his ’65 ’Vette and go down the street hearing ‘California Girls’ and ‘Don’t Worry, Baby,’ and all these things. That’s what he wanted.” They began to think of the new record as a modern approximation of the Beach Boys Today/Summer Days (and Summer Nights!) era of late-1964 to mid-1965, when Brian’s ear for sonic innovation was still tuned to the pop music mainstream. With that in mind, they covered two Beach Boys oldies (“Keep an Eye on Summer” and “Let Him Run Wild”), along with a mid-1960s outtake (“Sherry, She Needs Me”) with lyrics revised by the top adult contemporary songwriter Carole Bayer Sager into “She Says That She Needs Me.” One new song, the “Kokomo”-like “South American,” had lyrics written by Jimmy Buffett. Another had lyrics by occasional Eagles collaborator J.D. Souther. Of the songs Brian wrote alone or with Joe, the chiming “Your Imagination,” the lover’s lament “Cry,” the bittersweet “Lay Down Burden,” and the mini-suite “Happy Days” all contained Brian’s unlikely chord progressions, graceful rhythms, and uncanny melodic twists.

  But given a directive to make hits—underscored by the participation of former-Eagles-kingpin-turned-label-chief Irving Azoff, who signed Brian to his new record label, Giant—Joe took it upon himself to make sure that the new songs sounded as close to adult contemporary radio as possible. Most were dominated by tinkling keyboards, with plenty of melodic interjections from a gently plucked nylon-string guitar. If Brian tried to use an instrument or an arrangement that might not fit into the soothing blend, Joe would shake his head and slice it out of the picture. And if this bothered Brian, he didn’t show it. He enjoyed Joe’s warm, blue-collar sensibility and had grown so close to him that he’d swim in his pool and then let himself into the kitchen to fix himself a tuna salad sandwich, even when Joe and his wife were out. (“We’d come home and find these dishes in the sink and puddles on the kitchen floor,” Joe recalled with a laugh.) And Brian was happy to defer to his new partner. “We call it a Brian Wilson album, but it’s really a Joe Thomas/Brian Wilson album,” he said that afternoon in his studio.