Brian Wilson, the musical visionary who revolutionized pop and rock with The Beach Boys, has died. He was 82 and had been living with neurocognitive disorders, including dementia, for the past several years.
Wilson’s family confirmed the singer/songwriter/composer’s death in a post to his official social media channels.
“We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We are at a loss for words right now,” the Wilsons wrote. “Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy”
It is impossible to overstate the impact Brian Wilson had on the musical landscape of the 1960s and beyond. With brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson, cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine, Brian co-founded The Beach Boys in Hawthorne, CA in 1961. Though drummer Dennis Wilson was the only one of the group who actually surfed, The Beach Boys became overnight sensations thanks to their catchy pop songs that epitomized the sunny California ethos to listeners across the country who may have never seen a beach. Brian’s songwriting formed the band’s creative bedrock, while their rich vocal harmonies became their trademark.
Early hits like “Surfin’ Safari” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” ignited a barrage of studio releases, with The Beach Boys issuing ten albums from 1962 to 1965. In addition to serving as the principal songwriter, Wilson also produced the band’s albums and was heavily influenced by Phil Spector‘s Wall of Sound technique. While The Beach Boys made a name for themselves as radio-friendly hitmakers through the mid-’60s, it was 1966’s Pet Sounds that cemented them as one of the most influential bands of all time.
With Wilson at the helm producing and charting complex orchestral arrangements—something never before heard on a rock/pop record—The Beach Boys revolutionized what popular music could be and helped pave the way for the psychedelic production that followed over the next decade. According to The Beatles‘ own accounts, the brilliance of Pet Sounds ignited something of a friendly creative Cold War, and was at least partially responsible for the creation of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band the following year.
After Pet Sounds, Wilson began work on an even more ambitious studio album, SMiLE. Unfortunately, Wilson would suffer a mental breakdown in the recording of the album. Described by Brian as a “teenage symphony to God,” SMiLE would never be finished and remains one of the greatest lost albums in music history. Nearly 40 years after he abandoned the project, Brian resurrected it for Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, a successful tour and album featuring new recordings of the songs.
The years following Pet Sounds and the SMiLE sessions witnessed a steep decline for Brian Wilson. Throughout his life, the gentle musical genius was routinely taken advantage of and controlled, first by his abusive father and first manager, Murry Wilson, and then psychologist Eugene Landy who maintained 24-hour supervision of Brian, drained his finances, and reportedly even ghostwrote sections of his autobiography. For roughly the next quarter century after Pet Sounds, Brian suffered through breakdowns, institutionalizations, drug overdoses, ill-fated comebacks, career mismanagement, and much more at the hands of his family and business partners.
After finally breaking free from Landy in the early 1990s, Wilson stabilized his health and found a career resurgence. While he sustained numerous multi-million dollar lawsuits with Irving Music, Mike Love, and his former conservator, Brian issued a string of solo albums and found a hit with 1988’s “Love & Mercy”, which became a rallying cry for his comeback through the rest of his life.
Wilson suffered from numerous health issues in the late 2010s and into the 2020s, including back surgeries that left him using a walker. In 2022, he played what would be his final live concert with Chicago at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, MI, after which he canceled the remainder of his tour. On January 30th, 2024, Melinda Wilson, Brian’s wife of 29 years who also served as his manager and conservator, passed away. Shortly thereafter, Brian’s children announced he had dementia and entered him into a conservatorship. A long-shelved country album Brian recorded with manager Fred Vail in 1970, Cows in the Pasture, is set for release later this year.