The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are a pop music group formed in Hawthorne, California in 1961, whose popularity has lasted into the twenty-first century. The original group comprised singer-musician-composer Brian Wilson, his brothers Carl and Dennis, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Alan Jardine. Many changes in both musical style and personnel occurred in their sometimes stormy career, which has been marked by the mental and drug-induced illnesses of Brian Wilson, the deaths of Dennis Wilson in 1983 and Carl Wilson in 1998, and continuing legal battles among surviving members of the group. The Beach Boys continue to tour, albeit with but a fraction of the original members, as of 2005. They have recorded dozens of top-forty hits, many best-selling albums, and four US #1 singles, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Mid-career brings a change in leadership

As Brian became increasingly withdrawn in the late 1960s and 1970s, Carl gradually took over leadership of the band, and developed into an accomplished songwriter and producer. The 1967 album Wild Honey is regarded by many critics as a classic and features a cover of Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her." Wild Honey and its hit single "Darlin'" also marked the end of the Beach Boys as a major commercial entity, with subsequent releases faring far less well than those previous. Their image problems were not helped by the criticism that followed their forced withdrawal from the bill of the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival as a result of Carl's draft problems, an event which would undoubtedly have been crucial in establishing their new sound had they been able to play and to present their new material.

Related Topics:
1967 - Wild Honey - Stevie Wonder - Monterey International Pop Festival

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Despite Brian's deteriorating health, the band continued to work, recording the albums Friends (1968) and 20/20 (1969, featuring lyrics by Charles Mansonhttp://www.snopes.com/risque/tattled/alliwant.asp) before finally breaking with Capitol and signing with Reprise Records. According to the liner notes for the 2004 version, Reprise expected Smile to be completed and released as part of the new contract.

Related Topics:
Charles Manson - Reprise Records

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Their first two Reprise LPs were Sunflower (1970) and 1971's Surf's Up. The addition of Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin in 1972 led to the very un-Beach Boys-like Carl and the Passions-"So Tough", a unique, R&B-flavored LP that was a dramatic departure in sound for the band. The slightly more traditional Holland of 1973 received mixed reviews. The album's lead single "Sail on Sailor," a brief return to the collaboration between Parks and Brian, was one of the most emblematic of Beach Boys songs, and it hit the charts in both 1973 and 1975.

Related Topics:
1970 - 1971 - 1972 - 1973 - 1975

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In the summer of 1974 Capitol, in consultation with Mike Love, released a double album compilation of the Beach Boys' pre-Pet Sounds hits, entitled Endless Summer. Helped by a sunny, colorful graphic cover, it caught the mood of the country and surged to #1 on the Billboard album chart, becoming their first gold record since "Good Vibrations", and stayed on the album chart for three years. http://www.mp3.com/albums/1194/summary.html The following year another compilation, Spirit of America, also did well. These sales performances demonstrated that the classic Beach Boys sound was back in fashion.

Related Topics:
1974 - Endless Summer - Spirit of America

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In 1975, the Beach Boys staged a highly successful joint concert tour with Chicago, with each group performing some of the other's songs, including their previous year's collaboration on Chicago's hit "Wishing You Were Here".

Related Topics:
1975 - Chicago

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In 1977 the Beach Boys released the LP Love You, a collection of songs that reflected both Brian's continuing retreat from the world ("Johnny Carson," "Solar System") and his continued genius as a musical thinker ("Airplane," "The Night Was So Young"). "If Mars had life on it/I might find my wife on it" from "Solar System" sums up the oddball preoccupations of Love You, which has since gained the status of a classic within the Beach Boys' oeuvre.

Related Topics:
1977 - Johnny Carson

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The group and its tours remained popular, even as they came to be viewed primarily as a nostalgia act. Many problems affected their later career, none more so than Brian's continuing drug and mental health problems. Although he appeared sporadically with them in concert, he contributed little to their performances or recordings. Despite a much-publicised "Brian's Back" campaign in the late 70s, most critics believed the group had passed their prime, and many expected that Brian would one day become the latest in a long line of celebrity drug casualties.

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