Musicians - Brian Wilson

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	Musicians - Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942, in Hawthorne, California) is an American pop musician, best known as a founding member of and the main producer, composer, and arranger for The Beach Boys. Although changing trends in music sometimes rendered Wilson's earlier work unfashionable, he is now acknowledged as one of the most significant and innovative musicians and composers of 20th century popular music.

Wilson showed an early talent for music and quickly developed into a skilled singer, songwriter, arranger and musician, despite almost total deafness in his right ear.

Early influences included The Four Freshmen and Chuck Berry, among others. Wilson admired Phil Spector, considering Spector both a mentor and rival. (The two collaborated on one song, which was never completed; the backing track was later used for a public service announcement, featuring The Blossoms. Brian released it in 1964 as "Don't Hurt My Little Sister".)

Wilson was a perfectionist in the studio, and often upset the other members of the Beach Boys with this incessant drive for perfection. Though one of the first users of an eight-channel multitrack tape recorder, he shunned stereophonic sound, preferring (as Spector did) to work in monaural — not because of his partial deafness, but because he realised stereo gave an incomplete 'sound picture' if the listener wasn't directly between the speakers.

After forming The Beach Boys in the early 1960s with his brothers Carl and Dennis, his cousin Mike Love and schoolfriend Al Jardine, Wilson steered the group to huge success around the world, and they scored a string of international hits between 1962 and 1966, including pop classics such as "Surfin' USA", "Fun, Fun, Fun", "I Get Around", "Help Me Rhonda", "California Girls", and "Good Vibrations". He also produced records for other artists, including Glen Campbell and The Honeys, but with nowhere near the success he had with the Beach Boys. He also co-wrote many of the biggest hits for Jan and Dean during this period.

Until 1967, the international success and popularity of the Beach Boys put them among the world's biggest acts of the time, such as The Beatles, who later cited Wilson's work as a major influence. Wilson in turn considered the Beatles his other chief rivals, though he and fellow bassist-keyboardist Paul McCartney, born only two days earlier than himself, became friends.

Wilson's creativity reached its apex during the mid-1960s with the Pet Sounds album (which, according to Paul McCartney, inspired The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band). Various music polls have named it one of the greatest pop albums ever recorded.

This was immediately followed by their biggest chart success, the million-selling #1 hit single "Good Vibrations". Wilson then began work on a new album, originally called "Dumb Angel" but soon re-titled SMiLE, on which he collaborated with lyricist Van Dyke Parks.

However, the combination of resistance from within the group and Wilson's own growing personal problems led to the cancellation of the project in mid-1967.

Wilson also was the owner of a health food shop in Hollywood that lasted a year from its founding in the summer of 1969, the "Radiant Radish".

Following a breakdown Wilson descended into mental illness and drug abuse in the late Sixties and 1970s, taking less and less of a role in the world of the Beach Boys. Withdrawing into himself, he spent long periods of time sleeping, taking drugs and overeating. In a bid to help Brian, and, as a by-product, help revive the group's ailing profile, Brian's wife and family enlisted the services of controversial therapist Dr. Eugene Landy. In 1976, Landy managed to help Brian into a more productive, social frame of mind. New albums were recorded, and, for the first time since 1964, Brian started to regularly appear live on stage with the band. This situation continued for a few years, but by 1982, his mental state had deteriorated even further, he was taking large amounts of cocaine, he weighed over 300lbs and was in danger of losing his life.

Eugene Landy was once more called into action, and a more radical program was undertaken to try and restore Brian to health. This involved firing him from the Beach Boys, isolating him from his family on Hawaii and being put onto a rigourous diet and health regime. This, coupled with long, extreme counselling sessions, brought Brian back to reality. He was certainly fitter, healthier and more conversant than previously, but he was also under a strict level of control by Landy. Brian's recovery continued as he joined the band onstage in Live Aid in 1985, and recorded a new eponymous album with the Beach Boys.

He also tried to launch a career as a solo artist in the 1988, with limited success. His efforts were both encouraged and hampered by Landy's influence. Partially due to Landy's extreme control over Brian's life, Wilson stopped working with the Beach Boys on a regular basis after the release of The Beach Boys in 1985. Landy's illegal use of psychotropic drugs on Wilson and his interference in all of his affairs was finally legally ended by Brian's brother Carl.

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Musicians - Brian Wilson

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