Musicians - Mike Love

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	Musicians - Mike Love

Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer and songwriter who was one of the lead singers and lyrical composers of The Beach Boys, along with Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, and a school friend Al Jardine. Mike Love is first cousin to the Wilson brothers.

Role in The Beach Boys

Love was the lead vocalist for many of the early Beach Boys hits, including "Surfin'", "409", "Surfin' Safari", "Surfin' USA", "Little Deuce Coupe", "Fun Fun Fun", "Be True To Your School", "Little Saint Nick", "When I Grow Up To Be A Man", "I Get Around", and "California Girls". His role as lead vocalist subsequently diminished, but included sections of Pet Sounds (including the bridge of "Wouldn't It Be Nice") and the hit "Do It Again". Onstage, Love has always served as the Beach Boys' "MC".

Love also wrote or co-wrote many of the Beach Boys hit lyrics, mostly for songs with the themes of surfing and love; the band's early car song lyrics were generally by Gary Usher or Roger Christian, although a lawsuit, the result of which is still controversial, established Love's composing credits on many of these hits.

In the late Sixties, as founder Brian Wilson was sidelined by mental illness and drug problems, Love played an increasingly contentious role in the Beach Boys career, and rightly or wrongly, he has often been identified as one of the "villains" in the band's story.

Despite his conservatism in other areas, Love was one of the first pop musicians to become involved in the practice of Transcendental Meditation, through his meeting with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and as a result he accompanied The Beatles and Donovan on their famous trip to the self-styled guru's ashram at Rishikesh in India in early 1968. Love has been a lifelong advocate of the benefits of TM and contributed a song on the subject to the Beach Boys' 1968 album Friends.

In the late sixties, with Brian no longer touring, Carl Wilson took over leadership of the band (with contracts reading that venues hired "Carl Wilson plus four other musicians"), but by the early 80s, Love grew to increasingly dominate the band, who fell in line with his desire to play the early 60s hits and record new material dealing with similar lyrical subjects.

While Love has sometimes been perceived as a negative force in the Beach Boys creatively, there is no doubt that he has on occasion exhibited sound commercial instincts, as for example on his co-writing and singing lead on the 1988 US number one hit "Kokomo", the only number one the band had that wasn't co-written by Wilson. Mike Love (along with "Kokomo" co-writers Scott Mackenzie, Terry Melcher, and John Phillips) was nominated for a Golden Globes Award (1988) in the Original Song category.

After the death of Carl Wilson in 1998 the Beach Boys split up, and Love took over the name, touring with no other original members but with longtime member Bruce Johnston and various musicians formerly of tribute bands.

The Beach Boys were the introductory act in the televised 2005 Fourth of July celebration on the grounds in front of the United States Capitol. The Beach Boys performance featured five hits originally sung by Love and was their first Fourth of July appearance there since 1985. While detractors criticize Love for carrying on The Beach Boys name, supporters point to shows such as this as evidence of Mike Love's dedication to the millions of people who love the hit music of The Beach Boys.

Pet Sounds/Smile controversies

Probably motivated in part by anxiety over his replacement as Wilson's writing partner (as Wilson increasingly relied on Pet Sound lyricist Asher and, later, SMiLE collaborator Van Dyke Parks), Love became increasingly hostile towards Wilson and his new material between late 1965 and early 1967, a period that critics and fans now widely acknowledged as the most creative phase of Wilson's career.

He reportedly led the group's opposition to the Pet Sounds material and particularly objected to the song "Hang On To Your Ego", which, at his insistence, was partly re-written and re-titled; it was eventually released as "I Know There's An Answer". However, at this stage Brian Wilson still held sufficient sway to overrule his opponents and the album was completed more or less as Brian had intended.

Another factor that is likely to have influenced Love's views is that, while Brian had withdrawn from touring in late 1964, Love and his bandmates had to perform Brian's increasingly complex music on stage. There is no doubt that Brian's rapid musical development placed the group in an increasingly difficult position, since they were being asked to perform material that, in the case of "Good Vibrations" Brian had recorded over a period of many months using the best musicians available. While the Beach Boys were of course equal to the task as vocalists, Brian's intricate arrangements were becoming all but impossible for them to perform as a five-piece band.

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Musicians - Mike Love

Role in The Beach Boys

Pet Sounds/Smile controversies

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