1. Brian Douglas Wilson was born on June 20,1942 and is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys.
170 Facts About Brian Wilson
1. 2.
Brian Wilson produced acts such as the Honeys and American Spring.
3.
Brian Wilson is considered among the first music producer auteurs and the first rock producers to apply the studio as an instrument.
4.
In 1964, Brian Wilson had a nervous breakdown and resigned from regular concert touring to focus on songwriting and production.
5.
Brian Wilson disassociated from Landy in 1991 and toured regularly as a solo artist from 1999 to 2022.
6.
Brian Wilson's songs became defining works of the early 1960s zeitgeist and he is regarded as an important figure to many music genres and movements, including the California sound, art pop, psychedelia, chamber pop, progressive music, punk, outsider, and sunshine pop.
7.
Brian Wilson has received numerous industry awards, multiple hall of fame inductions, and frequent inclusion in critics' lists of the greatest musicians of all time.
8.
Brian Douglas Wilson was born on June 20,1942, at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, California, the first child of Audree Neva and Murry Wilson, a machinist who later pursued songwriting part-time.
9.
Brian Wilson's two younger brothers, Dennis and Carl, were born in 1944 and 1946.
10.
From an early age, Brian Wilson exhibited an aptitude for learning by ear.
11.
Brian Wilson's father remembered how, after hearing only a few verses of "When the Caissons Go Rolling Along", the infant Wilson was able to reproduce its melody.
12.
Brian Wilson undertook six weeks of accordion lessons, and by ages seven and eight, he performed choir solos at church.
13.
Brian Wilson owned an educational record titled The Instruments of the Orchestra and was a regular listener of KFWB, his favorite radio station at the time.
14.
Brian Wilson learned how to write manuscript music through a friend of his father.
15.
Brian Wilson sang with peers at school functions, as well as with family and friends at home, and guided his two brothers in learning harmony parts, which they would rehearse together.
16.
Brian Wilson played piano obsessively after school, deconstructing the harmonies of the Four Freshmen by listening to short segments of their songs on a phonograph, then working to recreate the blended sounds note by note on the keyboard.
17.
In high school, Brian Wilson played quarterback for Hawthorne High's football team, played baseball for American Legion Ball, and ran cross-country in his senior year.
18.
Brian Wilson cleaned for his father's machining company, ABLE, on weekends.
19.
Brian Wilson auditioned to sing for the Original Sound Record Company's inaugural record release, but was deemed too young.
20.
Brian Wilson involved his friends around the piano and would most frequently harmonize with those from his senior class in these recordings.
21.
Brian Wilson enlisted his cousin and frequent singing partner Mike Love and, to entice Carl into the group, named the newly formed membership "Carl and the Passions".
22.
In September 1960, Brian Wilson enrolled as a psychology major at El Camino College in Los Angeles, pursuing music.
23.
Brian Wilson was the surfer and I was the songwriter.
24.
Just days before, Brian Wilson had received an electric bass from his father, quickly learning to play with Jardine switching to rhythm guitar.
25.
Brian Wilson secured production control over the album, though he was not credited for this role in the liner notes.
26.
From January to March 1963, Brian Wilson produced the Beach Boys' second album, Surfin' USA, limiting his public appearances with the group to television gigs and local shows to prioritize studio work.
27.
Brian Wilson co-wrote "Surf City" with Jan Berry, which topped US charts in July 1963, his first composition to do so.
28.
Capitol and Brian Wilson's father disapproved of the collaboration; Murry demanded his son cease working with the duo, though they has appeared on each other's recordings.
29.
Brian Wilson pitched the group to Capitol as "the Honeys", a female counterpart to the Beach Boys.
30.
Brian Wilson released several Honeys records as singles, though they sold poorly.
31.
Brian Wilson grew close to the Rovell family and resided primarily at their home through 1963 and 1964.
32.
Brian Wilson was first officially credited as the Beach Boys' producer on their album Surfer Girl, recorded in June and July 1963 and released that September.
33.
Brian Wilson produced the car-themed album Little Deuce Coupe, released just three weeks after Surfer Girl.
34.
Murry maintained occasional contact with Brian Wilson, offering unsolicited advice on the group's business decisions.
35.
Brian Wilson continued to solicit his father's opinions on musical matters.
36.
Brian Wilson began distancing himself from the Beach Boys' surf-themed material, which had ceased following the All Summer Long track "Don't Back Down".
37.
On December 23,1964, Brian Wilson was to accompany his bandmates for a two-week US tour, but during a flight from Los Angeles to Houston, he experienced a breakdown, sobbing uncontrollably due to stress over his recent marriage to Marilyn Rovell.
38.
Brian Wilson, speaking in 1966, described it as "the first of a series of three breakdowns".
39.
Columbia Records staff producer Bruce Johnston was hired as Brian Wilson's permanent touring replacement.
40.
Weeks after relocating to an apartment on West Hollywood's Gardner Street with his wife early in the year, Brian Wilson took LSD for the first time under Schwartz's supervision.
41.
Brian Wilson recalled that after relocating to his Beverly Hills home, he experienced an unexpected surge of creativity, working for hours to develop new musical ideas.
42.
In December 1965, Brian Wilson enlisted jingle writer Tony Asher as his lyricist for the Beach Boys' next album, Pet Sounds.
43.
Brian Wilson produced most of the album between January and April 1966 across multiple Hollywood studios, mainly employing his bandmates for singing vocal parts and session musicians for the backing tracks.
44.
Brian Wilson just lost a lot of faith in people and music.
45.
Brian Wilson was "mortified" that his artistic growth had failed to translate into a number-one album.
46.
Brian Wilson met Derek Taylor, the Beatles' former press officer, who became the Beach Boys' publicist in 1966.
47.
However, Brian Wilson later expressed resentment toward the "genius" label, which he felt heightened unrealistic expectations for his work.
48.
Bandmates including Mike Love and Carl Brian Wilson grew frustrated as media coverage increasingly centered on Brian Wilson, overshadowing the group's collaborative efforts.
49.
Brian Wilson touted Smile as a "teenage symphony to God" and his expanding circle increasingly influenced his business and creative affairs.
50.
Smile was never finished, due in large part to Brian Wilson's worsening mental condition and exhaustion.
51.
Brian Wilson later acknowledged that upholding his industry reputation "was a really big thing for me" and that he had grown weary of demands to produce "great orchestral stuff all the time".
52.
Brian Wilson began producing tracks for Danny Hutton's group Redwood, recording three songs including "Time to Get Alone" and "Darlin'", but the project was halted by Carl and Mike Love, who urged Brian to prioritize Beach Boys commitments.
53.
Brian Wilson later described Friends as his second "solo album" and his favorite Beach Boys album.
54.
Hutton later stated that Brian Wilson expressed suicidal ideation during this period, describing it as the onset of Brian Wilson's "real decline".
55.
In mid-1968, Brian Wilson was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, possibly voluntarily.
56.
Once discharged later in the year, Brian Wilson rarely finished any tracks for the band, leaving much of his subsequent output for Carl to complete.
57.
Brian Wilson went through a period where he would write songs and play them for a few people in his living room, and that's the last you'd hear of them.
58.
Brian Wilson would disappear back up to his bedroom and the song with him.
59.
Brian Wilson typically stayed secluded upstairs while the group recorded below, joining sessions only to suggest revisions to music he had overheard.
60.
Brian Wilson occasionally emerged from his bedroom to preview new songs for the group.
61.
Brian Wilson contributed numerous songs, though most were excluded from the final track selection.
62.
Brian Wilson co-wrote and produced the single "Break Away" with his father in early 1969, after which he largely withdrew from studio work until August.
63.
The group faced difficulties securing a new record deal, attributed by Gaines to Brian Wilson's diminished standing in the industry.
64.
In May 1969, Brian Wilson disclosed the band's near-bankruptcy to reporters, which derailed negotiations with Deutsche Grammophon and nearly jeopardized their upcoming European tour.
65.
Brian Wilson signed the consent form under pressure from his father.
66.
Later in 1969, Brian Wilson produced poet Stephen Kalinich's spoken-word album A World of Peace Must Come.
67.
In March 1970, Brian Wilson briefly substituted for Mike Love on tour.
68.
In September 1971, Brian Wilson told a reporter he had recently returned to arranging rather than writing.
69.
Brian Wilson rarely ventured outside wearing anything but pajamas and later said that his father's death "had a lot to do with my retreating".
70.
Brian Wilson's family were eventually forced to take control of his financial affairs due to his irresponsible drug expenditures.
71.
Brian Wilson elaborated that he had been preoccupied with snorting cocaine, reading magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse, and "hanging out with Danny Hutton", whose Laurel Canyon house had become the center of Wilson's social life.
72.
On several occasions, Marilyn Brian Wilson sent her friends to climb Hutton's fence and retrieve her husband.
73.
In 1974, Brian Wilson interrupted a set by jazz musician Larry Coryell at The Troubadour by leaping on stage and singing "Be-Bop-A-Lula" while wearing slippers and a bathrobe.
74.
Brian Wilson participated in some recording sessions for Nilsson's "Salmon Falls" and Keith Moon's solo album, Two Sides of the Moon.
75.
Under Landy's care, Brian Wilson stabilized and became more socially engaged, renewing his productivity.
76.
From October 1976 to January 1977, Brian Wilson produced a collection of recordings largely on his own while his bandmates pursued other creative and personal endeavors.
77.
Originally titled Brian Loves You, the album showcased Wilson playing nearly every instrument.
78.
Shortly afterward, Brian Wilson told a journalist he considered the treatment successful.
79.
Under their supervision, Brian Wilson maintained a healthy, drug-free lifestyle for several months.
80.
Stan noted that Brian Wilson was "depressed" and reluctant to write with Mike, though Mike persisted.
81.
Around this time, Brian Wilson attempted to produce an album for Pamplin that would have featured the Honeys as backing vocalists.
82.
Brian Wilson rented a house in Santa Monica and was cared for by a "round-the-clock" psychiatric nursing team.
83.
In early 1982, Brian Wilson signed a trust document granting Carl control of his finances and voting power in the band's corporate structure, and he was involuntarily admitted for a three-day stay at St John's Hospital in Santa Monica.
84.
Brian Wilson acquiesced and was taken to Hawaii, where he was isolated from friends and family and placed on a strict diet and health regimen.
85.
When he requested additional funds, Carl Wilson was obliged to allocate a quarter of Brian's publishing royalties.
86.
Brian Wilson then curtailed regular collaborations with the band to pursue a solo career under Landy's guidance.
87.
Brian Wilson occasionally rejoined his bandmates on stage and performed his first ever solo gigs at several charity concerts around Los Angeles.
88.
In May 1989, Brian Wilson recorded "Daddy's Little Girl" for the film She's Out of Control, and in June, he was among the featured guests on the charity single "The Spirit of the Forest".
89.
In October 1991, Brian Wilson published his first memoir, Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story.
90.
The next month, Brian Wilson was sued by Mike Love over long-neglected royalties and songwriting credits.
91.
Brian Wilson's productivity had increased significantly after his disassociation from Landy.
92.
In 1993, Brian Wilson agreed to record an album of songs by Van Dyke Parks, which was credited to the duo and released as Orange Crate Art in October 1995.
93.
In 1997, Brian Wilson relocated to St Charles, Illinois, to work on a solo project with Thomas.
94.
Shortly before the album's release, Brian Wilson lost his brother Carl and their mother Audree.
95.
Some reports from this period suggested that Brian Wilson was exploited by those close to him, including Melinda.
96.
From March to July 1999, Brian Wilson embarked on his first solo tour, playing about a dozen dates in the US and Japan.
97.
Brian Wilson's supporting band included former Beach Boys touring musician Jeff Foskett, Wondermints members Darian Sahanaja, Nick Walusko, Mike D'Amico, and Probyn Gregory ; along with Chicago-based session musicians Scott Bennett, Paul Mertens, Bob Lizik, Todd Sucherman, and Taylor Mills.
98.
Thomas counter-sued, alleging that Brian Wilson's wife had "schemed against and manipulated" him and Brian Wilson; the case was settled out of court.
99.
Early in 2000, Brian Wilson released his first live album, Live at the Roxy Theatre.
100.
Later that year, he embarked on US tour dates featuring the first full live performances of Pet Sounds, with Brian Wilson backed by a 55-piece orchestra.
101.
In March 2001, Brian Wilson attended a tribute show held in his honor at Radio City Music Hall in New York, where he performed "Heroes and Villains" publicly for the first time in decades.
102.
In support of BWPS, Brian Wilson embarked on a tour covering the US, Europe, and Japan.
103.
In July 2005, Brian Wilson performed at the Live 8 in Berlin, an event watched by about three million viewers on television.
104.
In 2007, the Southbank Centre in London commissioned Brian Wilson to create a new song cycle in the style of Smile.
105.
In 2009, Brian Wilson was approached by Walt Disney Records to record a Disney songs album, agreeing only if he could record an album of George Gershwin songs.
106.
In June 2013, Brian Wilson's website announced that he was recording and self-producing new material with Don Was, Al Jardine, David Marks, Blondie Chaplin, and Jeff Beck.
107.
In January 2014, Brian Wilson declared in an interview that the Beck collaborations would not be released.
108.
Brian Wilson had contributed "One Kind of Love" to the film, which later received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song.
109.
In 2019, Brian Wilson embarked on a co-headlining tour with the Zombies, performing selections from Friends and Surf's Up.
110.
Around this time, Brian Wilson had two back surgeries that left him reliant on a walker.
111.
On July 26,2022, Brian Wilson played his final concert as part of a joint tour with Chicago at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, where he was reported to have "sat rigid and expressionless" throughout the performance.
112.
Cows in the Pasture, the unfinished album Brian Wilson had produced for Fred Vail in 1970, is to be released in 2025, accompanied by a docuseries about Vail and the album's making.
113.
Brian Wilson recalled Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" as the first music he felt compelled to learn and sing.
114.
Brian Wilson credited his mother with introducing him to the Four Freshmen, attributing his love for harmonies and the human voice to their "groovy sectional sound".
115.
Levine said that the two producers "had a good rapport", with Brian Wilson often attending Spector's recording sessions and consulting him about his production methods.
116.
Brian Wilson submitted "Don't Worry Baby" and "Don't Hurt My Little Sister", both written with the Ronettes in mind, but Spector declined.
117.
Brian Wilson acknowledged that he had felt threatened by the Beatles' success and that this awareness drove him to concentrate his efforts on trying to outdo them in the studio.
118.
Brian Wilson praised Paul McCartney's stylistic versatility and commended his bass playing as "technically fantastic".
119.
In 1976, Brian Wilson commented that he felt contemporary popular music had lacked the artistic integrity it once had, with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" being one exception.
120.
Brian Wilson's writing process, as he described in 1966, started with finding a basic chord pattern and rhythm that he termed "feels", or "brief note sequences, fragments of ideas".
121.
Brian Wilson attributed his use of minor seventh chords to his affinity for the music of Bacharach.
122.
Many of Brian Wilson's compositions are marked by destabilized tonal centers.
123.
Brian Wilson frequently uses key changes within verses and choruses, including "truck driver's modulations", to create dynamic shifts.
124.
Brian Wilson frequently uses stepwise-falling melodic lines, stepwise diatonic rises, and whole-step root movements.
125.
Brian Wilson generally collaborated with another lyricist, although he occasionally composed both words and music alone.
126.
Brian Wilson established approximately one-third of a song's final arrangement during the writing process, with the remainder developed in the studio.
127.
Rather than using Gold Star Studios, Spector's favored facility, Brian Wilson chose Studio 3 at Western for its privacy and the presence of staff engineer Chuck Britz, who served as Brian Wilson's principal engineer from 1962 to 1967.
128.
Once Britz prepared an initial configuration, Brian Wilson took control of the console, directing session musicians from the booth using an intercom or non-verbal cues alongside chord charts.
129.
Brian Wilson first used the Wrecking Crew for productions with the Honeys in March 1963, and two months later, during sessions for Surfer Girl, he began gradually integrating these musicians into Beach Boys records.
130.
Until 1965, the band members typically performed the instrumentation, but as Brian Wilson's sessions came to necessitate 11 or more different players, his reliance on the Wrecking Crew increased.
131.
Unlike most other producers, Brian Wilson never required them to devise their own parts.
132.
Brian Wilson usually instructed his drummer to play only the snare and floor-tom afterbeats characteristic of Spector's records.
133.
In Priore's assessment, Brian Wilson reconfigured Spector's Wall of Sound techniques, aiming for "audio clarity" and "a more lush, comfortable feel".
134.
The 2003 book Temples of Sound states that Brian Wilson distinguished himself from Spector through the usage of certain instruments, such as banjo, and by possessing a "clean muscle" missing in Spector's work.
135.
Brian Wilson recalled that he "learned how to sing falsetto" through listening to Four Freshmen renditions.
136.
Brian Wilson is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and mild bipolar disorder.
137.
Brian Wilson referred to the voices as "heroes and villains" that contributed to "a life of scare".
138.
Subsequent to his Houston flight incident from December 1964, Marilyn arranged his first psychiatrist visit, where it was ruled that Brian Wilson's condition was due to work-related fatigue.
139.
Brian Wilson typically refused counseling, and his family believed his idiosyncrasies stemmed from drug habits or were innate to his personality.
140.
Brian Wilson's hallucinations emerged early in 1965, about a week after his first time using psychedelics.
141.
Brian Wilson gives me the impression he's been on it for a while, and he's entirely enamored of it.
142.
Ledbetter, in 2004, claimed Brian Wilson had taken LSD only thrice in his life.
143.
Brian Wilson was hospitalized later that year and prescribed Thorazine for severe anxiety disorder.
144.
Brian Wilson was given the since-retracted diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, in addition to manic-depressive psychosis, when he was a patient at Brotzman Memorial Hospital in 1978.
145.
Therapist Peter Reum stated that Brian Wilson would have deterioriated into a "drooling, palsied mental patient", and potentially died of heart failure had he continued this drug regimen.
146.
At age 11, during a Christmas choir recital, it was found that Brian Wilson had significantly diminished hearing in his right ear.
147.
Brian Wilson's daughters inspired his songs "Roller Skating Child" and "Little Children".
148.
Brian Wilson later described himself as a neglectful father and husband during his first marriage.
149.
Brian Wilson had encouraged his wife to pursue extramarital affairs, including one with songwriter Tandyn Almer, while he engaged in an affair with her sister, the subject of his song "My Diane".
150.
Concurrently, Brian Wilson maintained an affair with Debbie Keil, who inspired his song "The Night Was So Young".
151.
Brian Wilson initially dated Melinda Kae Ledbetter from 1986 to late 1989.
152.
Brian Wilson gave me the emotional security I needed to have a career.
153.
Brian Wilson was intrigued by astrology, numerology, and the occult, as reflected in his original concepts for Smile.
154.
In 1966, Brian Wilson expressed his belief that all music "starts with religion", and while he recognized a "higher being who is better than we are", he was not traditionally religious.
155.
Brian Wilson is an artist wrapped densely in myth and enigma who, in person, in interview, creates as many questions as he answers.
156.
Brian Wilson has admitted to having a poor memory and occasionally lying in interviews to "test" people.
157.
In later years, many writers have found Brian Wilson challenging to interview, as his responses are usually curt or lacking in substance.
158.
Brian Wilson is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and significant songwriters of the late 20th century.
159.
The level of creative control that Brian Wilson had asserted over his own record output was unprecedented in the music industry, leading him to become the first pop artist credited for writing, arranging, producing, and performing his own material.
160.
Granata writes that Brian Wilson "redefined" the role of the producer.
161.
Brian Wilson was a pioneer of "project" recording, where an artist records by himself rather than at an established studio.
162.
Carlin writes that Brian Wilson had originated an "art-rock" style that merged transcendent artistic possibilities with the mainstream appeal of pop music.
163.
Academic Larry Starr writes, "In a sense, Brian Wilson was the first self-conscious second-generation rock 'n' roller" as well as "the first fully realized" example of both an innovative and majorly successful pop musician.
164.
Starr credits Brian Wilson with establishing a successful career model that was then followed by the Beatles and other mid-1960s British Invasion acts.
165.
Timothy White wrote that Brian Wilson's ensuing legend rivaled that of the California myth promoted by the Beach Boys, while Brackett characterized Brian Wilson's "rise and fall and rise" as a "downright Shakespearean" story.
166.
Ultimately, Brian Wilson became regarded as the most famous outsider musician.
167.
Brian Wilson has been declared the "godfather" of punk, indie rock, and emo.
168.
Principally through his early records, Brian Wilson, alongside his collaborator Mike Love, was a key influence on the development of punk rock and the movement's evolution into indie rock.
169.
Later in the 20th century, Brian Wilson was credited with "godfathering" an era of independently produced music that was heavily indebted to his melodic sensibilities, chamber pop orchestrations, and recording experiments.
170.
Brian Wilson's influence continues to be attributed to modern dream pop acts such as Au Revoir Simone, Wild Nothing, Alvvays, and Lana Del Rey.