45 Facts About Mike Love

Michael Edward Love was born on March 15,1941 and is an American singer who co-founded the Beach Boys with his cousins Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson and their friend Al Jardine.

Mike Love is often vilified by fans and critics due to his history of conflicts with his bandmates, a characterization he has disputed.

Mike Love remains uncredited for another 44 Beach Boys songs he alleged to have co-written.

Since then, Mike Love has maintained a near-constant touring regimen with his edition of the group, and has released three more solo albums.

Mike Love has not performed with Brian since their 2012 reunion tour.

Mike Love's honors include an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Beach Boys in 1988.

Mike Love, the first of their six children, was born in the Baldwin Hills district of Los Angeles in 1941.

Mike Love attended Dorsey High School and graduated in 1959.

Unsure of a career direction, Mike Love pumped gas and briefly joined his father's company, whose fortunes dramatically declined in the late 1950s.

Mike Love played rudimentary saxophone in the first years of the fledgling garage band that evolved from the Pendletones to the Beach Boys.

Mike Love established himself, along with neighbor Gary Usher, local DJ Roger Christian, and others, as a collaborator with Brian Wilson in the band's original compositions.

Mike Love would bring out the funkier approaches, whether to go shoo-boo-bop or bom-bom-did-di-did-did.

Mike Love is credited with naming their album Pet Sounds.

Conversely, Mike Love has been reported as resisting the group's new direction.

However, Van Dyke Parks, the album's lyricist, blamed Mike Love with putting "a stop" on the album.

Mike Love stated in 1978 that the group's unhappiness with Capitol's promotional efforts had led them to change record companies in the late 1960s.

In late 1967, Mike Love became one of the many rock musicians who discovered the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi following the Beatles' public endorsement of his Transcendental Meditation technique in August 1967.

In January 1968, the Beach Boys attended the Maharishi's public appearances in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts, after which he invited Mike Love to join the Beatles at his training seminar in Rishikesh in northern India.

Mike Love became a TM initiator in 1972 and later progressed to more advanced levels such as the TM-Sidhi Course.

Mike Love was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the Original Song category, and was nominated for a Grammy Award, for "Kokomo".

Also in 1988, Mike Love was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the other founding members of the Beach Boys.

At the induction ceremony Mike Love delivered a hostile speech, criticizing McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Mick Jagger.

Two years later, Mike Love won a legal proceeding to establish what he considered to be proper authorship credit for many of the Beach Boys songs he co-wrote.

Mike Love successfully argued that Murry Wilson avoided crediting him with his early lyrical contributions to Brian's songs, denying Mike Love accrued royalties.

Mike Love later called it "almost certainly the largest case of fraud in music history".

Mike Love leased exclusive rights to tour under the Beach Boys name in a boardroom settlement with Brother Records, the Beach Boys' company.

The California Court of Appeal proceeded to rule that, "Mike Love acted wrongfully in freezing Jardine out of touring under the Beach Boys name", allowing Jardine to continue with his lawsuit.

On November 3,2005, Mike Love sued Brian and the British newspaper The Mail On Sunday because the Beach Boys' name and Mike Love's image were used in a promotional CD that was given free with the paper to promote the 2004 Brian Wilson presents Smile release.

In 2011, Mike Love reunited with Brian, Jardine, Johnston and David Marks for a new Beach Boys album and 50th anniversary tour beginning in 2012.

Mike Love wrote the book as a response to "many inaccuracies" that had been said about him over the decades.

Mike Love's every move is orchestrated and a lot of things he's purported to say, there's not tape of it.

On November 17,2017, Mike Love released his second solo album Unleash the Mike Love.

On October 26,2018, Mike Love released his third solo album, Reason for the Season, featuring traditional and original Christmas music.

Mike Love has been married to Jacquelyne Piesen since 1994 and has eight children: two with Piesen and six from his four previous marriages.

Mike Love is a vegetarian who practices and teaches TM, wears Indian Ayurveda rings, and partakes in traditional Hindu ceremonies.

Mike Love describes himself as a progressive, although a photographed handshake between him and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s led many to label him as a conservative.

At the time, Mike Love announced he was switching his support from Bush to NLP candidate John Hagelin.

In 2018, Mike Love praised Donald Trump for his "support of music historically" and was present at the signing of the Music Modernization Act in October.

Mike Love has been a longtime supporter of environmental causes and was among speakers at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Earth Day 2000 in Washington, DC.

Mike Love was instrumental in forming StarServe, which enlisted high-profile celebrities to inspire America's youth to help serve their communities.

Mike Love created the Love Foundation, which supports national environmental and educational initiatives.

Mike Love personally donated $100,000 to the American Red Cross to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina and helped the foundation raise an additional $250,000.

Mike Love has served as a member of the board of directors of the Lake Tahoe School in Incline Village, Nevada, and was responsible for raising over $1 million to benefit the school.

In 2010, Mike Love contributed to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's More Hope For The Holidays album with vocals on "Closing of the Year" as well as contributing his self-penned "Santa's Goin' To Kokomo".

Mike Love performed a benefit concert for the foundation for the Children of the Californias which raised one million dollars to support the expansion of three new surgical suites.