Brian Wilson, Leader of the Beach Boys and Pop Genius, Dies at 82

Brian Wilson, leader of The Beach Boys, widely acknowledged as one of America’s all-time greatest composers, a pioneer of advanced studio techniques, and one of the most sensitive chroniclers of the Californian experience, has died at age 82. 

His death was confirmed Wednesday (June 11) by a post shared across his social media accounts. “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” the post read. “We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy.”

Wilson is survived by his daughters Carnie and Wendy from his 1964 marriage to Marilyn Rovell, as well as his five adopted children with his wife Melinda Ledbetter. (Ledbetter herself passed in early 2024.)

Wilson was born in Inglewood, California on June 20, 1942 to Audree Neva and Murry Wilson, a factory worker who became a songwriter and The Beach Boys’ early manager. At Hawthorne High School, Wilson was an athlete, but demonstrated an ear for harmony. In Summer 1961, he formed the Pendletones with younger brothers Carl and Dennis, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Released on the local Calpix label, their rudimentary “Surfin’” became a regional hit under their new name, The Beach Boys, and their next recordings landed them a contract with Capitol Records.

The following year’s Surfin’ U.S.A. reached No. 2, and The Beach Boys became superstars. From ’63 to ‘65, the band released three studio albums each year while touring nearly nonstop. Earning full producer credit by September 1963’s Surfer Girl, Wilson made speedy progress as an arranger and sonic sculptor: Harmonies were overdubbed and perfected, and he often sang falsetto lead, particularly on ballads like “In My Room.” Although their instrumental chops also strengthened, Wilson soon augmented the Boys with session musicians. Even the British Invasion couldn’t squash their popularity: The Beach Boys were America’s biggest band.

Yet conflicts with Murry Wilson – who’d long bullied his sons – as well as pressure to maintain their constant schedule magnified Wilson’s anxieties. Following an inflight panic attack in late 1964, the songwriter stopped performing. During his first LSD trip, he composed July 1965’s “California Girls,” which marked the studio debut of his touring replacement, Bruce Johnston.

For May 1966’s expansive Pet Sounds, Wilson and lyricist Tony Asher created a song cycle documenting a passage from youthful innocence to mournful adulthood that the composer contrasted with delicately sophisticated yet openhearted orchestrations. Wilson recorded the band’s next single in several studios using even more unconventional instrumentation, but October 1966’s “Good Vibrations” became a worldwide smash.

Meanwhile, he and fellow experimentalist Van Dyke Parks toiled for many months on the even more ambitious Smile, but the project’s complexity overwhelmed its producer, who ultimately abandoned it in favor of September 1967’s simplified Smiley Smile, the first of several creative but commercially far less successful albums of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in which Wilson typically diminished his input. After 1974’s Endless Summer – the first of three consecutive compilations – unexpectedly reached No. 1, the band suddenly became the era’s top touring draw.

Marilyn Wilson hired celebrity shrink Eugene Landy to cure her husband’s mounting instability and addictions during 1976’s 15 Big Ones and ‘77’s Love You, which he both produced. After Landy’s dismissal, his condition worsened again; an overdose brought Landy back in 1983. The therapist’s control over Wilson’s life extended even to 1988’s debut solo album Brian Wilson and 1991’s autobiography, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, until a 1992 restraining order.

Wilson’s condition gradually improved; he married Ledbetter in 1995, when his output resumed, sometimes with stellar results: 2004’s Brian Wilson Presents Smile, a re-recording of the abandoned album, justly earned universal accolades. He returned to touring solo and, in 2012, with The Beach Boys. That year, the band released the Wilson-helmed That’s Why God Made the Radio, which brought back early guitarist David Marks and celebrated the group’s 50th anniversary.

In December of 2021, Wilson sold his publishing rights to Universal for more than $50 million, according to documents filed in a lawsuit by his ex-wife Mary Wilson-Rutherford. In recent years, Wilson suffered a marked decline in mental and physical health, leading to him being placed under a conservatorship in late 2024. 

Although an acclaimed 2014 biopic, Love & Mercy, chronicled the musician’s rise, fall and return to relative stability, the magnitude of Wilson’s work towers above his legend as a troubled genius. Equally adept at celebrating sun, surf, cars, and girls as well as his own vulnerability, Wilson broadened rock’s scope while deepening its spiritual impact. God only knows what we’ll do without him.