Dennis Wilson

At 39 years old, Dennis Wilson has this physical status:

The Wilsons' mother, Audree, forced Brian to include Dennis in the original lineup of the Beach Boys. In 1960, Dennis began taking drum lessons at Hawthorne High School. Teacher Fred Morgan later said that Dennis had been "a beater, not a drummer" and "a fast learner when he wanted to learn." According to Brian, "We kind of developed into a group sort of through the wishes of Dennis. He said that ... the kids at school knew I was musical because I had done some singing for assemblies and so on." Recalling their first group rehearsals, Dennis said that he was initially "going to play bass, and then I decided to play drums. ... Drums seemed to be more exciting. I could always play bass if I wanted to."

The Beach Boys officially formed in late 1961, with Murry taking over as manager, and had a local hit with their debut record "Surfin'", a song that Brian wrote at Dennis' urging. Dennis recalled, "We got so excited ... I ran down the street screaming, 'Listen, we're on the radio!' It was really funky. That started it, the minute you're on the radio." Though the Beach Boys developed their image based on the California surfing culture, Dennis was the only actual surfer in the band. Carl supported, "Dennis was the only one who could really surf. We all tried, even Brian, but we were terrible. We just wanted to have a good time and play music."

In early 1963, Dennis teamed with Brian's collaborator Gary Usher. Calling themselves the Four Speeds, they released the single "RPM" backed with "My Stingray". In March 1964, Dennis moved out of the Wilson family home and took residence at an address in Hollywood. In the sleeve notes of the band's July 1964 album All Summer Long, Dennis wrote: "They say I live a fast life. Maybe I just like a fast life. I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. It won't last forever, either. But the memories will." In December, Murry told a reporter that Dennis had been "a little too generous" with money and "cried when he learned about how much he had wasted. ... Where the other boys invested or saved their money, Dennis spent $94,000. He spent $25,000 on a home but the rest just went. Dennis [is] like that: he picks up the tab wherever he goes."

In January 1965, Brian declared to his bandmates that he would no longer tour with the group for the foreseeable future. He later said that Dennis was so devastated by the news that his immediate reaction was to pick up "a big ashtray and told some people to get out of there or he'd hit them on the head with it. He kind of blew it." Photographer Ed Roach, a close friend of Dennis's, stated that Brian was deterred from the stage due to jealousy over the adulation Dennis received from the audience. Brian remembered that the attention Dennis received was "hard to handle". The girls would be going 'Dennis, Dennis' and run right past us to get to him." Dennis later said of his brother, "Brian Wilson is the Beach Boys. He is the band. We're his fucking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We're nothing. He's everything."

Brian wrote that he had felt that Dennis "never really had a chance to sing very much", and so he gave him more leads on their March 1965 album The Beach Boys Today!. Dennis sang "Do You Wanna Dance?" and "In the Back of My Mind". The former became the first song with a Dennis lead that was issued as an A-sided single, peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Journalist Peter Doggett later said that Dennis' performance on the latter song "showed for the first time an awareness that his voice could be a blunt emotional instrument. ... his erratic croon cut straight to the heart, with an urgency that his more precise brothers could never have matched." Released in July, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) contained Dennis's favorite song by Brian, "Let Him Run Wild".

By 1966, Dennis had begun using LSD. His drumming contributions on Pet Sounds (1966) were limited to the track "That's Not Me". Carl said, "Brian liked to use [session drummer] Hal [Blaine] because he was so much more reliable than Dennis, but whenever Dennis got the chance to play he always did a great job. He played drums on more of our records than most people realize. I think because he didn't play on Pet Sounds everybody assumes he never played at all, and that's just not the case."

During the Smile sessions, Dennis played on "Vega-Tables", "Holidays", and "Good Vibrations". It is rumored that the album's working title, Dumb Angel, referred to Dennis himself. Van Dyke Parks, the project's lyricist, credited Wilson with inspiring the name of the would-be album track "Surf's Up". Dennis said that the group ultimately scrapped Smile because they became "very paranoid about the possibility of losing our public. ... Drugs played a great role in our evolution but as a result we were frightened that people would no longer understand us, musically."

In the latter part of the 1960s, Dennis started writing songs for the Beach Boys. Dennis's collaborator Gregg Jakobson commented, "He started taking his piano playing more seriously. He'd ask Brian to show him stuff until he got a pretty good grasp of chords." In January 1967, Dennis recorded the original composition "I Don't Know", but it was left unreleased. Music historian Keith Badman states that whether the piece was intended for Smile is not definitively known. In December, Wilson recorded a piece called "Tune #1" that was intended for a solo project to be released on Brother Records, but it was also shelved.

Wilson's first major released composition was "Little Bird", issued in April 1968 as the B-side of the "Friends" single. "Little Bird" and another song, "Be Still", were co-written with poet Stephen Kalinich and featured on the album Friends (June 1968). The group's next album, 20/20 (February 1969), marked the emergence of Dennis as a producer, including his original songs "Be with Me" and "All I Want to Do". Dennis's "Celebrate the News" was released as the B-side to the standalone single "Break Away". In 2018, many of Wilson's unreleased tracks from this period were released for the compilations Wake the World: The Friends Sessions and I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions.

By this time, the Beach Boys' popularity had faltered considerably. Dennis believed, "Because of the attitude of a few mental dinosaurs intent on exploiting our initial success, Brian's huge talent has never been fully appreciated in America and the potential of the group has been stifled. ... If the Beatles had suffered this kind of misrepresentation, they would have never got past singing 'Please, Please Me' and 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and leaping around in Beatle suits."

Solo career

Dennis continued writing songs for the Beach Boys' subsequent albums, including Sunflower (August 1970), which featured the single "Forever" – commonly regarded as one of his finest songs – and three others: "Slip On Through", "Got to Know the Woman", and "It's About Time". Their inclusion was said to be at the insistence of Warner-Reprise, who felt that Dennis's songs sounded more contemporary than other rejected Beach Boys tracks. "Slip On Through" became the first of Dennis's songs to be issued as an A-sided single by the Beach Boys.

In the early 1970s, Wilson recorded material with Beach Boys touring musician Daryl Dragon to be set aside for a potential solo album, provisionally titled Freckles. Dennis also offered Poops and Hubba Hubba as the album's working titles. On December 4, Stateside/EMI released "Sound of Free", a single issued only in Europe and the UK under the credit "Dennis Wilson & Rumbo". The B-side was the Sunflower outtake "Lady" (also known as "Fallin' In Love"). At the Beach Boys' concerts in 1971, Dennis played solo piano renditions of his songs "Barbara" and "I've Got a Friend". Biographer Jon Stebbins writes, "He was developing a power-ballad style that would become his signature."

Dennis' two song contributions to the Beach Boys' August 1971 album Surf's Up – "4th of July" and "(Wouldn't It Be Nice to) Live Again" – were left off the record. At the time, Dennis stated that he "pulled" the songs off the record because he did not feel they flowed well alongside the other tracks. According to band manager Jack Rieley, the absence of any Dennis songs on Surf's Up was for two reasons: to quell political infighting within the group concerning the album's share of Wilson-brother songs, and because Dennis wanted to save his songs for a solo album.

Engineer Stephen Desper said of Dennis's album, "ninety percent of it was ninety percent done". Fred Vail, the band's co-manager, described the album as "diamonds never cut and polished", and explained, "The Beach Boys obviously weren't buying into his songs as part of the group output." Several tracks from the album – "Baby Baby", "It's a New Day", "I've Got a Friend", "Behold the Night", "Hawaiian Dream", "Medley: All Of My Love / Ecology", and "Before" – were released on the 2021 box set Feel Flows.

In June 1971, Dennis injured his hand badly enough to prevent him from playing drums for some time, so Ricky Fataar took over as the group's drummer between 1972 and 1974. Stebbins writes, "Now, during concerts, the impulsive, physically aggressive Dennis would be reduced to sitting behind a keyboard or standing off to one side behind a microphone. It hurt him deeply. He felt like a caged animal. His drinking became worse and his participation in the band became erratic." Biographer David Leaf wrote that, by this time, "Dennis was constantly quitting [the band] or getting fired and then rejoining."

Two more songs intended for Dennis's album – "Make it Good" and "Cuddle Up" (originally titled "Old Movie") – were ultimately placed on the Beach Boys' 1972 release Carl and the Passions – "So Tough". Dennis wrote and produced two songs – "Steamboat" and "Only with You" – on their next album, Holland (1973). A third song, "Carry Me Home", was left off the record. The cover of their 1973 live album, The Beach Boys in Concert, depicts only Dennis onstage, although the album itself contains none of his songs.

During the three-year recording hiatus following Holland, Dennis' voice deteriorated markedly. By then, his onstage antics (including streaking) occasionally disrupted the Beach Boys' live shows. He continued recording for his forthcoming solo album at the band's Brother Studios facility in Santa Monica. In 1974, concurrent with the success of the greatest hits compilation Endless Summer, Dennis returned to his role behind the drums. According to Billy Hinsche, keyboardist for the Beach Boys' supporting band, it was this year that Dennis co-wrote the lyrics and modified part of the melody of "You Are So Beautiful" at a party with Billy Preston. Hinsche said, "I was there that night, and I would not dispute that Dennis had a hand in writing 'You Are So Beautiful,' and that's the reason we would do it in concert."

By 1977, Dennis had amassed a stockpile of songs he had written and recorded while factions within the Beach Boys became too stressful for him. He expressed: "If these people want to take this beautiful, happy, spiritual music we've made and all the things we stand for and throw it out the window just because of money, then there's something wrong with the whole thing and I don't want any part of it." He then approached James William Guercio, owner of Caribou Records, who stipulated "a structured recording process" before signing Dennis to a two-album contract. According to Guercio: "My discussions with Dennis were along the lines of, 'You just tell Gregg [Jakobson] what you need - you have the studio and your job is to finish the dream. Finish the vision. Trish Roach [personal assistant] will do the paperwork and Gregg's the co-ordinator. It's your project... You've got to do what Brian used to do. Use anybody you want - it's your decision and you're responsible."

Dennis released his debut solo album Pacific Ocean Blue in 1977. Although it sold relatively poorly, peaking at No. 96 on the US Billboard chart, it outperformed the following two Beach Boys albums. Dates were booked for a Dennis Wilson solo tour, but these were ultimately cancelled when his record company withdrew concert support. He did occasionally perform his solo material on the 1977 Beach Boys tour. Despite Dennis claiming the album had "no substance", Pacific Ocean Blue received positive reviews and later developed status as a cult item, ultimately selling nearly 250,000 copies.

The album remained largely out of print between the 1990s and 2000s. In June 2008, it was reissued on CD as an expanded edition. It was voted the 2008 "Reissue of the Year" in both Rolling Stone, and Mojo magazines and made No. 16 on the British LP charts and No. 8 on both the Billboard Catalog chart and the Billboard Internet Sales chart.

Pacific Ocean Blue's follow-up, Bambu, began production in 1978 at Brother Studios, with the collaboration of then Beach Boys keyboardist and Dennis' close friend Carli Muñoz as songwriter and producer. The first four songs officially recorded for Bambu were Muñoz's compositions: "It's Not Too Late", "Constant Companion", "All Alone", and "Under the Moonlight". The project was initially scuttled by lack of financing and the distractions of simultaneous Beach Boys projects. Bambu was officially released in 2008 along with the Pacific Ocean Blue reissue. This material was also released on vinyl in 2017, without Pacific Ocean Blue, for Record Store Day.

Two songs from the Bambu sessions, "Love Surrounds Me" and "Baby Blue," were lifted for the Beach Boys' L.A. (Light Album) (1979). Dennis and Brian also recorded together apart from the Beach Boys in the early 1980s. These sessions remain unreleased, although they are widely bootlegged as The Cocaine Sessions.

Source