1958–1962: Formation and first recordings , marking where the Wilson family home once stood At the time of his 16th birthday on June 20, 1958,
Brian Wilson shared a bedroom with his brothers,
Dennis and
Carlaged 13 and 11, respectivelyin their family home in
Hawthorne. He had watched his father
Murry Wilson play piano, and had listened intently to the harmonies of vocal groups such as
the Four Freshmen. After dissecting songs such as "
Ivory Tower" and "
Good News", Brian would teach family members how to sing the background harmonies. For his birthday that year, Brian received a
reel-to-reel tape recorder. He learned how to
overdub, using his vocals and those of Carl and their mother. Brian played piano, while Carl and
David Marks, an eleven-year-old longtime neighbor, played guitars that each had received as Christmas presents. Soon Brian and Carl were avidly listening to
Johnny Otis'
KFOX radio show. Inspired by the simple structure and vocals of the
rhythm and blues songs he heard, Brian changed his piano-playing style and started writing songs. Family gatherings brought the Wilsons in contact with cousin
Mike Love. Brian taught Love's sister Maureen and a friend harmonies. Later, Brian, Carl, Love and two friends performed at
Hawthorne High School under the name "Carl and The Passions". Brian also knew
Al Jardine, a high school classmate. Brian suggested to Jardine that they team up with his cousin and brother Carl. Soon after Dennis also joined the band on demand of the Wilson's mother Audree. Dennis was the only avid surfer in the group, and he suggested that the group write songs that celebrated the sport and the lifestyle that it had inspired in
Southern California. Brian finished the song, titled "
Surfin", and with Mike Love, wrote "
Surfin' Safari". Love gave the fledgling band its name: "The Pendletones", a pun on "
Pendleton", a brand of woolen shirt popular among local surfers at the time. Murry Wilson, who was an occasional songwriter, arranged for the Pendletones to meet his publisher Hite Morgan. Murry brought the demos to Herb Newman, owner of
Candix Records and
Era Records, and he signed the group on December 8. When the single was released a few weeks later, the band found that they had been renamed "the Beach Boys". Candix wanted to name the group the Surfers until
Russ Regan, a young promoter with Era Records, noted that there already existed a group by that name. He suggested calling them the Beach Boys. "Surfin was a regional success for the West Coast, and reached number 75 on the national
Billboard Hot 100 chart. outfits, performing at a local high school, late 1962 By this time the de facto manager of the Beach Boys, Murry landed the group's first paying gig (for which they earned $300) on New Year's Eve, 1961, at the
Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance in
Long Beach. In their early public appearances, the band wore the heavy Pendleton woolen jacket-like shirts that local surfers favored before switching to their trademark striped shirts and white pants (a look that was taken directly from the
Kingston Trio). All five members sang, with Brian playing bass, Dennis playing drums, Carl playing lead guitar, and Al Jardine playing rhythm guitar, while Mike Love was usually the frontman and occasionally played saxophone. In early 1962, Morgan requested that some of the members add vocals to a couple of instrumental tracks that he had recorded with other musicians. This led to the creation of the short-lived group Kenny & the Cadets, which Brian led under the pseudonym "Kenny". The other members were Carl, Jardine, and the Wilsons' mother Audree. under executive and staff producer
Nick Venet. On June 4, 1962, the Beach Boys debuted on Capitol with their second single, "Surfin' Safari" backed with "409". "Surfin' Safari" rose to number 14 and found airplay in New York and Phoenix, a surprise for the label. Their debut album, ''
Surfin' Safari'', followed in October 1962 and was different from other rock albums of the time in that it consisted almost entirely of original songs, primarily written by Brian with Mike Love and friend
Gary Usher. Another unusual feature of the Beach Boys was that, although they were marketed as "surf music", their repertoire bore little resemblance to the music of other surf bands, which was mainly instrumental and incorporated heavy use of
spring reverb. For this reason, some of the Beach Boys' early local performances had young audience members throwing vegetables at the band, believing that the group were poseurs. {{listen In January 1963, the Beach Boys recorded their first top-ten single, "
Surfin' U.S.A.", which began their long run of highly successful recording efforts. It was during the sessions for this single that Brian made the production decision from that point on to use
double tracking on the group's vocals, resulting in a deeper and more resonant sound. The
album of the same name followed in March and reached number 2 on the
Billboard charts. Its success propelled the group into a nationwide spotlight, and was vital to launching surf music as a national craze, albeit the Beach Boys' vocal approach to the genre, not the original instrumental style pioneered by
Dick Dale. In some ways, the music was a jarring departure from their earlier style. Released on May 16, 1966,
Pet Sounds was widely influential and raised the band's prestige as an innovative rock group. Early reviews for the album in the US ranged from negative to tentatively positive, and its sales numbered approximately 500,000 units, a drop-off from the run of albums that immediately preceded it. Within two months, the label capitulated by releasing the group's first
greatest hits compilation album,
Best of the Beach Boys, which was quickly certified gold by the
RIAA. In Britain throughout 1966,
EMI flooded the UK market with Beach Boys albums not yet released there, including ''Beach Boys' Party!
, The Beach Boys Today!
and Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)
, while Best of the Beach Boys'' was number 2 there for several weeks at the end of the year. Thanks to mutual connections, Brian had been introduced to the Beatles' former press officer
Derek Taylor, who was subsequently employed as the Beach Boys' publicist. Responding to Brian's request to reinvent the band's image, Taylor devised a promotion campaign with the tagline "
Brian Wilson is a genius", a belief Taylor sincerely held.
Pet Sounds met a highly favorable critical response in Britain, where it reached number 2 and remained among the top-ten positions for six months. Taylor's prestige was crucial in offering a credible perspective to those on the outside, and his efforts are widely recognized as instrumental in the album's success in Britain. Throughout the summer of 1966, Brian concentrated on finishing the group's next single, "
Good Vibrations". It was one of the most complex pop productions ever undertaken, with sessions for the song stretching over months in four major Hollywood studios, and the most expensive single then ever recorded. Simultaneously, Wilson invited session musician and songwriter
Van Dyke Parks to collaborate as lyricist for the Beach Boys' next album project, soon titled
Smile. Recording lasted from mid-1966 to mid-1967, and followed the same modular production approach as "Good Vibrations". Concurrently, the Beach Boys' planned to launch their own independent label,
Brother Records. " at the
Capitol Tower, late 1966 Released on October 10, 1966, "Good Vibrations" was the Beach Boys' third US number 1 single, reaching the top of the
Billboard Hot 100 in December, and became their first number 1 in Britain. The record was their first single certified gold by the
RIAA. It came to be widely acclaimed as one of the greatest masterpieces of rock music. Over the final quarter of 1966, the Beach Boys were the highest-selling album act in the UK, where for the first time in three years American artists broke the chart dominance of British acts. In December, the Beach Boys were voted the top band in the world in the
NMEs annual readers' poll, ahead of the Beatles,
the Walker Brothers,
the Rolling Stones, and
the Four Tops. Throughout the first half of 1967, the release date for
Smile was repeatedly postponed as Brian tinkered with the recordings, experimenting with different takes and mixes, and appeared unwilling to supply finished versions of songs. Carl refused to be drafted for military service, leading to indictment and criminal prosecution, which he challenged as a
conscientious objector over the next several years. After months of recording and media hype,
Smile was shelved for personal, technical, and legal reasons. A February 1967 lawsuit seeking $255,000 (equivalent to $ in ) was launched against Capitol Records over neglected royalty payments. Within the lawsuit was an attempt to terminate the band's contract with Capitol before its November 1969 expiry. Many of Wilson's associates, including Parks, disassociated themselves from the group by April 1967. In the decades following
Smiles non-release, it became the most legendary unreleased album in pop music history.
Faltered popularity, Brian's reduced involvement, and publishing sale Although
Smile had been cancelled, the Beach Boys were still under pressure and a contractual obligation to record and present an album to Capitol. Sessions for the new album lasted from June to July 1967 at
Brian's new makeshift home studio. Most of the album featured the Beach Boys playing their own instruments, rather than the session musicians employed in much of their previous work. In July 1967, lead single "
Heroes and Villains" was issued, arriving after months of public anticipation, and reached number 12 in US. By then, the group's lawsuit with Capitol was resolved, and it was agreed that
Smile would not be the band's next album. In August, the group embarked on a two-date tour of Hawaii. The shows saw Brian make a brief return to live performance, as Bruce Johnston chose to take a temporary break from the band during the summer of 1967, feeling that the atmosphere within the band "had all got too weird".
Smiley Smile was released on September 18, 1967, and peaked at number 41 in the US, making it their worst-selling album to that date. It was the first album for which production was credited to the entire group instead of Brian alone. Critics and fans were generally underwhelmed by the album; according to Scott Schinder, it was released to "general incomprehension". The group was virtually blacklisted by the music press, to the extent that reviews of the group's records were either withheld from publication or published long after the release dates. When released in the UK in November, it performed better, reaching number 9. The Beach Boys immediately recorded a new album,
Wild Honey, an excursion into
soul music, and a self-conscious attempt to "regroup" themselves as a rock band in opposition to their more orchestral affairs of the past. Released on December 18, 1967, it had a higher chart placing than
Smiley Smile, but still failed to make the top-twenty and remained on the charts for only 15 weeks. As with
Smiley Smile, contemporary critics viewed it as inconsequential, and it alienated fans whose expectations had been raised by
Smile. Onstage, the members stopped wearing their longtime striped-shirt uniforms in favor of matching white, polyester suits that resembled the fashion of a Las Vegas entertainment act. They reached their lowest popularity in the late 1960s and their cultural standing was especially worsened by their public image, which remained incongruous with the prevailing styles of their contemporaries. Capitol continued to bill them as "America's Top Surfin' Group!" and desired for Brian to revert to this direction for the yearly summer markets. After meeting
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a
UNICEF Variety Gala in Paris, Love and other high-profile celebrities such as the Beatles and
Donovan traveled to
Rishikesh, India, in February–March 1968. The following Beach Boys album,
Friends, had songs influenced by the
Transcendental Meditation the Maharishi taught. In support of
Friends, Love arranged for the Beach Boys to
tour with the Maharishi in the US. Starting on May 3, 1968, the tour lasted five shows and was canceled when the Maharishi withdrew to fulfill film contracts. Because of disappointing audience numbers and the Maharishi's withdrawal, 24 tour dates were canceled at a cost estimated at $250,000.
Friends, released on June 24, peaked at number 126 in the US. In July 1968, the group released the single "
Do It Again", which lyrically harkened back to their earlier surf songs. Around this time, Brian admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital; his bandmates wrote and produced material in his absence. His songwriting output declined substantially, but the public narrative of "Brian as leader" continued. In August, Capitol issued an album of Beach Boys backing tracks,
Stack-o-Tracks. It was the first Beach Boys LP that failed to chart in the US and UK. Released in January 1969, the album
20/20 mixed new material with outtakes and leftovers from recent albums; Brian produced virtually none of the newer recordings. In April 1969, the band revisited its 1967 lawsuit against Capitol after it alleged an audit revealed the band was owed over $2 million for unpaid royalties and production duties. In May, Brian told the music press that the group's funds were depleted to the point that it was considering filing for bankruptcy at the end of the year, which
Disc & Music Echo called "stunning news" and a "tremendous shock on the American pop scene". Brian hoped that the success of a forthcoming single, "
Break Away", would mend the financial issues.