Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys celebrates his 75th birthday today (June 20th)!!! Wilson co-founded the group in 1961 with his late brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson, his cousin Mike Love, neighbor David Marks, and high school buddy Al Jardine. It was Wilson’s genius for arranging intricate harmonies that first set him apart from his peers, an ability made even more impressive because he is 97 percent deaf in his right ear. He is the sole-surviving member of his immediate family, with his father Murry dying in 1973, his brothers Dennis and Carl dying in 1983 and 1998, respectively, and his mother Audree passing on in 1997.
Between 1962 and 1967 Wilson produced a total of 22 Top 40 hits, including the group’s classics “Surfin’ U.S.A,” “In My Room,” “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Surfer Girl,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Don’t Worry Baby,” “I Get Around,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “California Girls,” “Barbara Ann,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Good Vibrations,” and many more.
Wilson is currently out in the midst of an extended world tour with fellow Beach Boys Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin celebrating the now 51st anniversary of the group’s groundbreaking Pet Sounds album. They’ll kick off a 22-date European summer tour on June 29th in Odense, Denmark.
Beach Boys fans are ecstatic over the June 30th release of the band’s latest collection, called 1967: Sunshine Tomorrow. In addition to the first-ever stereo mix of the band’s beloved 1967 Wild Honey album, Sunshine Tomorrow boasts countless outtakes and alternate tracks from both the Smiley Smile and Wild Honey albums — along with key rehearsals and live tracks from the aborted Lei’d In Hawaii album. Rounding out the set are select previously unreleased performances from the Beach Boys’ Thanksgiving 1967 tour.
The 1967 Smiley Smile recordings marked Brian Wilson’s first work after the abandoned Smile album, with Wild Honey being the last Beach Boys album of the 1960’s to showcase the legendary songwriting team of cousins Brian Wilson and frontman Mike Love. The album gets its name — Sunshine Tomorrow — from a line from Wild Honey‘s “Let The Wind Blow.”
Coming on September 22nd is the first compilation charting Brian Wilson’s nearly 30-year solo career. Playback: The Brian Wilson Anthology features 18 songs — including two previously unreleased tracks — “Run James Run” and “Some Sweet Day,” along with “Love & Mercy,” “Surf’s Up,” “Heroes & Villains,” “Melt Away,” “Let It Shine,” “Rio Grande,” “Cry,” “Lay Down Burden, ” “The First Time,” “This Isn’t Love,” “Soul Searchin’,” “Gettin’ In Over My Head,” “The Like In I Love You,” “Midnight’s Another Day,” “Colors Of The Wind,” and “One Kind Of Love.”
Recently released is the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds – 50th Anniversary Edition. The collection is available in several configurations — including a four-CD/Blu-ray Audio collectors edition presented in a hardbound book, featuring the remastered original album in stereo and mono, plus hi-res stereo, mono, instrumental, and 5.1 surround mixes, session outtakes, alternate mixes, and previously unreleased live recordings; a two-CD and digital deluxe edition pairing the remastered album in stereo and mono with highlights from the collectors edition’s additional tracks; and remastered, 180-gram LP editions of the album in mono and stereo with faithfully replicated original artwork.
In April 2015, Wilson released his 11th solo studio album, No Pier Pressure. Among the key players on the album are Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin, and David Marks — along with such modern stars as Kacey Musgraves, fun.’s Nate Ruess, She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, Peter Hollens, and Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian. No Pier Pressure reunited Wilson with producer Joe Thomas, who was behind the boards with Wilson for the Beach Boys’ 2012 Top Three reunion album, That’s Why God Made The Radio.
Brian Wilson scored an Original Song Golden Globe nomination for “One Kind Of Love” — the theme to his 2015 biopic, Love And Mercy. In addition to Wilson, Love And Mercywas also saluted with actor Paul Dano, who portrayed Wilson as a younger man in the film, snagging the nomination for Actor In A Supporting Role In A Motion Picture. Both awards went to other nominees.
