Brian Wilson 1942-2025

By Harvey Kubernik

On June 11, 2025, Brian Douglas Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys died.

During February 2024 he had been diagnosed with dementia, and three months later Wilson entered into a conservatorship. In a post shared on Instagram, his family announced Brian’s death. “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” they wrote. “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.”

I first encountered Brian Wilson in 1962 at Rancho Music record shop in Studio Village in Culver City California when the Beach Boys were doing an in-store appearance and autograph party to promote their new record “Surfin’.”

In 1965 I talked to Brian, clad in a blue Navy pea coat and white Levis, one afternoon after junior high school. He introduced me to his wife Marilyn at Fisher’s Hamburgers inside the Town and Country Market in the Fairfax District.

I’ve subsequently worked with Brian on projects over the last half century. I’ve conducted interviews with him and wrote the 2007 program for Brian Wilson’s 40^th Anniversary Pet Sounds tour. In 2004 he supplied the back cover jacket testimonial for my first book This Is Rebel Music.

In 2014, my brother Kenneth and I wrote the text and assembled the debut coffee table photography book of artist Guy Webster, Big Shots. Webster was a Beach Boys’ insider and allowed to shoot the band and Wilson over the 1966-1967 making of their SMile endeavor. Brian provided the introduction to Big Shots.

“I saw Brian take pop music into a new direction,” marveled Guy in one of our interviews. “I love Brian. Child-like innocence and he was playful. And I believe in that. One of the things about studying Buddhism all my life is getting that playful side, exposing it and don’t be afraid of it and let it out. Everything Brian did I loved. Even the silly songs like ‘Surfer Girl’ I thought were brilliant.

“Well, the first time I walked into the living room at Laurel Way, it was this giant Moroccan tent was in the middle of the room, and there was sand on the floor by the piano, and I just went nuts because they could live the way they wanted to. Because they were rock ‘n’ roll and then, I had to go home to a straight house with you know, no tents in my living room…The group would gather in the tent and it was such an intimate experience. I used to sit in there with the guys and we’d talk and hang out and it was such a beautiful light that came in the tent through this wonderful amber, rose and red sheeting. And I enjoyed it. I thought it was a lot of fun. It made the house unique and different.

“I feel it’s an honor that I was at the recording session for the vocals of ‘Good Vibrations.’ Oh my God. I had chills up and down my arms and back the whole time. I had never seen anything like it and to be in that recording session and to see them practice in the halls getting their harmonies. Holy shit. That was a real treat and one of the highlights of my musical life. Capitol Records is releasing the SMiLE box set with the original 1966 and ’67 sessions for that album, including ‘Good Vibrations.’ I took photos in the book for the package. Van Dyke Parks is the lyricist with Brian on SMiLE. He’s brilliant. I did the cover of his Song Cycle album.”

It was in 1965 at RCA studios in Hollywood where Brian met Andrew Loog Oldham, who was there producing a Rolling Stones session at Studio A with engineer Dave Hassinger.

In 2000, Andrew told me Brian suggested to him “that one day he would write songs that people pray to.”

During 2007 I mentioned to Brian what Andrew said. “Yes, I did. I don’t remember when I first felt that. I know music was more than people applauding and buying records. Even when Pet Sounds came out a lot of people told me it got them through high school or college. The most amazing comment I got from one guy who said ‘that’s the most spiritual album I’ve ever heard.’”

“Brian put his heart in his music at a time when we were all using other muscles,” emphasized Loog Oldham.

The Wilson effect can also be found in 1966 on “What to Do,” from the Rolling Stones’ Aftermath. An homage to the Beach Boys, particularly their stacked vocal harmonies. Mick Jagger initially remarked to his producer, “What do you want me to do? Brian Wilson?”

In 1967, Brian would rave about “My Obsession” from the Stones’ Between the Buttons.

Genesis Publications in the UK presented a 2008 limited edition book, That Lucky Old Sun, of only 1,000 numbered sets, personally signed by Wilson and artist Peter Blake. The book has illustrated new interviews with Brian and an essay I penned.

That Lucky Old Sun was the seventh studio album by Wilson, issued by Capitol Records in 2008. It was written in collaboration with Scott Bennett, and spoken word poetry commissioned from Van Dyke Parks. It’s a concept album about life in Southern California.

Brian Wilson’s oceanic music has often been viewed as the soundtrack to an imaginary film. The sonic textures and ingenious voicings depict a California wonderland that is within a whisper’s breath of true touch. How appropriate then that England’s Peter Blake took brush in hand to “storyboard” these cinematic jewels, providing visual counterpoint to the scenes and dreams that reside in his songs.

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Screaming Lord Sutch: An interview with a raving loony

by Mike Stax

When David Sutch took his own life in June 1999 the world of rock ’n’ roll lost one of its wildest and most unforgettable characters. As Screaming Lord Sutch, his colorful, larger than life personality was a fixture of the British political landscape, but for rock’n’roll fans he will be remembered for his amazing recorded legacy: the mad rock and horror sides he cut with Joe Meek, the demented mid-‘60s gems like “Train Kept A-Rollin’” and “All Black and Hairy,” the proto-psychedelic “The Cheat,” the hard rockin’ Heavy Friends… For someone with no discernible music talent he sure made a lot of great records. And if you make great records you live forever.

In April 1993 I interviewed Lord Sutch by telephone for a two-part feature in the Union Jack newspaper. It was a memorable chat. Sutch was a charming, down-to-earth man, with an in-built, infectious sense of humor. Within a few minutes it was obvious my carefully prepared list of questions was out the window. Sutch talked a mile a minute, determined to cover all the highlights of his career, specifically: precise election results and of course the name of every single one of the famous players who’d passed through the ranks of the Savages (“my musicians,” as he called them). Between our chuckling, I made intermittent attempts to direct the flow of conversation, but there was little point, Sutch was on a roll, dashing down tangential side alleys and free-associating memories as the whim took him. Who was I to stop him in his tracks to clarify the smaller facts? It was all entertaining stuff – just let the tape roll.

Caveat emptor: As anyone who has read his autobiography, Life as Sutch, can tell you, historical accuracy wasn’t Sutch’s strong suit, entertaining people was. Some of Sutch’s tales involve a certain degree of exaggeration or misconception. All quite innocent, but bear it in mind as you read.

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An Interview with Jimmy Walker of the Knickerbockers

By Katy Levy

So, if you don’t mind, let’s go back right at the beginning… You are originally from the East Coast, is it true that you were born in the Bronx?

This is true! I’m from New York.

How was it like when you grew up?

When I lived in the Bronx, well… growing up there was kind of interesting. It is New York and it is one of the most interesting places on the planet. There’s so much to do and see and I was an avid sports fan so I could go to see the New York Yankees play. I played a lot of sports myself. There were a lot of outlets for that and also for music. I used to go downtown to Manhattan with friends and we’d go to Birdland and other jazz places and watch the really great musicians play. I think that people who come from New York, if they take advantage of it, are around some of the greatest situations in the world, best musicians and artists. Because people from other places, other states, other countries go to New York to act and play, to study music and study writing. So you have the advantage of people coming to your city, bringing their talent with them and you don’t have to travel very much. It’s a melting pot. So, I think that was really cool. I mean, you’ve got great stuff like museums, the Natural History, the New York Public Library on 2nd Avenue. You’ve got the zoo; the best zoo in the world is in the Bronx… the Bronx Zoo. You’ve got all kind of places that you can go and take advantage of for educational purposes and just to broaden your views of the world.

I feel that was the greatest part about growing up in New York… It had its disadvantages. In my neighborhood it started to get tough! There were a lot of gangs started to come up in the late ‘50s. That’s when it was starting to get downright dangerous. That was the disadvantage of being a teenager in a dangerous neighborhood, you really had to watch yourself. But you know, it makes you street smart!

Do you come from a musical background or are you the only artist in the family?

The only person in the family who had any musical ability was my dad, he could sing really well. And he could play the drums, same as me.

Well, actually my next question was about your discovery of the drums, where it came from, what attracted you to that particular instrument. So it came from your dad?

Yeah! I think if you have a talent, at least me at a very early age – I was maybe seven or eight years old – you just naturally gravitate towards it. I watched drummers on television. My uncle was a musicologist and a copyist for the army band at West Point. He bought me my first snare drum and sticks and brushes when I was nine. He was also a kind of saxophone player and even in our first little jam session in my house, my uncle pulled out his saxophone and we started playing old swing stuff. He noticed and said that I had an unusual gift for it. So even at an early age, it was just totally natural for me to be able to play the drums. I couldn’t understand why everybody couldn’t do it!

So, before you joined the Knickerbockers, you were in a New York band called the Castle Kings. What sort of music did you play?

Yeah! Well you know, the street doo-wop, rock ’n’ roll, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Isley Brothers, Little Richard – the early rock ’n’ roll stuff. One late afternoon, we were standing outside in front of Atlantic Records. We just had a meeting with Dot Records, they were in the same building as Atlantic. So we’re standing outside, harmonizing, waiting for one of the guys’ dad to pick us up – this is a true story – harmonizing to some goofy song that one of the guys in the band wrote and Ahmet Ertegun, the president of Atlantic Records, heard us and told us to meet him the next day. So we did! He actually signed us to a contract and we recorded three or four records. I was recording with some of the legends of the business. People like Phil Spector, Ahmet Ertegun and his brother Nesuhi. These guys were legends and we were in the studio with them and I didn’t know who they were! So I mean, at a very early age, we were doing things with the heavyweights of the business and we didn’t even know it.

Apart from being an amazing drummer, you also sing… Is it true you that you joined the Knickerbockers because of that extra talent and why were they looking for a drummer who could sing?

They were looking for a drummer and the first time I saw the Knickerbockers was in a neighborhood venue. It was a supermarket that had been emptied, sold-out and it was reopened to do a little party on Memorial Day. I was walking down the street and I heard this music so I went back and they were set up playing as a trio. Buddy, the saxophone player was playing the drums, really well, and I thought, boy this is a band I’d love to play with! A couple of weeks or months later, they called me up because they’d heard I was a drummer and that I was looking for work. So I went and set up in John and Beau’s house and we played, but my drumming skills were a little bit on the amateur side because I was still young. Then they asked me to sing, I sang some rock ’n’ roll stuff and John and Beau’s mum heard me sing and she said “Hire that guy, he does sound good”! So my skills with drumming didn’t get me the work, it was the singing. Then I improved as a drummer because you get to play a lot. Also, Buddy taught me a lot of stuff on the drums that he got from other good drummers. But it was actually my voice that got me the job.

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