Dennis Carl Wilson was an American drummer, singer and songwriter.
He is best known as a founding member of the rock band The Beach Boys, alongside his brothers,
Brian and Carl, cousin, Mike Love, and Al Jardine.
Wilson was a member of the band from its formation until his death in 1983, recording twenty-four
studio albums.
In 1977, he released a solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, to widespread critical acclaim.
Born in Inglewood, California, Dennis was the middle brother of fellow Beach Boys members
Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson.
Dennis Wilson was also the only regular surfer of the group, and his personal life exemplified
the beach lifestyle that the group's early songs often celebrated.
His prominence in the group as a writer and lead vocalist increased as their careers went
on into the late 1960s and 1970s.
Childhood years Wilson was the son of Audree Neva and Murry
Gage Wilson.
He spent his family years with his brothers and parents in Hawthorne, California.
Dennis' role in the family dynamic, which he himself acknowledged, was that of the black
sheep.
Though anxiety-filled and aggressive at times, he was also sensitive and generous.
He was the most often spanked of the Wilson brothers, by their strong-willed father Murry.
Possessed with an abundance of physical energy and a combative nature, Dennis often refused
to participate in family singalongs, and likewise avoided vocalizing on the early recordings
made by Brian on a portable tape recorder.
However, Dennis would sing with his brothers late at night in their shared bedroom on a
song Brian later recalled as "our special one we'd sing," titled "Come Down, Come Down
from the Ivory Tower."
Brian noted of the late night brotherly three-part harmonies: "We developed a little blend which
aided us when we started to get into the Beach Boys stuff."
The Beach Boys Dennis' mother, Audree, forced Brian to include
Dennis in the original lineup of the Beach Boys.
Urged by older cousin, Mike Love, Dennis had approached Brian to form a group and compose
a song about surfing.
The Beach Boys formed in August 1961 and were successful immediately.
Though the Beach Boys were named for, and developed, an image based on the California
surfing culture, Dennis was the only actual surfer in the band.
During the first few years of the Beach Boys, Dennis was given the role of the drummer by
his brother, Brian.
He quickly learned the basics of drumming at school lessons, and like the other members,
he picked up more on the job.
Brian Wilson took note of Dennis's limited drumming technique early on and as the mid-60s
approached, often hired session drummers such as Hal Blaine to perform on studio recordings.
Dennis accepted this situation with equanimity, generally giving high praise to his older
brother's work as Brian's compositions became more mature and complex.
However, he did have his own stick style; in 1970, at the height of the band's UK popularity,
a New Musical Express writer used the phrase, "as crisp as a Dennis Wilson rim shot."
Although he rarely sang backing vocals on stage, occasionally taking a lead, his raspy-sounding
vocals were a key ingredient to the group's vocal blend in the studio, and in the late
Sixties and Seventies his lead vocals lent a much-needed bluesy edge to an updating the
Beach Boys' sound, giving their music new dimensions on the retreat of brother Brian's
influence in composing and studio production.
Though given few important lead vocals on the early Beach Boys recordings" and "This
Car of Mine" as well as the bridge verse on "Girls on the Beach") he sang lead on "Do
You Wanna Dance?", the group's February 1965 hit.
Later that year on Beach Boys' Party!, Dennis sang an impressive, faithful rendition of
The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away."
He accompanied himself on guitar and like the other Beach Boys became a multi-instrumentalist.
His piano playing and composing in particular was praised by Daryl Dragon, his frequent
collaborator in the late Sixties and early Seventies and was showcased on his Pacific
Ocean Blue album.
Although he had helped Brian write a few other songs dating back to 1963 at the age of 18,
Dennis Wilson's first major released composition was "Little Bird," the B-side of the "Friends"
single, coupled with "Be Still", also a paean to nature and reflecting on his place in the
natural world of which his surfing hobby was only a minuscule part.
All at once, aged 23, he revealed a fully matured style that had obviously been incubating
inside for some time, away from the other members of the band.
From 1968 to 1973, as Brian withdrew more and more from active participation with his
group, Dennis stepped up as the major creative force of the Beach Boys, having learnt production
techniques from observing his brother and showing cosmic-gothic overtones in composing.
At least two of his songs were included on all but one of the six albums released in
that five-year period, peaking with four songs on each of 20/20 and Sunflower.
When certain territorial jealousies arose within the band over his growing role, he
began to hold back songs for his own projected solo albums.
Wilson had further compositions featured on later Beach Boys albums such as 20/20, Sunflower,
Carl and the Passions – "So Tough", Holland as well as others.
Sunflower included the track "Forever," which not only was popular with fans but also earned
him some much sought praise from brother Brian and father Murry.
The album included three other songs written by Wilson which were not originally recorded
for the album.
In 1971, Dennis injured his hand badly enough to prevent him from playing drums for some
time, and Ricky Fataar took over as the group's drummer between 1972 and 1974.
During this period Dennis acted as a co-frontman alongside Mike Love, as well as playing keyboards
and singing.
The 1973 live album The Beach Boys in Concert features only Dennis onstage among thousands
of fans on the album cover; however, none of his songs were included in the lineup.
During the three-year recording hiatus following Holland, Dennis's voice deteriorated markedly.
By then his onstage antics occasionally disrupted the Beach Boys' live shows.
In 1974, concurrent with the success of the '60s hits compilation Endless Summer, Wilson
returned to his role behind the drums.
According to Dennis's biographer, Jon Stebbins, it was this year that he co-wrote the lyrics
and modified part of the melody of "You Are So Beautiful" at a party with Billy Preston.
Charles Manson
In 1968, Dennis Wilson was driving through Malibu when he noticed two female hitchhikers,
Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey.
He picked them up and dropped them off at their destination.
Later on Wilson noticed the same two girls hitchhiking again.
This time he took them to his home at 14400 Sunset Boulevard near Will Rogers Park.
Wilson then went to a recording session.
When he returned at around 3 a.m., he was met in his driveway by a stranger, Charles
Manson.
When Wilson walked into his home, about a dozen people were occupying the premises,
most of them female.
Wilson became fascinated by Manson and his followers; the "Manson Family" lived with
Wilson for a period of time afterwards at his expense.
In late 1968, Wilson reported to journalists,
I told them [the girls] about our involvement with the Maharishi and they told me they too
had a guru, a guy named Charlie who'd recently come out of jail after 12 years.
... He drifted into crime, but when I met him I found he had great musical ideas.
We're writing together now.
He's dumb, in some ways, but I accept his approach and have learnt from him.
Initially impressed by Manson's songwriting talent, Wilson introduced him to a few friends
in the music business, including Terry Melcher, whose home at 10050 Cielo Drive would later
be rented by director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate, and Manson family
members would later murder Tate and several others at the home.
Manson held recording sessions at the home studio of Dennis' brother, Brian Wilson.
Those recordings, if they exist, have never been released.
The Beach Boys released a Manson song, originally titled "Cease To Exist" but reworked as "Never
Learn Not to Love", as a single B-side and on the album 20/20.
As Dennis Wilson became increasingly aware of Manson's volatile nature and growing tendency
to violence, he finally made a break from the friendship by simply moving out of the
house and leaving Manson there.
When Manson subsequently sought further contact, he left a bullet with Wilson's housekeeper
to be delivered with a cryptic message, which Wilson perceived as a threat.
In August 1969, Manson Family members perpetrated the Tate/LaBianca murders.
Wilson rarely discussed his involvement with the Manson Family, and usually became upset
when the subject was broached.
Movie role Dennis Wilson starred alongside James Taylor
and Warren Oates in the critically acclaimed film Two-Lane Blacktop as "The Mechanic".
The film depicts "The Driver" and "The Mechanic" driving aimlessly across the United States
in their 1955 Chevy, surviving on money earned from street drag racing.
Solo career Early in 1963, Dennis teamed with Brian's
former collaborator Gary Usher, a neighbor in Hawthorne who became a prolific creative
figure in surf music recording, and later, folk.
As a duo writing, producing and performing and calling themselves the Four-Speeds, they
released the single "RPM"/"My Stingray".
Both sides got top four-star ratings in "Billboard" reviews mid-March '63 and turned out popular
enough locally and in spots cross-country to earn and lose Denny, in a drunk-driving
crash, a Chevy Corvair sports car.
On December 4, 1970, Wilson released his first piece of solo material, a little-known single
released only in Europe and the UK under the name "Dennis Wilson & Rumbo."
The single featured "Sound of Free", on his usual theme of freedom, on the A-side with
the romantic "Lady" on the B-side.
The song was later covered by American Spring and released as the B-side to their single
"Shyin' Away."
Pacific Ocean Blue Wilson released his debut solo album Pacific
Ocean Blue in 1977.
His collaborators on the album included Daryl Dragon and Gregg Jakobson.
The album peaked at #96 in the U.S. and sold around 300,000 copies, matching that year's
Beach Boys album Love You.
Dates were booked for a Dennis Wilson solo tour but these were ultimately cancelled.
However, Wilson did occasionally perform his solo material on the 1977 Beach Boys tour.
Despite Wilson himself claiming the album had "no substance," Pacific Ocean Blue performed
well critically and continues to maintain a cult following.
Wilson's trademark gravelly and melancholy vocals resonate throughout the work.
The album was out of print for more than a decade before being reissued in June 2008.
The expanded Sony Legacy edition was voted the 2008 Reissue of the Year in both Rolling
Stone and Mojo magazines and made #16 on the British LP charts and #8 and both the Billboard
Catalog chart and the Billboard Internet Sales chart.
Bambu Pacific Ocean Blue's follow-up, Bambu, began
production in the year 1978 at Brother Studios in Santa Monica with the collaboration of
then Beach Boys keyboardist and Dennis's close friend Carli Muñoz as songwriter and producer.
The first four songs that were officially recorded for Bambu were Muñoz's compositions:
"It's Not Too Late", "Constant Companion", "All Alone", and "Under The Moonlight"; they
appear on the final 2008 release.
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.
Two songs from the Bambu sessions, "Love Surrounds Me" and "Baby Blue," were lifted for the Beach
Boys' 1979 L.A.. Wilson and brother Brian also recorded together apart from the Beach
Boys in 1980 and 1981.
These sessions remain unreleased though widely bootlegged as The Cocaine Sessions.
Personal life At the time of his death, Wilson was married
to Shawn Marie Love, the mother of his son Gage, born September 3, 1982.
Shawn Marie died aged 38 in September 2003 of liver cancer.
Wilson's previous marriages were to Carole Freedman, with whom he had a daughter, Jennifer
and whose son, Scott, he adopted; and Barbara Charren, with whom he had two sons, Michael
and Carl.
Wilson also was married twice to Karen Lamm, the ex-wife of Chicago keyboardist Robert
Lamm, once in 1976 and again in 1978.
Wilson was quoted in the sleeve notes for the album All Summer Long:
Dennis also had a significant relationship with Christine McVie from 1979 to 1981.
Death Succeeding years saw Wilson battling alcohol
abuse.
Smoking had taken a toll on his voice, although the resultant gravelly effect helped define
him as a singer.
On December 28, 1983, shortly after his 39th birthday, Wilson drowned at Marina Del Rey,
Los Angeles, after drinking all day and diving in the afternoon to recover items he had thrown
overboard at the marina from his yacht three years prior.
Dennis Wilson's body was buried at sea off the California coast by the U.S. Coast Guard
on January 4, 1984.
His song "Farewell My Friend" was played at the funeral.
As non-veterans of the Coast Guard and Navy are not allowed to be buried at sea unless
cremated, Dennis' burial was possible due to the intervention of President Reagan.
Solo discography Albums
Singles Quotations
Hey, surfing's getting really big.
You guys ought to write a song about it.
Wilson stated, on hearing "Surfin'" on the radio for the first time:
We got so excited hearing our record on the radio that Carl threw up, and I ran down the
street screaming!
Later, in 1977, Dennis Wilson stated:
There'd be many times when I'd look at my brother and think to myself, maybe he won't
ever pull it together again.
Brian went through a lot of bad times.
Drugs didn't help.
See also
The Beach Boys List of songs by Dennis Wilson
Beach Boys Historic Landmark References
Further reading Jon Stebbins, Dennis Wilson - The Real Beach
Boy.
ECW Press 2000.
ISBN 1-55022-404-2 Adam Webb, Dumb Angel: the Life and Music
of Dennis Wilson.
Creation Books, 2001.
ISBN 1-84068-051-2 External links
The Beach Boys "Sea of Heartbreak: Dennis Wilson's Majestic
Solo Work,", at Pop Matters, 2007, by Tony Sclafani
The Official Site of Pacific Ocean Blue Dennis Wilson at Find a Grave
Beach Boys Drummer Buried in Rites at Sea