Who Was the Coolest Beach Boy? And It’s NOT Brian Wilson
It sounds like a trick question — who was the coolest of the Beach Boys? Because in the context of rock ’n’ roll history, the prevailing image for the general public of the early hit-making Beach Boys, with their fun-in-the-sun, matching striped shirts, doesn’t exactly radiate “cool.” But anyone who has ears to listen and who has taken the trouble knows that the Beach Boys went far beyond their surf, sun and cars days to produce some of the most sophisticated and complex music of their era. Their story is the stuff of legends. From their humble beginnings in the LA suburb of Hawthorne, CA, the group went from being local teen sensations to international pop hitmakers, evolving into musical pioneers. Along the way, they harmonized, fought, did their share of drugs, sued their dad, sued each other, and indelibly wrote their sound into the great American songbook.
Each of the Beach Boys brought their talents to bear in terms of songwriting, singing, (sometimes) playing their instruments and live performance. There’s no denying that they each contributed to the band’s overall sound and success. But through all of the myth and the mirth, some of them did it with more style than others, and they’re the ones who will rank at the top as we ask the question … Who was the coolest of the classic Beach Boys?
7 Mike Love
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There’s no getting around this. If we’re starting at the bottom and going to the top, we have to start with Mike Love, the big bummer of the group. While this cousin to the Wilson brothers has a distinct voice and has added plenty of flourish to the arrangements of many of the classic Beach Boys hits, with his “dip dip dips” and “oom-papa-ooma-mow-mows,” he’s also been the most vocal critic of bandleader Brian’s attempts to experiment and develop the band’s sound and direction. Most famously, upon returning from tour and hearing the new material that Brian had worked on for the album Pet Sounds, Love was quoted in Rolling Stone as having chastised Brian, saying, “Don’t @#$% with the formula!” Later, in 1977, he would attack his cousin Brian with a piano bench while onstage at Wembley Stadium in London. But beyond all of the intra-band squabbling, it’s Love who has earned his place on this list by taking a once-innovative and crucial band and turning it into little more than a never-ending, nostalgia-driven cash cow once the Wilson brothers were out of the picture, even to the extent of forcing Al Jardine out of the band at times, making Love the sole remaining original member. (Can you guess who gets paid the most when you do that?) Yeah, he may have co-written “Kokomo” and helped give the Beach Boys their first no. 1 hit in decades by doing so, but he’s still outclassed by every other Beach Boy on this list by a pretty fair margin. Don’t believe me? Watch his speech at the Beach Boys’ induction into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 … if you can bear to make it through to the end.
Beach Boy Mike Love does his band and his industry a little less than proud at the Beach Boys’ induction into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
6 Bruce Johnston
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Bruce, Bruce … we’d really like for you to be higher on this list, and it’s really not your fault. A cool guy who came to the Beach Boys midstream, already with a track record of his own behind him, Johnston’s younger years saw him supporting early efforts by some names that eventually would become much better known, including Sandy Nelson, Kim Fowley and Phil Spector. (We’re not holding the eventual infamy of those latter two names against Johnston, by the way.) Eventually, after backing musicians as notable as the Everly Brothers and Richie Valens, Johnston would team up with Doris Day’s son, Terry Melcher, to produce an array of surf and hot rod records in the Beach Boys style. It wasn’t until 1965 that Johnston first joined the Beach Boys, replacing temporary member Glen Campbell (of “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” fame — yes, that Glen Campbell). Johnston would take a while to become a full-fledged member of the group. He sang backup on only about half of the Pet Sounds album, though he did co-lead on “God Only Knows,” a song most associated with Carl Wilson’s dulcet voice. At this point, Johnston has been doing the nostalgia circuit with Mike Love’s version of the Beach Boys for decades longer than the Beach Boys’ halcyon years lasted in the first place. A good and consistent gig, I’m sure, but considering that Johnston is also the guy who penned the Barry Manilow hit “I Write the Songs,” it’s hard not to think that he may have settled a bit.
5 David Marks
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It gets a little easier from here on out. David Marks isn’t a name most casual Beach Boy fans will recognize, but he was one of the original band members who was there at the start, when the band was initially christened the Pendletones. He was 12 at the time, and was in school on the day the band cut its first record, “Surfin’,” in October 1961. When Al Jardine left the group for a spell in early 1962, Marks picked up rhythm guitar duties and played on the group’s next single, the classic “Surfin’ Safari,” and stayed through the group’s first four LPs. He left the band in 1963, citing personal differences with the band’s manager, the domineering Murry Wilson, father of Brian, Carl and Dennis. Marks would go on to study jazz and classical guitar at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, and became a reputable session player, working with Warren Zevon, among others. Incredibly, he would rejoin the Beach Boys as a touring musician in 1997, returning after a 34-year hiatus, staying through 1999. He was back for the band’s 50th anniversary tour and its 2012 release, That’s Why God Made the Radio. Anybody who can make a comeback like that after 34 years and still hold his own is a cool cat in our book.
4 Al Jardine
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Al Jardine has always been a versatile member of the Beach Boys. At the outset, he was more interested in folk music than in rock ’n’ roll, and initially tried to convince the band to take that direction, but it wasn’t in the cards. He did play double bass on the group’s debut single, “Surfin’,” but was generally the group’s rhythm guitar player. You’ll recognize his voice singing lead on a few of the group’s songs, like “Help Me, Rhonda” from the Today! album, and the boys’ remake of the Lead Belly classic “Cotton Fields.” Jardine’s folk roots bore their sweetest fruit for the band, though, when he suggested that the band perform a version of the folk standard “Sloop John B,” which proved the perfect start to the b-side of the Pet Sounds album and as a single in its own right. If Jardine ranks lower on this list, it’s only because of his rather awkward credibility in suing and countersuing over the rights to use the Beach Boys name as part of his touring act once both Dennis and Carl Wilson had passed away. Can’t blame him for trying, really. And while Mike Love did retain the rights to the name, well … look at where he ended up on this list.
Al Jardine was responsible for the group’s take on the folk standard “Sloop John B.”
3 Carl Wilson
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The youngest of the Wilson brothers, Carl was integral to the harmony of the Beach Boys in more ways than one. While on many of the Beach Boys’ records, session musicians (notably LA’s most-celebrated aggregation of session musicians, “The Wrecking Crew” — check out the documentary The Wrecking Crew if you haven’t) laid down the backing tracks, Carl often still sat in and played his own lead guitar parts. When Brian retired from touring in 1965 to focus more on songwriting and record production, Carl took the reins as music director during the band’s live shows, proving himself a reliable facilitator. Later, he would become the band’s leader in the studio as well, when Brian’s condition deteriorated and he could no longer fulfill his usual role. But even more than all of this, Carl had a special voice that helped some of the Beach Boys’ greatest moments to seemingly transcend the material plane altogether. His soaring vocal on “God Only Knows” is probably chief in this aspect, but Carl’s voice also took “Good Vibrations,” brother Brian’s symphonic-pop masterpiece, to new heights. It’s a real shame that Carl had started smoking in his early teens. He contracted lung and brain cancer and died in 1998 at the age of 51 — way too soon.
Carl Wilson’s vocal on “God Only Knows” is enough to land him in the no. 3 spot on this list.
2 Brian Wilson
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Surprised? Yeah, we are, too. Brian Wilson very easily should be at the top of this list as the founder of the Beach Boys, the genius writer and arranger of all of those exquisite harmonies, and the overall visionary of the group. He also was the one probably most affected by the abuses of the Wilson boys’ father and early manager, Murry Wilson, who went so far as to sell the publishing rights to the entire Beach Boys back catalogue in 1969 for about $700,000 — without the permission of Brian or any of the group. The devastation wreaked on Brian had profoundly adverse effects on him, and as a result, Brian sought solace by “self-medicating” and through any number of varieties of self-indulgence.
Most Beach Boys fans know the stories about the two years he spent not leaving his bed, the piano in the sandbox, the tent in his house where the boys used to smoke — or, sorry, eat sandwiches — and then there was the creative race he felt he’d lost to the Beatles. His much-ballyhooed follow-up to Pet Sounds, the legendary Smile project, faltered. Brian suffered a nervous breakdown from which he would all but never recover. For years, he found himself in the care of Dr. Eugene Landy, a dubiously ethical psychologist who insinuated himself into Brian’s business dealings, his music career, and ultimately his bank account.
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Brian’s life took a turn for the better when he met his second wife, Melinda, who helped him to break the hold that Landy had over him, and gave him the emotional stability to have a career again. Brian began to build his confidence once more, and in 2004 he astounded the music world by presenting a completed version of Smile, both live and on record. Rolling Stone gave the album an unprecedented six stars (out of five), and fans were elated to finally get to hear what Brian had intended all those years ago. Melinda, as his wife and manager, was largely responsible for this victory, a debt Brian always publicly acknowledged. Melinda passed away in January of this year, after which Brian was placed under a court conservatorship to oversee his personal and medical affairs.
The man has been through a lot, and yeah, we had a lot to say about him, because his story is at the heart of the Beach Boys … but our story is about which Beach Boy was the coolest, and that honor has to go to the Beach Boy who actually surfed — without the cameras and comic persuasion of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.
Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi force Brian Wilson onto a surfing safari, having been found in violation of the “California Catch-a-Wave statute” for not surfing.
• Brian Wilson Reunites With Beach Boys Amid Conservatorship Ruling & Health Struggles
1 Dennis Wilson
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“Dennis? The drummer??” we can hear you saying. Yes, it’s true, as drummers go, Dennis didn’t really have all of the chops that his brothers may have had, but he had something more that none of them could really boast — the authenticity of his California lifestyle. When the Beach Boys were given their name by their first record company, Dennis was the only one of the group who actually spent time catching waves at the beach and living the life. And it wasn’t just about the surfing. There was just something of the tragic to Dennis that was dialed into something stronger and more powerful than were the rest of his bandmates. We got flourishes of it in songs like “Little Bird” and even in the rather dark Christmas song he wrote, “Morning Christmas,” that served as something of an antidote to the saccharine “Little St. Nick.” The dark reached out to him in the form of a quirky would-be guru named Charlie, whose song “Cease to Exist” would be rewritten and sung by Dennis on the band’s 1969 20/20 album as “Never Learn Not to Love.”
Later that same year, Charlie and his ragtag group of followers would enter the annals of American infamy as the Manson Family, responsible for two nights of the most shocking murders ever committed in the US. Thankfully, Dennis had distanced himself from the group well in time to avoid most of the family’s mayhem. Though plagued with problems of alcohol and drug abuse, Dennis managed to deliver his tour-de-force definitive statement in 1977’s Pacific Ocean Blue — a record of great depth and imagination that stands up today as one of the best-kept secrets in the entire catalogue of the Beach Boys and their solo works. Songs like “Thoughts of You,” “Friday Night” and “End of the Show” articulate a different and more complex personality than he was ever given credit for in the Beach Boys’ heyday, and give voice to a troubled young man who turned his struggles into a brilliant moment of triumph. Dennis would die in a drowning accident in 1983, before he properly finished his follow-up, Bambu, but even if his legacy stands in the shadow of his more-celebrated older brother, Dennis distinguished himself with the authenticity of his voice and experience, and was honored with a rare exemption for a burial at sea, usually afforded only to veterans.
Take in Dennis Wilson’s “Friday Night.”
The author would like to acknowledge musician Eric Kowalski for making him hip to a little of what’s here.
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