The death of the legendary musical genius behind The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, was announced yesterday. But his striking influence on Los Angeles is likely eternal.
His music is in part responsible for popularizing the idea of California — those sandy shores, sunny days and abundant teenage angst. Without Wilson, culture here may have turned out very differently.
A great accident
The Beach Boys, one of the best-selling bands of all time, originated in Hawthorne in 1961 as a musical group of three brothers, a friend and a cousin.
Wilson was the mastermind writer and producer behind their hits, with songs that delved into deep feelings of youth and love, and also more mature themes of spirituality and emotional exploration.
UCLA professor David Leaf was a close friend and biographer of Wilson, but he started out as a fan first in the ‘60s when he became “obsessed” with The Beach Boys. Leaf was set on writing a book about Wilson and moved from New York to L.A. The two met within months.
Leaf says it’s now impossible to separate Wilson from our region. But the style he would go on to define, “California Sound,” started almost by accident.
It was his younger brother, Dennis Wilson, who was the surfer of the group. “He came home from the beach one day and he said to Brian, ‘You know, the kids at school know you write songs,’” Leaf said. “‘Why don’t you write a song about surfing?’”
That beach was the Redondo Pier. Wilson wrote a version of their first song “Surfin” for a music class assignment at Hawthorne High School, and wildly, got an F grade for it (Editor's note: clearly a lack of taste there). But 58 years later, in 2018, his alma mater revised his grade to an A.
Still, the group kept going with the song and recorded it as a demo. It was circulated to local stations and within a matter of months, The Beach Boys made it to L.A. radio. “Surfin’” became the number three song in L.A.
They went on to play their first paid gig at the Richie Valens Memorial Concert in the Long Beach Auditorium on Dec. 31, 1961.
The Beach Boys signed a seven-year music deal with Capitol Records in 1962. In the years after, they released songs that turned them into SoCal’s most famous rock gods, such as “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “California Girls.”
But the pressures of Wilson’s professional and personal life took a toll. In 1965, he withdrew from touring to focus on songwriting and production. He went on to start a solo career in the late ‘80s.
Wilson played his last official concert in 2022.
Stardom around L.A.
His work made icons of our coastal beaches. “Surfin’ Safari” calls out surf spots like Huntington, Malibu and Rincon. His solo music includes a 45-second riff called “Narrative: Venice Beach” from 2008.
But Wilson’s influence and life can be found all over L.A. County.
For example, he was born in Inglewood and grew up in Hawthorne. As a college student, he was a psychology major at El Camino College.
The site of the family’s childhood home on 119th Street in Hawthorne is now a state historic landmark. The home itself was demolished in the ‘80s to make way for the 105 Freeway. What stands today is the monument added in 2004 — a brick facade with a white relief of the band’s “Surfer Girl” album cover.
The cover of The Beach Boys’ first top hit, “Don’t Worry Baby/I Get Around,” was photographed at UCLA, just outside of Royce Hall.
In the 1970s, Wilson co-owned a health-food store called the Radiant Radish in West Hollywood. One of Wilson’s homes, located in Bel Air, also served as The Beach Boys’ studio. Wilson and his brothers later established Brother Studios in Santa Monica. It was later renamed to Crimson Sound, and saw the likes of Elton John, The Runaways and more.
But as for the beach? That love dissipated as he got older. In an interview with LAist in 2009, a reporter asked Wilson if he still spent much time there.
“I don’t go to the beach anymore,” Wilson said. “It’s too cold!”
Leaf said he hopes Angelenos remember him with civic pride, like how residents of Mozart or Beethoven’s hometown may feel.
“ Brian Wilson was born, raised and lived his life in Los Angeles,” Leaf said. “[He] made his music in Los Angeles and changed the music world with the music that he made.”
