October 2025
The second week in June was a tough one for anyone who grew up in the late 1960s. Two great musicians and troubled souls, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, died within days of each other at age 82. Both were Californians, although Sly was born in Texas. His family moved to the Bay Area soon after he was born. Brian was born in southern California and spent his life there.
Sly will always be among the group of notables who are known by their first names. Brian Wilson was always known by his full name. To keep things simple, I’ll refer to both by their first names here.
Sly and Brian both showed an early affinity for music. Sly was a multi-instrumentalist by the time he was in grade school, while the young Brian could pick up any song by ear and took quickly to his piano lessons. He taught his brothers, Dennis and Carl, to sing harmony with him.
Brian’s career in music began when he, his brothers, their cousin Mike Love, and Brian’s friend Al Jardine started a band. Brian had already been writing songs, and he had also been learning how to make recordings on a reel-to-reel tape machine his parents had given him for his 16th birthday. In 1961, the group recorded “Surfin’” for Candix Records. Dennis Wilson, the only Beach Boy who actually surfed, suggested the subject for the song.
A promoter for a sister label of Candix gave the Beach Boys their name, and “Surfin’” became a regional hit. Capitol Records signed the group in June 1962. The first Beach Boys single on Capitol, “Surfin’ Safari,” hit the top 20. Capitol gave the Beach Boys the go-ahead for an album and released Surfin’ Safari in October. Brian co-wrote nine of the album’s dozen tunes and had a hand in the production, although he wasn’t credited.
The next two Beach Boys singles didn’t fare well, but in early March 1963, “Surfin’ USA” began a run of hits for the group. Capitol released an album of the same name later that month, again without crediting Brian. The hits continued, and Surfer Girl, released in September, finally gave Brian Wilson credit for production. He would helm Beach Boys recordings until 1966, when they completed their masterpiece (and his), Pet Sounds.
Sly Stone started producing records in 1964 for Autumn Records after a stint as a deejay brought him into contact with the label’s owner. While at Autumn Records, he produced “C’mon and Swim,” a top-five hit for Bobby Freeman in 1964. He produced “Laugh, Laugh” later that year for the Beau Brummels, which reached number 15 on the charts. Early in 1965, a second Beau Brummels single, “Just a Little,” hit number 8. Those Beau Brummels songs should have led to a long and successful career for the band, but unfortunately, it was not to be. They still get airplay on oldies stations.
By 1966, Sly had started a band; after a few personnel changes, Sly and the Family Stone began creating a sensation in the Bay Area. The band signed with Epic Records in 1967 and released A Whole New Thing in November—produced, written, and arranged by Sly. It didn’t dent the charts, but the following month the group released the single “Dance to the Music,” which hit number 8. An album of the same name soon followed.
Sly was the producer on all the Family Stone albums, and his work with rock musicians—in addition to the Beau Brummels, he had worked with the Great Society and the Mojo Men—gave him a feel for the music in the Bay Area that was gaining attention and popularity. He mixed funk and soul music with rock, and created a unique new sound that had broad appeal. Sly and the Family Stone’s fourth album, Stand! (1969), was the group’s breakthrough. Two double-sided hit singles contributed to big sales for the album.
By the time There’s a Riot Goin’ On appeared in 1971, Sly was recording by himself, with some occasional input from his band members and other musicians. He had started missing gigs and behaving erratically soon after Stand! became popular. Fame brought demands from record-company executives for more commercial songs and from civil-rights activists for politically charged music. Sly and the people around him, including his bandmates, began falling into heavy drug use.
Fame and the responsibilities of maintaining the Beach Boys’ popularity pressed against Brian, too. The Beatles had come to dominate pop music, and he feared that being tied to surf music would make his recordings feel dated and out of touch. The pressure of writing and producing for the Beach Boys weighed on him, and in late 1964 he had a nervous breakdown. By early 1965 he was no longer touring with them, choosing instead to work on songwriting and producing the band’s recordings.
Brian expanded the Beach Boys’ sound and subject matter on The Beach Boys Today! and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), both released in 1965. His arrangements were becoming more complex and his production style more sophisticated. Songs like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” and “California Girls” were attempts to nudge the group beyond surf music.
Brian’s mental health was not improved by drug use, which began after his breakdown. He took LSD, which at first had a positive influence on his music but would in time cause a decline in his mental state. His musical ambitions continued to expand, and in July 1966 the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds.
Pet Sounds and There’s a Riot Goin’ On are acknowledged as classics now, but each marked a change in direction for Brian and Sly. They also signaled a change in the fortunes of the bands they led.
There’s a Riot Goin’ On received strong notices, but even the critics who liked it expressed some reservations. “It doesn’t invite an easy response,” Vince Aletti wrote in Rolling Stone. “At first I hated it for its weakness and its lack of energy and I still dislike these qualities. But then I began to respect the album’s honesty.” The album was a commercial success.
Sly’s unreliability led to promoters being reluctant to book him and his band. He had grown apart from the Family Stone during the recording of There’s a Riot Goin’ On, and by 1972 both Greg Errico and Larry Graham were gone.
The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds met with mixed reviews in the US, although some critics liked it. In the UK, reviews were uniformly good. EMI had delayed the release of Pet Sounds in the UK for a month, but it sold well there and remained in the top ten for six months. US sales were respectable but fell short of the numbers Capitol Records and the Beach Boys had come to expect.
Brian’s already-fragile state worsened with the relatively low sales of Pet Sounds in the US. In addition, his use of LSD had caused him to begin hearing voices, a condition that never left him. He continued to throw himself into his work. “Good Vibrations,” released in October 1966, was perhaps his single greatest achievement. Brian then dove into the next Beach Boys album, which was to be titled Smile.
Smile stalled, despite hours of recording. Tracks weren’t being finalized, and Brian was indecisive about how to put the album together. He stepped back to allow his bandmates to share control of the band. All the Beach Boys contributed to Smiley Smile, a revised version of Smile. Brian would not produce another Beach Boys album for nearly ten years.
Sly and the Family Stone released Fresh in 1973, the group’s and Sly’s last indisputably great recording. Small Talk followed a year later. The group’s unreliability—Sly wasn’t the only one with a bad drug habit—caused bookings to decline. A show at Radio City Music Hall arranged by the band itself was poorly attended, and by the beginning of 1975 Sly and the Family Stone were done. Sly would record albums under the Sly and the Family Stone name, but they were solo albums with hired musicians and diminishing results.
Brian returned to producing with the Beach Boys in 1976 with 15 Big Ones, followed the next year by The Beach Boys Love You. Neither rank with the Beach Boys’ best. He began recording solo albums, starting with Brian Wilson in 1988; that record has some good songs, but now sounds dated and feels forced. Most of Brian’s other solo outings were pleasant enough but never caught the spark of his greatest recordings with the Beach Boys.
Brian’s best solo album, Brian Wilson Presents Smile, attempted to recreate the album he couldn’t finish with the Beach Boys. It’s a wonderful record in many ways, a tribute to how good he could be, but Brian wrote those songs for the Beach Boys—and you can’t help but miss them.
There were profound differences between Sly and Brian. Sly was from an African American family, Brian from a middle-class white family. Sly, however, was well-loved, while Brian had to endure an abusive, controlling father. Sly was a compelling stage presence. Even in later post-Family Stone appearances on TV, you can’t take your eyes off him. Brian was never a strong performer. Mike Love and Dennis Wilson were responsible for the charisma in the Beach Boys.
Sly’s music had an immediate impact on other musicians, from Motown Records artists to jazz musician Miles Davis. That influence persists to this day. Every funk, R&B, or hip-hop artist has been influenced by Sly or James Brown—or both. Sly’s music has been heavily sampled in other recordings. Sly’s sound is still in the air. His best records sound as current as they did 50 years ago.
The Beach Boys recorded some strong records without Brian’s guidance. Smiley Smile got mixed notices when it was released but has since enjoyed higher critical standing. Friends (1968) and Surf’s Up (1971) were well received by critics. Sunflower (1970) was praised by the rock press, and for good reason. It’s one of the band’s best.
None of those records brought the Beach Boys back to the cultural or commercial peak they had enjoyed in the early to mid-1960s. Musicians admired them. Paul McCartney has been a consistent and vocal fan. Lindsey Buckingham and Michael Stipe cite Brian as an influence. But I don’t hear more than a touch of Brian in other music, even in recordings by musicians who cite him as an inspiration.
The band enjoyed a surge of popularity in the mid-’70s when Capitol Records released two compilations, Endless Summer (1974) and Spirit of America (1975). Both albums, composed of the Beach Boys’ most popular hits of the ’60s, returned them to the top ten for the first time in years and drove ticket sales for their concerts. They became a very popular and lucrative touring act. The success of the compilations and concert tours only reinforced the unfair notion that the Beach Boys represented an older, more innocent time and had ceased being creative and vital.
The many articles, books, and films about Sly and Brian don’t really explain what happened to them, perhaps because it can’t be explained. Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), Questlove’s excellent documentary, presents Sly in all his complexity. The film points out that in addition to the pressures of creativity and commercial viability, Sly had to represent the history and struggles of African Americans. I often think Sly did that with There’s a Riot Goin’ On, perhaps at great cost.
But that observation threatens to be as facile and meaningless as saying that Brian’s mental-health issues were brought on by his struggles with the responsibilities of keeping the Beach Boys current in the shifting tastes of ’60s pop music. Those things certainly contributed to his struggles with depression, but it’s likely the illness was already there. Drugs offered an escape for him and Sly, even as those same drugs intensified their problems.
When I wrote about Sly Stone two years ago, I included a quote from Bootsy Collins about Sly’s years after fame. “It’s like he’s had it—it ain’t no fun no more,” Bootsy told an interviewer. “It’s a curse and a blessing. The curse part of it is the business you have to deal with, and then the blessing part is you get to be a musician and have fun.”
Sly and Brian had loved music since they were kids. It came easily to them. When they became successful, I think they realized that the rest of it—the stuff that isn’t about music—wasn’t so easy. I hope they can both, at long last, be at peace.
. . . Joseph Taylor
josepht@soundstagenetwork.com
