Last night I watched the bio pick “Love and Mercy” and relived the two years that I spent as Brian Wilson’s tour manager. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have had in my almost 40 years in the music business. Still not exactly sure how I fell into the job, and I did not know much about Brian before I started (other than car songs and surf songs), but it was a college level course in Brian Wilson 101! I soon learned that there were many people around him who knew everything (and I mean everything) about his life and his music. I soaked it up like a sponge, while hanging with one of the coolest (and one of the saddest) people I have ever had the pleasure to be around.
The film got it right, for the most part, in minute detail, and brought back some amazing memories. Being summoned to the backstage desk at the Wiltern in LA and seeing Carole Kaye standing there waiting to see Brian was one of them. When I walked her into his dressing room, she said “Hey boss, how is it going?” as if the 30 years in between seeing each other had been one day.
The way the movie portrayed the Pet Sounds Sessions was a loving recreation. I still have a folder of pictures from those sessions which we got from Capitol Records, and they got it exactly right. The way Brian worked with the band was portrayed beautifully- everyone in one room and Brian conduction them like an orchestra.
Along with the good comes the bad, and the portrayal of Murray Wilson, Brian, Carl and Dennis’s father was heartbreaking. My thoughts go back to a dinner we had after our show at the Beacon Theater in NYC. We went to the Stage Deli (about 15 of us- Brian at one end of the table, me at the other end. Brian ordered first, and they quickly brought him a sandwich as big as his head. Two minutes later, I looked down the table, and Brian was finished eating. He then got up and asked me to walk with him back to the hotel. I hadn’t even ordered yet. When I got back to the table I asked someone in the know why he ate that fast. The answer- his father used to beat him at the dinner table if anyone said anything wrong, and he is deaf in one ear because of it. So he ate fast to ask to be excused to escape another beating. When Murray (in the film) tells Brian that he had sold the publishing to all the Beach Boys songs for $75,000.00, the look on Paul Dano’s (playing the younger Brian) face was heartbreaking as he said, “But those are our songs.” His father then said- “Nobody will even remember you in five years.”
So we come to today, where Brian has been separated and shielded from most of the craziness. He still exists in a somewhat childlike state, and performs around the world for many adoring fans. I am still not sure if that is what he wants to be doing, but he does it anyway.
It is way more than five years since his father sold his songs, and he will always be remembered as a true genius, and one of the greatest arrangers and songwriters of all time. AND the composer and producer of Pet Sounds, one of the 2 or 3 greatest albums in the history of recorded music. That record was a commercial failure, but it sold steadily through the years and in 1999, we were invited to the roof of the Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles so that Brian could be presented with a gold record.
As Mike Love says in the movie, “OK, we got it over with- lets go back to making Beach Boys music.” No wonder he is portrayed in the currant issue of Rolling Stone as “The biggest asshole in the music business.”
Some of my favorites songs of his are:
Til I Die
Love and Mercy
Caroline No
So, I hope Brian finds some peace in his life. If he never writes another song, he will still have his legacy as one of the greatest songwriters in history.
