Dennis Wilson

Dennis performing on drums with the Beach Boys, 1964

The Wilsons' mother, Audree, forced Brian to include Dennis in the original lineup of the Beach Boys.[14] In 1960, Dennis began taking drum lessons at Hawthorne High School. Teacher Fred Morgan later said that Dennis had been "a beater, not a drummer" and "a fast learner when he wanted to learn."[15] According Brian, "We kind of developed into a group sort of through the wishes of Dennis. He said that ... the kids at school knew I was musical because I had done some singing for assemblies and so on."[16] Recalling their first group rehearsals, Dennis said that he was initially "going to play bass, and then I decided to play drums. ... Drums seemed to be more exciting. I could always play bass if I wanted to."[17]

The Beach Boys officially formed in late 1961, with Murry taking over as manager, and had a local hit with their debut record "Surfin'", a song that Brian wrote at Dennis' urging.[18] Dennis recalled, "We got so excited ... I ran down the street screaming, 'Listen, we're on the radio!' It was really funky. That started it, the minute you're on the radio."[19] Though the Beach Boys developed their image based on the California surfing culture, Dennis was the only actual surfer in the band.[14] Carl supported, "Dennis was the only one who could really surf. We all tried, even Brian, but we were terrible. We just wanted to have a good time and play music."[17]

In early 1963, Dennis teamed with Brian's collaborator Gary Usher. As a duo writing, producing, and performing, and calling themselves the Four-Speeds, they released the single "RPM" backed with "My Stingray". In March 1964, Dennis moved out of the Wilson family home and took residence at an address in Hollywood.[20] For the sleeve notes of the band's July 1964 album All Summer Long, Dennis wrote: "They say I live a fast life. Maybe I just like a fast life. I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. It won't last forever, either. But the memories will."[4] In December, Murry told a reporter that Dennis had been "a little too generous" with money and "cried when he learned about how much he had wasted. ... Where the other boys invested or saved their money, Dennis spent $94,000. He spent $25,000 on a home but the rest just went. Dennis like that: he picks up the tab wherever he goes."[21]

In January 1965, Brian declared to his bandmates that he would no longer tour with the group for the foreseeable future. He later said that Dennis was so devastated by the news that his immediate reaction was to pick up "a big ashtray and told some people to get out of there or he'd hit them on the head with it. He kind of blew it."[22] Brian wrote that he felt that Dennis "never really had a chance to sing very much", and so he gave him more leads on their next album,The Beach Boys Today!, released in March.[23] Dennis sang "Do You Wanna Dance?" and "In the Back of My Mind". The former became the first song with a Dennis lead that was issued as an A-sided single.[24] Journalist Peter Doggett later said of Dennis' performance on "In the Back of My Mind", "he showed for the first time an awareness that his voice could be a blunt emotional instrument. ... his erratic croon cut straight to the heart, with an urgency that his more precise brothers could never have matched."[25]

Wilson in 1966

By 1966, Dennis had begun experimenting with LSD.[26] His drumming contributions on Pet Sounds (1966) were limited to the track "That's Not Me".[27] During the Smile sessions, he played on "Vega-Tables", "Holidays", and "Good Vibrations".[28] Van Dyke Parks, the project's lyricist, credited Wilson with inspiring the name of the would-be album track "Surf's Up".[29] The Smile album was cancelled, according to Wilson, because the group became "very paranoid about the possibility of losing our public. ... Drugs played a great role in our evolution but as a result we were frightened that people would no longer understand us, musically."[30]

In the latter part of the 1960s, Dennis started writing songs for the Beach Boys.[2] In January 1967, Wilson recorded the original composition "I Don't Know", but it was left unreleased. Music historian Keith Badman states that whether the piece was intended for Smile is not definitively known.[31] In December, Wilson recorded a piece called "Tune #1" that was intended for a solo project to be released on Brother Records, but it was also shelved.[32]

Wilson's first major released composition was "Little Bird" , issued in April 1968 as the B-side of the "Friends" single.[33] "Little Bird" and another song, "Be Still", were co-written with poet Stephen Kalinich and featured on the album Friends (June 1968).[34] The group's next album, 20/20 (February 1969), marked the emergence of Dennis as a producer, including his original songs "Be with Me" and "All I Want to Do".[35] In 2018, many of Wilson's unreleased tracks from this period were released for the compilations Wake the World: The Friends Sessions and I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions.[36]

Charles Manson mugshot, photographed around the time he first met Wilson

On April 6, 1968, 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.[37] On April 11, Wilson noticed the same two girls hitchhiking again. This time he took them to his home at 14400 Sunset Boulevard.[37][4] He recalled that he "told [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."[30] Wilson then went to a recording session; when he returned later that night, he was met in his driveway by Charles Manson, and when Wilson walked into his home, about a dozen people were occupying the premises, most of them young women. They were later known as members of the "Manson Family".[4] By Manson's own account, he had met Wilson on at least one prior occasion: at a friend's San Francisco house where Manson had gone to obtain marijuana. Manson claimed that Wilson invited him to visit his Sunset Boulevard home when Manson came to Los Angeles.[38]

Wilson was initially fascinated by Manson and his followers, referring to him as "the Wizard" in a Rave magazine article at the time.[39] The two struck a friendship, and over the next few months, members of the Manson Family – mostly women who were treated as servants – were housed at Wilson's household, costing him approximately $100,000 (equivalent to $740,000 in 2019). Much of these expenses went into cars, clothes, food, and penicillin shots for their persistent gonorrhoea.[4] This arrangement persisted for about six months.[40] In late 1968, Wilson told the magazine Record Mirror that "when I met [Charlie] 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 [learned] from him."[30] He told reporters that he had been living with 17 women; asked if he had been supporting them, Wilson replied: "No, if anything, they're supporting me. I had all the rich status symbols – Rolls Royce, Ferrari, home after home. Then I woke up, gave away 50 to 60 per cent of my money. Now I live in one small room, with one candle, and I'm happy, finding myself."[30]

Wilson introduced Manson to a few friends in the music business, including the Byrds' producer Terry Melcher.[39] Manson recorded numerous songs at Brian's home studio,[39] although the recordings remain unheard by the public.[41] Band engineer Stephen Desper said that the Manson sessions were done "for Dennis and Terry Melcher."[42] In September 1968, Wilson recorded a Manson song for the Beach Boys, originally titled "Cease to Exist" but reworked as "Never Learn Not to Love", as a single B-side released the following December. The writing was credited solely to Wilson.[43] Asked why Manson was not credited, Wilson explained that Manson relinquished his publishing rights in favor of "about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff."[44] Around this time, the Family destroyed Wilson's Ferrari, as well as his Mercedes-Benz, which had been driven to a mountain outside Spahn Ranch.[45]

Growing fearful of the situation, Wilson distanced himself from Manson and moved out of the house, leaving Manson and his followers there, and subsequently took residence with friend Gregg Jakobson at a basement apartment in Santa Monica.[46] Virtually all of Wilson's household possessions were stolen by the Family; the members were evicted from his home three weeks before the lease was scheduled to expire.[46] When Manson subsequently sought further contact, he left a bullet with Wilson's housekeeper to be delivered with a threatening message.[4] Commenting on rumors that suggested Wilson had become afraid of Manson, Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks later said

One day, Charles Manson brought a bullet out and showed it to Dennis, who asked, "What's this?" And Manson replied, "It's a bullet. Every time you look at it, I want you to think how nice it is your kids are still safe." Well, Dennis grabbed Manson by the head and threw him to the ground and began pummeling him ... I heard about it, but I wasn't there. The point is, though, Dennis Wilson wasn't afraid of anybody![47]

Conversely, band manager Nick Grillo said that Wilson became more concerned about Manson after Manson had gotten "into a much heavier drug situation ... taking a tremendous amount of acid and Dennis wouldn't tolerate it and asked him to leave. It was difficult for Dennis because he was afraid of Charlie."[40] Writing in his 2016 memoir, Mike Love recalled Wilson saying he had witnessed Manson shooting a black man "in half" with an M16 rifle and hiding the body inside a well.[48] Melcher said that Wilson had been aware that the Family "were killing people" and had been "so freaked out he just didn't want to live anymore. He was afraid, and he thought he should have gone to the authorities, but he didn't, and the rest of it happened."[42]

In August 1969, Manson Family members perpetrated the Tate–LaBianca murders. Shortly afterward, Manson visited Wilson's home, telling him that he had "just been to the moon", and demanded money, which Wilson agreed to give to him.[49] That November, Manson was apprehended and charged with numerous counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Wilson refused to testify against Manson.[39] He explained: "I couldn't. I was so scared."[50] Instead, he was privately interviewed by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. Wilson's testimony was deemed inessential since Jakobson agreed to publicly testify and corroborate Wilson's claims.[51] Melcher later commented that Wilson had not been taken to the stand because the prosecutors "thought he was nuts, and by that time he was. He had a hard time separating reality from fantasy."[42] Bugliosi said that when he attempted to procure tapes of the songs that Wilson had recorded with Manson, Wilson responded saying that he had destroyed them because "the vibrations connected with them didn't belong on this earth."[52]

In the subsequent years, Wilson allegedly received death threats from members of the Manson Family, who telephoned his home and told him: "You're next".[50] In 1976, he commented that "I don't talk about Manson. I think he's a sick fuck. I think of Roman and all those wonderful people who had a beautiful family and they fucking had their tits cut off. I want to benefit from that?"[53] In the 1978 biography The Beach Boys and the California Myth, Wilson acknowledged the interest in his relationship with Manson and said: "I know why [he] did what he did. Someday, I'll tell the world. I'll write a book and explain why he did it."[50] According to biographer Mark Dillon: "Some attribute [Wilson's] subsequent spiral of self-destructive behavior ― particularly his drug intake ― to these fears and feelings of guilt for ever having introduced this evil Wizard into the Hollywood scene."[39]

Wilson's first wife Carole Freedman later told journalist Tom O'Neill that Wilson and other members of the Hollywood community had closer associations to Manson than what had been reported on the public record. O'Neill quoted Freedman saying that "It's a scary thing, and anyone who knows anything will never talk."[42]

By 1977, Dennis had amassed a stockpile of songs he had written and recorded while factions within the Beach Boys became too stressful for him. He expressed: "If these people want to take this beautiful, happy, spiritual music we've made and all the things we stand for and throw it out the window just because of money, then there's something wrong with the whole thing and I don't want any part of it."[4] He then approached James William Guercio, owner of Caribou Records, who stipulated "a structured recording process" before signing Dennis to a two-album contract.[4] According to Guercio: "My discussions with Dennis were along the lines of, 'You just tell Gregg [Jakobson] what you need - you have the studio and your job is to finish the dream. Finish the vision. Trish Roach [personal assistant] will do the paperwork and Gregg's the co-ordinator. It's your project... You've got to do what Brian used to do. Use anybody you want - it's your decision and you're responsible."[4]

Dennis released his debut solo album Pacific Ocean Blue in 1977. Although it sold relatively poorly, peaking at No. 96 on the US Billboard chart, it outperformed the following two Beach Boys albums. Dates were booked for a Dennis Wilson solo tour, but these were ultimately cancelled when his record company withdrew concert support in light of the album's commercial performance and a perception that he was becoming increasingly unreliable. He did occasionally perform his solo material on the 1977 Beach Boys tour.[56] Despite Dennis claiming the album had "no substance",[55] Pacific Ocean Blue received positive reviews and later developed status as a cult item, ultimately selling nearly 250,000 copies.[2][57]

The album remained largely out of print between the 1990s and 2000s.[2] In June 2008, it was reissued on CD as an expanded edition. It was voted the 2008 "Reissue of the Year" in both Rolling Stone, and Mojo magazines and made No. 16 on the British LP charts and No. 8 on both the Billboard Catalog chart and the Billboard Internet Sales chart.[58]

Pacific Ocean Blue's follow-up, Bambu, began production in 1978 at Brother Studios in Santa Monica, with the collaboration of then Beach Boys keyboardist and Dennis' close friend Carli Muñoz as songwriter and producer. The first four songs officially recorded for Bambu were Muñoz's compositions: "It's Not Too Late", "Constant Companion", "All Alone", and "Under the Moonlight". 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. This material was also released on vinyl in 2017, without Pacific Ocean Blue, for Record Store Day.

Two songs from the Bambu sessions, "Love Surrounds Me" and "Baby Blue," were lifted for the Beach Boys' L.A. (Light Album) (1979).[2] Dennis and Brian also recorded together apart from the Beach Boys in the early 1980s. These sessions remain unreleased, although they are widely bootlegged as The Cocaine Sessions.[59][60]

Albums

Singles

Songs (written or co-written)