With sunny memories of Brian Wilson’s Chico performance, locals say goodbye to a genius of California harmony

After his recent passing at 82-years old, some may think it’s hyperbolic to express the genius and importance of the singer/songwriter Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

But don’t tell his contemporaries that. Wilson’s songwriting talent and musical innovations were recognized early on by some of the era’s greatest musicians.

Art Garfunkel once said about Wilson’s musical arrangements, “Brian showed us all the endless possibilities in what’s been recorded and how it can be layered and combined or subtracted to create something that certainly came from his California roots, which to me, has always represented the promise and sweetness in America.”

Wilson’s rival and friend Paul McCartney said of him, “I figure no one is educated musically ’til they’ve heard Pet Sounds: I love the orchestra, the arrangements … I’ve often played Pet Sounds and cried.”

Cyndi Lauper called him one of the greats. “Brian Wilson was so ahead of the curve,” she observed. “And although he suffered for so long, what he translated and transcended from that was an amazing gift to the world.”

The Beach Boys’ youthful surf lyrics, twangy electric guitars and stunning multi-layered vocal harmonies made them famous. Their songs were an ode to California living, from the sunny beaches of Doheny and Laguna to the car-cruising nights reflected so well in the film American Graffiti.

But what made the Beach Boys great were Wilson’s musical achievements. Almost deaf in one ear, he heard music in mono. But that allowed him to listen for the balance of instruments before adding new layers of vocals. The result was a single cohesive sound he could control within the recording studio.

Beach Boys record their first live album in Sacramento

In the early 1960s, Sacramento was the epicenter for Beach Boys mania in the Central Valley, which is why the band chose Memorial Auditorium as the site to record their first live album, “Beach Boys Concert.”      

That 1964 event was also the last regular live concert appearance by Brian Wilson for several years. At the age of 22, he was stepping back from touring, which created difficulties due to his hearing issues. Bruce Johnston replaced Wilson on tour so he could stay home and write new songs for the band.

That live album jacket featured a full page photo of the crowd in front of Memorial Auditorium, with its name chiseled above the columns.  Who cares if the liner notes called the building “Civic Auditorium?”  To local kids this was official validation of their fandom. 

“We had a song out last summer that was number one for six or seven weeks in a row here, in Sa-cra-menno,” said singer Mike Love. “And it goes something like this!”

The band opened with “Surfing USA” while girls screamed at every falsetto note the boys hit.

After performing their slow song, “Surfer Girl,” Wilson and Love are heard on the album asking about an overwhelmed girl in the front row. “

Are we alright down there?” asked Love.

“Are you okay?” echoed Wilson.

The audience’s mass hysteria was noted in the album’s notes, saying the atmosphere was so feverish “it brought some fans right onto the stage, so that the curtain had to be lowered before the Beach Boys had a chance to sing the final chorus of Johnny B. Goode.”

“That was me!” said Sacramento native Josephine Liles. “It started out as a five dollar bet to see if anyone could get on stage.” 

Liles, then a junior at Elk Grove High School, jumped into the orchestra pit, climbed over the footlights and wound up on stage at the feet of Mike Love. 

“It was the Wilsons’ father who tackled me and pulled me to the side,” Liles recalled. 

By that time, more fans had rushed the stage, and as police came in to restore order, Liles slipped away unnoticed. 

“I just walked down the side stairs and back to my balcony seat to collect the five bucks,” she remembered.

‘Pet Sounds,’ ‘Smile’ and Wilson’s mental struggles

In 1966, the Beach Boys released their most innovative album to date, “Pet Sounds,” which departed from the usual subjects of surfing and car culture. Wilson relied on Los Angeles studio musicians nicknamed “the wrecking crew” to help him find new noises he could turn into music, like jingling jewelry and dropping paper clips onto piano strings.

New band member Bruce Johnston took a mono version of “Pet Sounds” to London before its release and wound up playing it to John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album had inspired Wilson. Now, Wilson was inspiring them.

McCartney credited “Pet Sounds” as a main inspiration for the Sgt. Peppers album, not so much in music, but in complexity and orchestration. Paul felt that he could take his music “further out” after hearing the Beach Boys’ new direction.

But in America “Pet Sounds” did not enjoy the commercial success it had in England. Fans wanted more of the familiar surf songs.

Meanwhile, Wilson’s musical breakthrough morphed into an ambitious next album called “Smile,” but his fellow band members also disliked this new direction, which disappointed him.

Likewise, his record company, EMI, began talking up a best-of compilation album instead, as if to hint that Wilson’s creative wave was cresting.

An awkward and toned-down version of Smile, called “Smiley Smile,” was released in 1967 containing just a few of Wilson’s original songs. “Good Vibrations” was a major hit, but “Smiley Smile” was not the record that Wilson had conceived. Even Brian’s brother, Carl Wilson, called it “a bunt instead of a grand slam.”

Wilson shelved the original “Smile” recording sessions and abandoned his envisioned masterpiece, seemingly for good, saying he had run out of ideas.

Wilson suffered from a mental breakdown in 1967. Whether it was caused by his father Murray’s earlier physical and mental abuse, his overuse of cocaine and LSD, or the rejection of “Smile,” he began to withdraw from society.

He was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder which caused constant auditory hallucinations.

 In 1983, Wilson agreed to 24/7 psychological treatment under a controversial doctor named Eugene Landy, as chronicled in the 2014 film “Love and Mercy.” While some say Landy helped Wilson out of his destructive cycle of depression and drug use, critics claimed Landy was controlling and tried to exploit Wilson’s fame.

The completion of ‘Smile’ and Wilson performs in Chico

In 1986, a Cadillac sales person and former model named Melinda Ledbetter met Wilson, fell in love with him, and eventually helped him find the courage to walk away from Dr. Landy’s control. By the mid-1990s, Wilson was married to Ledbetter and ready to start making great music again.

In 2004, after 38 years of waiting, the album titled “Brian Wilson Performs Smile” was released the way he originally intended. It won him a 2005 Grammy Award for the song “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.”

Wilson performed songs from “Smile” with his new band at a 2015 concert in Chico State’s Laxson Auditorium. This ensemble included his original band mate Al Jardine. Wilson also performed a set of classic Beach Boys hits at the Chico concert that night.

“His wife was in the audience,” said Chico Resident Sally Needham Mendez. “It was magic.”

“Al Jardine’s son sang Brian’s parts in the classic songs: It sounded exactly like him from back in the day,” remembered Chico resident Jane Anthieny Lansdown. “I remember Brian at a keyboard and he finished the show with an incredible performance of “Love and Mercy.”

“I enjoyed the show so much,” said Dr. Hope Munro, an Associate Professor of Music at Chico State. “It was truly magical to see Brian, Al and their band bring these songs to life.”

“It was late November,” said Chico Resident Shelly Rogers. “I remember as part of the encore they played Little Saint Nick and I was beyond happy about it!”

During their career, the Beach Boys sold over 100 million records. They had 36 Top-40 hits and 33 gold and platinum records and are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Wilson himself has been inducted into the songwriters Hall of Fame and received Kennedy Center Honors.

To the kids who grew up in California and across the world, especially in those innocent years of the early 1960s, Wilson’s genius gave to many of us the happiness and sun-filled optimism that would become a soundtrack for our lives.