Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson is one of the greatest musicians of
all time. He began writing
songs when he was in high school. The first
was a pop song called "Surfin'"
performed by his group, The Beach Boys. It
wasn't anything magnificent,
just a faddish ditty. But Brian continued to write
about surfing, and then
cars and girls. His fresh music appealed
to young people and began the craze
for "surf music". In just a short period of
time, Brian wrote hundreds of songs
and The Beach Boys released many albums. Within
five years, Brian's songs
evolved from teenie surf songs to cutting edge masterpieces.
He went from
"Surfin Safari" to "Don't Worry Baby". With the creation
of Pet Sounds, it
became obvious that Brian was a musical genius.
He combined new sounds
with amazing melodies and harmonies and came up with,
in my opinion, the
greatest record ever. In the years after, he
wrote even more wonders to be
included on the album Smile, but Brian became disheartened
and never released
the album. Instead Smiley Smile was released
with edited versions of Smile
cuts. The hit "Good Vibrations" offers just
a taste of what was never released.
The Beach Boys continued with minimal input from
Brian, and he hid in the
shadows of his home for many years. His next attempts
at writing were not
until 1988 when he released his first solo album,
Brian Wilson.
The long-awaited album received good reviews but
did not appeal to the general
public. Brian continued to work on new music
that was never released. Then,
finally in 1998, he gave us Imagination.
This album received even better reviews from critics,
although many fans do
not have anything positive to say about the producer,
Joe Thomas. I personally
love this album, and I feel it is his best work since
Pet Sounds. It is full of
catchy melodies and beautiful harmonies.
On June 19th, I had the pleasure of attending a Brian
Wilson signing at Border's
in Chicago. He was obviously scared out of
his mind, but I had three items
signed by the great Brian Wilson himself. I also
took several pictures...
On the VH-1 Imagination special, you can actually
see Brian sign MY
Love
and Mercy single!
My boyfriend is also visible behind a CD display
=)
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