Dumb Angel: the life and music of Dennis Wilson
(Adam Webb)
The London Observer:
In 1968, finally maddened by harmonies that only
God could hear, Brian Wilson, the frail magician behind the
Beach Boys and 'the California Sound', retired to a sand pit
in the living room of his Latigo Canyon mansion in Los Angeles.
Over the next decade, the songwriter behind 'God Only Knows',
'Good Vibrations' and 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' would return only
sporadically to offer songs that would indicate his sense of
dislocation from music writing.
The Beach Boys have yet to be reappraised by the
public and critics at large - the group remains irrevocably
linked with the pre-1968 legend of Brian Wilson. But in this
well-researched and authoritative biography, Adam Webb points
to an unlikely source of the group's post-Brian rejuvenation
- his younger brother Dennis.
Precocious, unruly and strikingly handsome, Dennis's
inclusion in the group as a drummer, is attributed solely to
his mother's sense of familial democracy. 'I'm a duck who was
born with two chickens,' he complained in 1962. Yet as Brian
retired to his rock star mansion, Dennis wrestled the group
out of their late-Sixties morass.
Dennis Wilson would play a defining role in four
of the group's early Seventies albums: Sunflower, Friends, Holland
and Surf's Up indicate a rekindling in the group's creative
talents. 'Forever' and 'Little Bird', both produced and written
by Dennis, are as musically sound as anything Brian produced.
Undoubtedly proficient as a singer-songwriter,
Dennis remained sidelined by the Beach Boys' own mythology.
Released in 1977, the cover of Pacific Ocean Blue his rarely
heard and now long-deleted solo album, features him staring
impassively at the camera. The record - sparse in its musical
arrangement - would indicate his maturing as a songwriter, propelling
even Brian to describe him as 'a loving, sweet, genius'. But
almost 25 years after its release, Pacific Ocean Blue, like
many of Dennis's studio efforts, has been reduced to an appendix
under the weight of Brian.
The Beach Boys, currently touring Europe with
only one of the original members, Mike Love, are entrenched
in their Disneyfication. God renounced Brian Wilson's talents
decades ago; Carl Wilson died in 1998. Dennis drowned in the
Pacific, off the coast of Marina Del Ray. His body was discovered
on 27 December 1983; two weeks later he was buried at sea. His
music, which rejects popular wisdom on the Beach Boys, continues
to be overlooked - and Webb manages a sterling case for reappraisal.
