| Biography | The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by their vocal harmonies and early surf songs, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era. The band drew on the music of jazz-based vocal groups, 1950s rock and roll, and black R&B to create their unique sound, and with Brian as composer, arranger, producer, and de facto leader, they often incorporated classical elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways.
The Beach Boys began as a garage band led by Brian and managed by the Wilsons' father Murry. In 1963, the band gained national prominence with a string of top-ten singles reflecting a southern California youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance, dubbed the "California Sound". From 1964, they abandoned beachgoing themes for more personal lyrics and ambitious orchestrations. In 1966, the Pet Sounds album and "Good Vibrations" single raised the group's prestige as rock innovators and established the band as symbols of the nascent counterculture era. After scrapping the album Smile in 1967, Brian's contributions diminished due to his mental health issues. The group's commercial momentum faltered, and despite efforts to maintain an experimental sound, they were dismissed by early rock critics as the archetypal "pop music cop-outs".
Carl took over as the band's musical leader until the late 1970s, during which they rebounded with successful worldwide concert tours. Personal struggles, creative disagreements, and the overshadowing success of the band's greatest hits albums precipitated their transition into an oldies act. Dennis drowned in 1983 and Brian soon became estranged from the group. Between the 1990s and 2000s, the members filed numerous lawsuits over royalties, defamation, songwriting credits, and use of the band's name. Following Carl's death from lung cancer in 1998, the group and its corporation (Brother Records Inc.) granted Love legal rights to tour as "the Beach Boys". |