Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on June 11th, 2025

The Beach Boys' founder and principal creative force Brian Wilson, whose spectacularly imaginitive songwriting evoked the joys of hot-rodding, sunshine, and the bronzed, bikinied lifestyle of Southern California, died on June 11, his family announced on social media. He was 82 and no cause of death was given. "We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away," wrote his children on Instagram. "We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy," they added. Brian Douglas Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, on June 20, 1942, and grew up in nearby Hawthorne, where his father owned a machinery company. His father, Murry Wilson, had musical ambitions that were never realized and was, by all accounts, a physically abusive tyrant and heavy drinker. In 1961, while a student at El Camino College, he wrote his first pop song. Based on the Disney standard "When You Wish Upon a Star," it was later known as "Surfer Girl." His group, originally called The Pendletones, made its first appearance that same year. When the first single, "Surfin'," was released on a small Los Angeles label called Candix, Mr. Wilson and his band were surprised to learn that the record company had changed their name to the Beach Boys. With brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love and their friend Al Jardine, the band had regional success that year of their first single, "Surfin,'" thrust them to national attention when Capitol Records signed them almost immediately as the label's first rock act. Having the distinction of making the Billboard Top 40 at least 35 times -- more than any other American band -- each member contributed to the Beach Boys' signature angelic vocal harmonics, however Brian was the widely acknowledged mastermind behind their music and was responsible for initial successes including "Surfin' U.S.A.," "Surfer Girl," "I Get Around," "All Summer Long," "Don't Worry Baby," "The Warmth of the Sun" and "California Girls." He also displayed an ambitious craftsmanship as a producer that culminated in the band's 1966 album Pet Sounds, which many critics and music historians consider the first and greatest of all rock "concept" albums building songs around a theme. Alternately celebratory and despairing, making effective musical use of such traditionally extramusical sounds as bicycle bells, car horns, trains and barking dogs, Pet Sounds was not simply a collection of songs but a unified work of art, tracing a love affair from beginning to end, while melding an all-but-unprecedented intimacy of expression in rock with near-symphonic scope. The album and Mr. Wilson had a profound impact on musicians of the era and beyond, with the Beatles acknowledging its complexity helped inspire their similarly ambitious 1967 masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Yet as such albums as Shut Down, Volume 2, All Summer Long, The Beach Boys Today! and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) -- all released between March 1964 and July 1965 -- represented an exponential leap for Mr. Wilson as composer, arranger and producer, Brian led what was often an unhappy and unsettled life, and suffered a breakdown in the late 1960s that drastically curtailed his life and later work. For most of the following decade, Mr. Wilson was a near-complete recluse. He contributed one or two songs to Beach Boys recordings, which still came out on occasion but sold miserably (as did Pet Sounds, which sold relatively poorly when it came out). The group was often dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned during the "psychedelic" late 1960s and early 1970s -- despite releasing such acclaimed albums as Surf's Up and Sunflower -- and an internecine struggle had begun within the band, one that would prove disastrous for all concerned. Some members of the band, particularly Mike Love, the front man during live performances, were vehemently opposed to any deviation from what had become an exceedingly lucrative formula. At home in Los Angeles, Mr. Wilson worked on what he hoped would be his magnum opus, a vast, abstracted suite called "Smile." A bejeweled single, "Good Vibrations," featuring an electro-theremin, went immediately to No. 1, and anticipation for the album was intense. Although the complete "Smile" was announced for release in early 1967, it was then postponed indefinitely, at Brian's insistence (it was later completed and released in 2004). He had begun to suffer from what would later be diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder, with incessant auditory hallucinations and paranoia. After Mr. Wilson mostly withdrew from the Beach Boys, he stayed in bed much of the time, put on weight and became addicted to alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. In 1976, his first wife, Marilyn Rovell, sought help and found an unconventional Hollywood therapist named Eugene Landy to take over the care of her rapidly deteriorating husband. Landy assembled a team that included himself, another doctor, a nutritionist and a group of handlers to watch him 24 hours a day. He charged a monthly fee that was said to exceed $20,000, and later estimated that Mr. Wilson had paid him more than $3 million between 1983 and 1991. For a while, he also lived in Mr. Wilson's mansion. In 1989, Landy's license to practice psychology was revoked by the state of California. But he continued to work with Mr. Wilson and claimed a third of the $250,000 advance for a spurious 1991 autobiography, Wouldn't It Be Nice. Eventually, Mr. Wilson -- with the strong support of his family and the rest of the Beach Boys -- took out a restraining order to break his last ties with Landy. Brian's brother Dennis drowned in 1983, and his brother Carl died of cancer in 1998. Brian's relationship with the rest of the Beach Boys devolved into a squalid series of suits and countersuits that lasted until the three surviving members of the band -- Mr. Wilson, Love and Jardine -- joined forces with David Marks and Bruce Johnston, both of whom had been "Beach Boys" at one point or another, to play together again in 2012. An album, That's Why God Made the Radio, was issued that June, and the group embarked on a 50th anniversary tour. The last official Beach Boys hit had been "Kokomo" in 1988, with which Mr. Wilson had nothing to do and initially sold more copies than any of their earlier songs, largely because of its inclusion in the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail. That same year, Brian released his first solo album, titled Brian Wilson, to encouraging reviews. It was his first collection of new songs in more than a decade. The opening piece, "Love and Mercy," became Mr. Wilson's signature piece. (That also became of the title of a 2014 film biopic featuring two actors, Paul Dano and John Cusack, playing the younger Mr. Wilson.) Further solo discs appeared and, in 2002, Mr. Wilson recorded a live version of Pet Sounds as part of a world tour. By then, he had recovered much of his original vocal luster, but the new rendition seemed alarmingly robotic, as though it had been learned rather than felt. Indeed, in later years, he grew increasingly adept at "playing" Brian Wilson onstage, but he never appeared fully comfortable doing much more. "It's a hard truth for those of us who love and admire him to admit, but it can be painful to see Wilson in concert," wrote Time of London critic Will Hodgkinson in 2018. The Wilson talent lived on into another generation as Mr. Wilson's daughters Carnie and Wendy Wilson, by Rovell, made names for themselves as two-thirds of the band Wilson Phillips. His marriage to Rovell, which had long been complicated by affairs and his precarious mental state, collapsed in the late 1970s. In 1995, he married Melinda Ledbetter, who took charge of his career as well as his person. Ledbetter, a model and car saleswoman who became his manager and with whom he had five children. She died in 2024, at age 77. After her death, Mr. Wilson's family sought to place him under a conservatorship, saying that he was taking medication for dementia and "unable to properly provide for his own personal needs for physical health." The Beach Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and Mr. Wilson received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007 for being "rock and roll's gentlest revolutionary" and for a body of work that was called "vulnerable and sincere, authentic and unmistakably American." In 2010, Brian made a recording of his favorite George Gershwin songs and, in 2021, he released At My Piano, a selection of his songs played simply, lovingly and somewhat anxiously by their composer. Mr. Wilson's final ever live performance took place on July 26, 2022, at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Mich., the final date of his 2022 US summer co-headline tour with Chicago. The 20-track set took in many of his most classic songs, from "I Get Around"' and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations." He was joined on stage by fellow Beach Boy Al Jardine, as well as Blondie Chaplin, his sometime songwriting partner who was also in the band from 1972-73. Footage from the final gig can be viewed on YouTube. In 2024, a 60th anniversary band documentary, The Beach Boys, premiered on Disney+, and a companion volume was released, the band's only "official book." Not unexpectedly, the world of music has reacted immediately to Mr. Wilson's passing. "Brian Wilson was always so kind to me from the day I met him," wrote Elton John on Instagram. "He sang 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight' at a tribute concert in 2003, and it was an extraordinary moment for me. I played on his solo records, he sang on my album, The Union, and even performed for my AIDS Foundation. I grew to love him as a person, and for me, he was the biggest influence on my songwriting ever; he was a musical genius and revolutionary. He changed the goalposts when it came to writing songs and shaped music forever. A true giant." Bob Dylan, meanwhile, added on X: "Heard the sad news about Brian today and thought about all the years I've been listening to him and admiring his genius. Rest in peace dear Brian." Other tributes include Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, Mick Fleetwood, Micky Dolenz, Julian Lennon and Sean Ono Lennon. - The Washington Post/New Musical Express, 6/11/25.

Sly Stone, the groundbreaking funk and psych-rock pioneer who led the iconic Sly and the Family Stone group in the 1960s into the early 1980s, died on June 9 from "a prolonged battle with COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] and other underlying health issues," according to his family. He was 82. Beginning with "Dance To The Music" in 1968, which peaked at No. 8 on the chart, Sly and the Family Stone racked up 17 Billboard Hot 100 hits, including five top 10s and three number ones: "Everyday People," which reigned for four weeks in 1968-1969; "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," which topped the chart for two weeks in 1970; and "Family Affair," which led for three weeks in 1971. The group also charted nine albums on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart, including There's a Riot Goin' On, which spent two weeks at No. 1 in 1971. Born in Dallas on March 15, 1943, as Sylvester Stewart and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area when his entire family relocated out west, Mr. Stone, his brother Freddie and his sisters Rose and Loretta began performing in vocal groups in the 1950s, and in the 1960s Sly became a DJ at the San Francisco-based KSOL and began producing for and playing with other groups. Getting his nickname "Sly" when classmate had misspelled his name, he then changed his stage surname from Stewart to Stone, and his two siblings in the band also followed suit. He had began performing in bands throughout high school before going on to study music at Solano Community College. By 1966, Sly and Freddie combined their two separate bands into the Family Stone, beginning the run that would cement them in music history. They were known for their dynamic live shows, captured in several recently-released live albums through longtime label Epic Records. Mr. Stone's work had a profound effect on American rock music, particularly psychedelic rock, and, along with George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic groups, helped to pioneer the guitar-driven, socially-conscious funk music that would become a major part of the 1970s music scene. Alongside Clinton, James Brown and Prince, he's among the most important figures in funk music history, and his sound is among the influential records that underpinned much of early hip-hop music into the 1990s, influencing everyone from Dr. Dre and 2pac to The Notorious B.I.G. and OutKast and nearly everyone in between. On the popular WhoSampled.com site that tracks samples, covers and interpolations throughout music history, Sly and the Family Stone is credited as having been sampled more than 1,000 times. Among Sly and the Family Stone's greatest triumphs was their 1969 appearance at Woodstock, where they performed in the midst of a 3:30 a.m. downpour, roused a mud-caked crowd of 500,000, and brought the house down with a captivating performance that has since become a highlight of Michael Wadleigh's Oscar-winning 1970 documentary about the festival. In his 2023 memoir, Mr. Stone admitted that in the moment, he had no idea it would be such a monumental performance for the group. "When the show was over, we were wet and cold," he wrote. "I don't remember how I left, maybe the same way I came in and by the next day it was clear that Woodstock had been a big deal, and that we had been a major part of that deal. The festival had put a spotlight on lots of groups, but us and Jimi [Hendrix] the most." The Family Stone soon crumbled due to financial and interpersonal tensions, breaking up in 1975. Effectively retiring in 1987, Mr. Stone was largely absent from the public eye throughout the '80s and '90s, aside from rare public appearances and a few drug-related arrests. He would finally get clean in 2019 after his drug use landed him in the hospital four times in a period of a few weeks and a doctor told him that drugs would kill him. "That time, I not only listened to the doctor but believed him," Mr. Stone told The Guardian in 2023. "I realized that I needed to clean up. I concentrated on getting strong so that I could get clean. My kids visited me at the hospital. My grandkids visited me. I left with purpose." He and the band were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 -- although he kept a distance from the other band members -- and he appeared at the Grammy Awards ceremony in 2006 for a tribute to the group, which was his first public performance in nearly two decades. He was also the subject of the 2025 documentary Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), directed by Questlove. Mr. Stone was married to model-actress Kathy Silva from 1974 to 1976 and separated after their son Sylvester Jr. was mauled by his dog. He is also survived by two daughters: Sylvyette Phunne with Cynthia Robinson in 1976 and Novena Carmel whom he welcomed in 1982, and his grandkids. - Billboard/Entertainment Weekly/The Daily Mail UK, 6/9/25.