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Brian Wilson founded the Beach Boys in 1961 and was the bands leader, main composer and producer. The other founding members were: Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine. In early 1962, Al Jardine left the Beach Boys and was replaced by David Marks. Al Jardine returned to the band in August 1963 and David Marks left around the same time. In late 1964, Brian Wilson quit touring and after a short touring stint by Glen Campbell, Bruce Johnston joined the band and would stay until 1972 when he quit. In 1971 The Beach Boys was augmented with the addition of Blondie Chaplin and Rick Fataar. Chaplin left The Beach Boys in 1973 and this was soon followed by the departure of Ricky Fataar in the spring of 1975. 1978 saw the return of Bruce Johnston for the completion of the L.A.(Light album) and in 1983, Dennis Wilson tragically drowned.
In 1988 Brian Wilson released his first solo album, and was effectively no longer a member of the band. In 1998 Carl Wilson died of cancer. In 1997, David Marks made a brief return as a member of The Beach Boys touring band, but left again in 1999. Today, the surviving members of the founding Beach Boys are doing there own thing: Brian Wilson (with his band) has pursued a successful solo career since 1998. Al Jardine tours and performs with his son and Brian Wilson’s daughters and has recently toured with Brian Wilson, while Mike Love still tours extensively with The Beach Boys touring band (along with Bruce Johnston)

Profile:

The eldest of 6 children born to Milton and Emily (Glee) Love, Mike Love was a founding member of The Beach Boys. An energetic performer, he assumed the roles of Lead Singer and bass vocalist in the fledgling group that would become one of the most important bands in the music industry.
As a boy Mike would participate in family singsongs at Christmas with his brothers, sisters and cousins: the Wilson boys (Mike’s mother was Murry Wilson’s sister). Glee was a very dominant and demanding woman and a regrettable event led to Mike being cast out from the family home whilst still in his late teens. Mike supported a wife and a young child at a relatively young age on money earned as a junior employee in his father’s sheet metal business, and at a petrol (gas) station in the evenings. His main interest however lay in music, and he was increasingly spending his time with Brian Wilson and his brothers as they started up their new band. This unfortunately also meant spending less time at his father’s factory, which resulted in Mike being sacked by his father. Thus as a young man, Mike had learned that if he was going to get anything in this life… he would have to fight for it.
He now had even more reason to get into the music his cousins and friend were making and at the suggestion of Dennis Wilson who had already tuned into that new fad, he and Brian wrote their first song together: Surfin’. They managed to get Surfin’ and a couple of other songs recorded and were signed up to the Candix record label. Surfin’ was released and received widespread airplay on local radio stations. The Candix label folded and on the strength of the Surfin’ single and the demo tape Murry Wilson got the group a contract with Capitol Records. And so began a roller coaster ride of success that would transform Mike Love’s life.
He rapidly assumed the role of ‘front man’ in their live performances and developed his lead and bass voices to be as much an essential part of the Beach Boys’ ‘signature sound’ as Brian Wilson’s soaring falsetto. Although Brian was working even then with other collaborators, the songs he and Mike were to write together proved to be the most successful commercially. Mike had a simple directness to his lyrics that every boy and girl could relate to, and they were perfect for the narrative evocation of the Californian Dream that he and Brian wanted to express. In the early 1960s that generation were actually living it. Not only that, but also every teenager in America could live the dream - through the music. Never mind America, Brian and Mike had the world dreaming about Los Angeles and it’s beaches.
It developed into the ideal arrangement, Brian stopped touring to concentrate on writing and recording the music. Mike and the rest of the group would tour constantly generating revenue and marketing the group’s image and record sales. The only other act that could match them was the Beatles. When Brian reacted to the challenge that the Beatles presented, he upped the ante in artistic and creative terms with Pet Sounds. Brian eschewed Mike’s services for the lyric duties on Pet Sounds, preferring the style of Tony Asher for the sensitive introspective themes of that album. Perhaps this, and the fact that Brian had moved so far away from such a lucrative formula for commercial success, made Mike question the wisdom of this new direction. He did however, contribute critical vocal timbres and resonance to that recording masterpiece. Although critically well received (especially in the UK), Pet Sounds was not an immediate commercial hit, and when it came to the follow up single Good Vibrations, it was Mike’s lyrics (written in the car on the way to the studio session) that featured on their biggest world wide hit record.
On the crest of the biggest wave imaginable, it seems perverse that the next episode in the Beach Boys story was to blight the artistic lives of the participants for the rest of their lives. Brian felt his ground-breaking artistic development in modular music making exemplified in Good Vibrations had been validated by its success and set about SMiLE; his next step (giant leap in fact) which would leave his competitors way behind. Mike on the other hand felt that that it was their fans that they would leave behind. These opposing views could not be reconciled and along with other factors, caused an enmity between Mike and Brian that sadly endures to this day. Oh, and SMiLE was lost for 37 years
This episode was both a cultural disaster and a commercial disaster. It marked the start of a descent of the group’s popularity into near obscurity for several years. There was a power shift within the group. Brian Wilson relinquished overall control, and a more democratic, if complex beast emerged. The albums became group efforts and they are some of the most fondly regarded works of long time fans. Junior members of the group stepped out from Brian’s shadow and grew themselves. Mike featured prominently in these albums and as always, fronted the live shows energetically. He had become a vigorous proponent of the benefits of Transcendental Meditation and joined the Beatles amongst other notable luminaries at the Maharishi’s feet in Rishikesh. 1972/73 probably marks the hiatus of this incarnation of the Beach Boys with the release of Holland and the In Concert albums which demonstrated both the creative peak and hottest live performances of the group as a whole.
Capitol Records wanted to release a compilation record of the Beach Boys early hits to the mass market and it was Mike that devised the title Endless Summer and supervised the project. The record was an amazing success. Mike then led the group down the path of highly lucrative ‘greatest hits’ tours, which were the most financially rewarding of the Beach Boys’ careers. This success became a double-edged sword however and a point of conflict once again for the Beach Boys. Audiences newly won over by the Endless Summer and follow-up compilation releases were less appreciative of the later work, and the group seemed unable to capture former standards with new material with the notable exception of Kokomo. Released on the back of a hit movie ‘Cocktail’, Kokomo (which had no involvement from Brian) became a world wide hit rivalling Good Vibrations.
Following the untimely death of Carl Wilson in1998, the original Beach Boys effectively split up. Mike subsequently leased the right to tour under the Beach Boys banner from the corporate Beach Boy organisation BRI (Brother Records Incorporated) and tours extensively each year with a number of talented backing musicians and evergreen Beach Boy associate Bruce Johnston.
As with many groups, litigation has been a big part of the Beach Boys scene. When Brian successfully sued for a fairer return for his song publishing rights from the 1960s, it emerged that Mike had been seriously disadvantaged when Murry Wilson had formed the Sea Of Tunes publishing company, and he in turn sued Brian and won a 50% share of Brian’s award. Mike has been fighting a long running legal dispute with Al Jardine, and recently filed another case against Brian Wilson in conjunction with publicity materials for the Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE 2004 CD release.

Highlights: Fun Fun Fun, Warmth Of The Sun, Here Today, I’m Waiting For The Day, Good Vibrations, Kokomo

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