Just when
music fans with indelible memories of the Sixties were getting used to the
death of Sly Stone, Brian Wilson followed him within 48 hours.
The
conjunction of deaths had an all too sad symmetry: both gone at age 82, with
their heyday as pop trailblazers 50 to 60 years behind them, undone by drug
abuse, with occasional reappearances in the spotlight that started and
electrified admirers.
The
critical and commercial peak of each man lasted for about five years. At first,
to the wide public that snapped up their hits, most, if not all, of their
behavior seemed a matter of the kind of eccentricity that often accompanies
artistic genius, like Wilson wearing a fireman’s hat while directing a promo
video for “Good Vibrations” or Stone donning long wigs and hats.
For Wilson and Stone, the expectations generated by their success proved too immense to handle. Somewhere along the line eccentricity shaded into instability, then worse: mental illness (Wilson) or homelessness (Stone).
By 1975, canceled concerts and musician departures meant the effective end of Sly’s band. The Beach Boys carried on, even braving multiple changes in popular taste. But at roughly the same time that the Family Stone folded its tents, the Beach Boys became no more than Mike Love’s nostalgic troupe.
Canceled
concerts followed, then isolation from collaborators, a vacuum in their bands’
leadership, and concluding with declines on the pop charts. Their creativity
then came only in fits and starts. Wilson admitted to Rolling Stone that
he became “too concerned with getting drugs to write songs.”Eventually, reality fractured Wilson and Stone without destroying them.
That is
not what I remember them at their best, though. Then, while listening to their
best records—the Beach Boys’ entire Pet Sounds LP, “Good Vibrations,” “Fun,
Fun, Fun,” “Don’t Worry,” or Sly’s “Everyday People,” “Dance to the Music,” or “Everybody
is a Star”—I can only marvel at their effortless mastery of sounds and styles.
But, although
the Beach Boys and Sly and the Family Stone released records throughout the
calendar year, I—and, I suspect, many other fans—think of them overwhelmingly
in terms of summer.
Wilson ran
with his brother Dennis’ suggestion that the group record songs appealing to
the carefree, hot-rod-and-surf culture then springing up in California, giving
rise to a whole string of hits: “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “Surfin’
Safari,” “Surfer Girl.” Stone and his band became indelible parts of the
counterculture with their summer 1969 appearances at Woodstock and the Harlem
Cultural Festival.
During his
glory years, Stone created what sounds like a quintessentially Beach Boys tune:
“Hot Fun in the Summertime.” In fact, the Beach Boys, nearly three decades
after their time atop the charts, recorded a cover version for their Summer
in Paradise CD.
For fans
of the two groups, their peaks occurred during our summers, too—when our energy
seemed as endless as the world that beckoned to us.
But, for all the
aural complexity of their masterpieces, they won the allegiance of listeners
with simple, effervescent messages of joy and love.
Decades
ago, we could never imagine Wilson and Stone getting old, any more than we
could imagine we could. Their bodies may have died, crumbling as much from
their Dionysian excesses as from old age, but they live in the endless summer
of memory, where youth is forever golden.
(The image
of Sly Stone that accompanies this post was taken in Berkeley, CA, on Apr. 16,
1982, by Sarfatims.)