Brian Wilson, music icon and creative force behind The Beach Boys, dead at 82

Brian Wilson, cofounder of The Beach Boys and the creative force behind the group’s surf sound, orchestral arrangements and perfect harmonies, has died, his family announced on Wednesday. He was 82. “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” his family wrote in the statement shared on Instagram and his official website. “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.” CNN has reached out to representatives for Wilson for comment. Wilson’s life was marked just as much by struggles with substance abuse and mental illness as it was by repeated comebacks, remarkable talent and timeless songs that still echo across the country, decades after their release. His story, by all accounts, is one of resilience. Despite a childhood scarred by his father’s abuse, becoming partially deaf, and the years of haunting voices in his head from schizoaffective disorder, the two-time Grammy Award winner went on to become the “reigning king of pop melody,” as the Denver Post once put it, often bringing to life songs that told a much different tale than his own reality. “That is probably why I wrote those happy songs. I try to get as close to paradise as I can,” Wilson told The New York Times Magazine in 2004. Over the decades, many have revered his genius. “I don’t think you’d be out of line comparing him to Beethoven,” Tom Petty once said. In 2001, CNN credited Wilson as the creator of “some of history’s most intricately woven pop songs.” “He managed to both distill a simplicity of human emotion out of his songs and yet, do something that’s so artistically complex and beautiful,” musician Don Was once marveled about Wilson during an interview. Rolling Stone magazine in 2023 named Wilson one of the 200 greatest singers of all time. In The Beach Boys, Wilson found a family that accepted his perfectionism and eccentricity – he did, after all, install a giant beach sand box under his piano for inspiration. And later, as a solo artist, he revisited and released the one project he couldn’t fulfill while in the group: the SMiLE album that Wilson called a “teenage symphony to God” and looked back on as his greatest accomplishment. An ‘unbeatable’ record The oldest of three brothers, Wilson was born on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California. His love for music began early, but so did the abuse from his father, who, during bouts of rage and depression, would beat Wilson with a belt or take out his artificial eyeball (he’d lost an eye in an industrial accident) and make Wilson look at the empty space. Wilson used music to escape, and his life was always shaped by the melodies around him – with some of his greatest influences including the Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, George Gershwin and, at one time, the Beatles. In 1961, Wilson wrote his first original melody in “Surfer Girl,” according to the biography on his official website. The same year, Wilson and cousin Mike Love wrote “Surfin,” recording the song with Wilson’s brothers, Dennis and Carl, and friend Al Jardine – and soon after becoming known as the Beach Boys. The song was included in the group’s 1962 debut album, “Surfin Safari.” But the high demands of a relentless industry proved too much and in late December 1964, Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown and stopped touring, becoming a full-time studio artist for the better part of more than a decade after that. “I probably had a little too much too soon,” he speculated to CNN’s Larry King in 2004. It would mark the beginning of his experience with depression, which Wilson said never really went away. (Even in 2019, Wilson postponed a tour and said that he had been feeling “mentally insecure” at the time and was grappling “with stuff in my head.”) Wilson went on to compose, arrange and produce the legendary “Pet Sounds” album alongside songwriter Tony Asher, with a single goal in mind: to create the “greatest rock album ever made.” It was released May 16, 1966. The 13-track album, which now holds the No. 2 spot on Rolling Stone’s 2021 list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” has become the group’s landmark record. Paul McCartney – who Wilson had referred to as one of his heroes – once called the record “unbeatable in many ways.” The voices in Brian’s head – and a resurrection While bringing to life many of the band’s iconic songs, Wilson was also plunging deep into his personal hell, taking drugs including hashish, amphetamines and LSD. It was a sort of self-medication, he had said. “It’s called ‘nepenthe,’” he told King in 2004. “Alcohol and morphine – nepenthe means numbing the soul,” he said, referring to a fictional antidote for sorrow mentioned in Ancient Greek literature. Wilson continued to spiral, at times spending days in bed. Around age 25, he began hearing voices: awful ones he desperately tried to tune out, which at times threatened to harm him. It was a symptom of schizoaffective disorder, Wilson said. “Every few minutes the voices say something derogatory to me,” he told Ability Magazine in 2006. The only antidote for those proved to be singing, writing and being around his family, Wilson said. Wilson and his first wife, singer Marilyn Rovell, were divorced in 1979 after about 15 years of marriage. He met his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, in a car dealership in 1986, when she sold him a Cadillac. He released his first solo album – “Brian Wilson” – in 1988. His wife, Melinda, called that time the “Landy years” — a reference to the domineering therapist hired to help Wilson but who instead, according to the musician, overmedicated him, controlled him and banned communication with his friends or family, Wilson and Melinda told King in the 2004 interview. (After a 1991 settlement, Landy was banned from having any contact with the artist.) Wilson married Melinda in 1995. He pointed to her as a critical backbone and support system during his struggles, and the one who helped him take his life back. After her death, Wilson called her his “savior.” In 2004, came a stunning resurrection: more than 35 years since its inception, Wilson revisited the “SMiLE” project and with the help of lyricist Van Dyke Parks and band member Darian Sahanaja, performed the entire finished album at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He released the “Brian Wilson Presents Smile” album in September 2004. Wilson has called it his “biggest accomplishment ever.” “I get the impression that Brian knew he was running out of time and if he was going to present the work he’d have to make a decision to do it and no longer be embarrassed that he had followed his own madness as a 24-year-old composer,” Parks told The New York Times at the time. In May 2024, after his wife Melinda died, a judge ruled to place Wilson under a conservatorship, to which the musician agreed to. Court documents said Wilson had a “major neurocognitive disorder” and was unable to care for himself, CNN reported. ‘Wilson Power’ In Wilson’s mind, The Beach Boys – as the world knew them – broke up in 1998, after Carl Wilson died of lung cancer. Dennis Wilson died in 1983 in a swimming accident. For all the sorrow and internal battles that haunted his life, Wilson never forgot about the things that made him happy: his wife, his children and music, above all else. “They’re the light of my life. Nothing brings joy into my life like my children,” Wilson told Ability Magazine in 2006. “My children and my music are my two greatest loves.” In his interview with the magazine, Wilson said he had found ways to overcome the darkest days of his mental health conditions with the help of medication and regular visits with a psychiatrist. On what gets him through the day, he said: “I walk five miles a day in the morning, I eat really good food, I get a little sleep at night—four or five hours, sometimes six if I’m lucky—and I use my love with people. I use love as a way to get along with people.” And when the going got tougher, he said he got through it with his willpower – which he, fittingly, called “Wilson Power.” CNN’s Todd Leopold contributed to this report.