“t quite the way the narrative is supposed to arc, is it? Shouldn”
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Figure timeline
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson was an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative and significant figures in the history of popular music, he was distinguished for his high production values and complex harmonies, orchestrations, and vocal arrangements. In addition to his typically ingenuous or introspective lyrics, h…
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entertainment · American musician (1942–2025) · singer · singer-songwriter · composer · songwriter · record producer · musician · bass guitarist · pianist · actor · music arranger · also Brian Wilson, Wilson
Born 20 June 1942 · Died 11 June 2025 · Q313013
128 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 20 entries
“I loved the guy, he saved me. Exercise saved me. There is no drug in the world like it. He pushed me beyond my limits and stopped me being fearful of the world.”
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“We lay on the floor recording with the microphones about a foot from the ground. We were so stoned we had to lie down. We got to the point where we thought this was the way to record. We got halfway through the album before we decided to stand up because we got sleepy.”
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“was my savior. She gave me the emotional security I needed to have a career. She encouraged me to make the music that was closer to my heart”
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“it just tore my head off. [...] You just come to grips with what you are, what you can do [and] can”
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The Guardian: Are Manchester United returning to relevance under Michael Carrick? | Jonathan Wilson
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The Guardian: ‘I was there!’ Writers remember legendary gigs by Beyoncé, Brian Wilson, Britney, Oasis, Daft Punk and more
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Published video “"Music is God Speaking" – Brian Wilson”.
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Published video “got to let you know”.
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Published video “Brian Wilson Featuring Paul McCartney: "A Friend Like You" (2026 remix)”.
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Published video “Being with the One You Love”.
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Published video “Surf's Up”.
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Published video “Love and Mercy”.
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Public attention spiked: 13,079 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.2× the usual 4,055, with 1 article edits. Editors noted: Mental health
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Published video “Brian Wilson Live Stream”.
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Published video “Happy Birthday Pet Sounds!”.
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Published video “Cry”.
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Released album “On Tour 1999-2007”.
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The Guardian: The Beach Boys: We Gotta Groove review – box set of lost 70s music has all of Brian Wilson’s turmoil and talent
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Adult/Child was released as a part of We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years, an expanded reissue of Love You
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2025· 19 entries
Published video “Joy to the World”.
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Published video “Brian Wilson - God Only Knows [Official Lyric Video]”.
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Published video “Brian Wilson Live at The Roxy Theatre: 25th Anniversary”.
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Published video “'Til I Die”.
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The Guardian: Brian Wilson was not the last stop on music’s great adventure | Letters
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Published video “Happy Birthday Brian!”.
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The Guardian: ‘His music documented an America that no longer exists’: Brian Wilson’s brilliance, by key collaborator Van Dyke Parks
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The Guardian: Brian Wilson was a musical genius. Are there any left?
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The Guardian: ‘I yearned to be a California Girl – but I lived in Burnley’: readers on their love for Brian Wilson
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The Guardian: Endless summer: how Brian Wilson soundtracked California
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The Guardian: ‘The joy shot out of his voice’: Ray Davies, Graham Nash and others on Brian Wilson’s songwriting genius
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The Guardian: ‘He taught the world how to smile’: Brian Wilson bandmates pay tribute along with Bob Dylan, Elton John and more
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The Guardian: Share your tributes and memories of Brian Wilson
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The Guardian: Whether wistful or euphoric, Brian Wilson made pop’s most overwhelmingly beautiful music
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The Guardian: Brian Wilson obituary
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The Guardian: Twelve of Brian Wilson’s greatest songs – from surf to psychedelia and beyond
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The Guardian: Brian Wilson: a life in pictures
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The Guardian: Brian Wilson, visionary creative spirit for the Beach Boys, dies aged 82
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Died 2025-06-11.
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2024· 3 entries
Published video “2022: Bob Dylan sings "Happy Birthday" to Brian Wilson on his 80th Birthday”.
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The Guardian: Judge places Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson in conservatorship
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The Guardian: Beach Boys star Brian Wilson has dementia
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2022· 3 entries
Wilson played his final concert, as part of a joint tour with Chicago at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, where he was reported to have "sat rigid and expressionless" throughout the performance
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The Guardian: Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road review – a poignant look back
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His ex-wife Marilyn, who had been awarded half of his songwriting royalties, sued him for $6
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2021· 2 entries
Released album “Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)”.
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Released album “At My Piano”.
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2020· 2 entries
Released album “Orange Crate Instrumentals”.
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Released album “Practise Man, Practise: Carnegie Hall Broadcast 2004”.
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2019· 1 entry
Wilson embarked on a co-headlining tour with the Zombies, performing selections from Friends and Surf's Up
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2017· 2 entries
Released album “Playback: The Brian Wilson Anthology”.
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Released album “The Brian Wilson Anthology”.
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2016· 1 entry
Released album “Brian Wilson and Friends: A Soundstage Special Event”.
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2015· 2 entries
Released album “No Pier Pressure”.
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“not in charge of his life, like I am mine”
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2014· 1 entry
Released album “Visions: His Complete Outside Productions”.
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2013· 1 entry
Awarded Grammy Award for Best Historical Album for The Smile Sessions (2013).
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2011· 2 entries
Released album “In the Key of Disney”.
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Interviews, Jeff Foskett rejected such claims, while Van Dyke Parks stated that Wilson's "life turned into a better place" after marrying Ledbetter
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2010· 1 entry
Released album “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin”.
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2009· 1 entry
Wilson was approached by Walt Disney Records to record a Disney songs album, agreeing only if he could also record an album of George Gershwin songs
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2008· 1 entry
Released album “That Lucky Old Sun”.
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2007· 2 entries
The Southbank Centre in London commissioned Wilson to create a new song cycle in the style of Smile
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Cited Billy Joel as his favorite pianist
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2005· 5 entries
Released album “What I Really Want for Christmas”.
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Awarded MusiCares Person of the Year (2005).
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Awarded Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for The Elements: Fire (2005).
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Released album “Brian Wilson presents Smile”.
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Released album “The Cocaine Sessions (1979-1988)”.
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2004· 6 entries
Released album “SMiLE”.
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Released album “SMiLE: Live at CenterStaging in Burbank, California”.
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Released album “Good Vibrations”.
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Released album “Gettin’ In Over My Head”.
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Earning him his greatest acclaim as a solo artist
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Claimed Wilson had taken LSD only three times in his life
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2002· 4 entries
Released album “Pet Sounds Live”.
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Released album “Live at the Festival Hall”.
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Lamented that his successful treatment had inhibited his creativity and songwriting
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With a sold-out four-night residency at the Royal Festival Hall in London
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2000· 3 entries
Wilson released his first live album, Live at the Roxy Theatre
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Released album “Live at the Roxy Theatre”.
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Released album “More Andy Paley Sessions”.
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1999· 1 entry
Released album “Slightly American Music”.
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1998· 1 entry
Released album “Imagination”.
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1997· 1 entry
Released album “Landylocked”.
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1995· 4 entries
Released album “Orange Crate Art”.
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Released album “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”.
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Released album “21 Little Ones”.
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Wilson was entangled in nine separate lawsuits, many unresolved until the early 2000s
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1994· 1 entry
Recorded a choral version of the piece with Van Dyke Parks
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1993· 1 entry
Wilson had agreed to record an album of songs by Van Dyke Parks, which was credited to the duo and released as Orange Crate Art in October 1995
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1991· 1 entry
Released album “Sweet Insanity”.
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1990· 1 entry
Attributed LSD to his developing "a Jesus Christ complex" in the mid-1960s
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1989· 1 entry
Wilson and Landy formed the company Brains and Genius
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1988· 2 entries
Released album “Brian Wilson”.
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And the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000
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1986· 1 entry
Worked with former collaborator Gary Usher at Usher's studio, producing roughly a dozen songs—most unreleased—with one track, "Let's Go to Heaven in My Car", appearing on the Police Academy 3 (1986) soundtrack
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1984· 1 entry
Doctors again misdiagnosed Wilson with schizophrenia, also finding evidence of brain damage caused by drug use
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1982· 1 entry
After Wilson overdosed on alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs, his family and management staged an elaborate ruse to persuade him to reenter Landy's program
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1980· 1 entry
And 1981 at the Venice Beach home studio of musicologist and film executive Garby Leon—later became known among fans as the "cocaine sessions" or "hamburger sessions"
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1978· 1 entry
Wilson regressed and began secretly acquiring cocaine and barbiturates
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1976· 3 entries
Wilson resumed regular performances with the band for the first time since 1964, singing and alternating between bass guitar and piano
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Commented that he felt contemporary popular music had lacked the artistic integrity it once had, with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975) being one exception
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Had initially refuted such a diagnosis, suggesting Wilson's main issue was "being scared"
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1975· 2 entries
To address his declining health, band manager Stephen Love appointed his brother Stan, a professional basketball player, as Wilson's bodyguard, trainer, and caretaker
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While still under contract with Warner Bros
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1974· 1 entry
Wilson interrupted a set by jazz musician Larry Coryell at The Troubadour by leaping on stage and singing "Be-Bop-a-Lula" while wearing slippers and a bathrobe
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1970· 1 entry
Had been planned for release in 2025 alongside a docuseries about Vail and the album's making
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1969· 2 entries
Wilson produced poet Stephen Kalinich's spoken-word album A World of Peace Must Come
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The Beach Boys commenced recording Sunflower (August 1970)
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1968· 1 entry
That Brian had become the subject of rumors describing him as "increasingly withdrawn", "brooding", and "hermitic" [sic], with occasional sightings of him "in the back of some limousine, cruising around Hollywood, blear
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1966· 6 entries
And "probably the biggest influence of all" in 2000
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And 1967, he almost exclusively used these musicians for the backing tracks, although their involvement diminished considerably after 1967
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Started with finding a basic chord pattern and rhythm that he termed "feels", or "brief note sequences, fragments of ideas"
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Described it as "the first of a series of three breakdowns"
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Said, "The Beatles invasion shook me up a lot
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Produced the band's album Pet Sounds and his first solo credited release, "Caroline, No", as well as their unfinished album Smile
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1965· 1 entry
About a week after his first time using psychedelics
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1964· 3 entries
Wilson was to accompany his bandmates for a two-week U
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Had endeavored to "take the things I learned from Phil Spector" and maximize his instrumental palette
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Wilson performed tape splices on his recordings, usually to allow difficult vocal sections to be performed by the group
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1962· 3 entries
Became the first pop musician credited for writing, arranging, producing, and performing his own material
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Wilson and the Beach Boys signed a seven-year contract with Capitol Records under producer Nick Venet
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Upon hearing "He's Sure the Boy I Love", which he said "opened up a door of creativity for me"
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1961· 2 entries
Inspired by a Dion and the Belmonts rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star"
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Began his professional career as a member of the Beach Boys, serving as the band's songwriter, producer, co-lead vocalist, bassist, keyboardist, and de facto leader
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1942· 2 entries
Born 1942-06-20.
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At Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, California, the first child of Audree Neva (née Korthof) and Murry Wilson, a machinist who later pursued songwriting part-time
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