Credit: Far Out / Brian Wilson
When Brian Wilson first put together The Beach Boys, becoming one of the most complex musical thinkers of his generation probably wasn’t the first thing on his mind.
A lot of the band’s earliest tunes were about creating hits that could compete with every other rock and roller in the charts, but with each passing record, Wilson was creating the blueprint for what a pop symphony was supposed to be, well beyond anything that Phil Spector was thinking of around the same time. But even at his most sophisticated, Wilson never lost the love of a great rock and roll song.
He had already taken the nucleus of his first hit from Chuck Berry, and it wasn’t like he was doing anything too daring when you look at some of those early hits. The same formula of talking about girls, cars, and surfing wasn’t exactly the most advanced songwriting topics in the world, and there were more than a few times where Wilson channelled the same kind of swagger he heard on some of his favourite records.
‘Be My Baby’ may have been his favourite record, but right after the Pet Sounds era, his brothers reminded all of us why the band could still be considered a rock and roll band. They were the definition of a preppy pop rock band for many, and while that may have been absolutely true in the case of Mike Love, what made all of their harmonies work was how well the brothers blended together whenever they played.
Brian was the glue that held everything together, but Dennis and Carl were just as important to keeping the band sounding perfect. There was a certain magic that happened whenever they harmonised, and while Dennis brought a lot more grit to some of their best tunes like on ‘Forever’, Carl was the one that helped steer the band in those years when Brian wasn’t as functional behind the scenes.
He was the rock of the band in many respects, and whenever Brian heard his brother singing some of their uptempo numbers, he felt that no other rock and roll singer could compare to him, saying, “Carl Wilson is my favorite rock ‘n’ roll singer. He had a resonate voice and he had a lot of energy and power in his voice. In which I didn’t have or Mike, or the other guys. Carl and Dennis were both my brothers and my artists.”
Given the amount of resonance in Carl’s voice, though, it’s strange that he would have been the one that could sing ‘God Only Knows’ instead of Brian. This was one of the greatest love songs that the mad genius ever wrote, and while he could have easily kept it for himself, Carl’s voice brought a certain amount of vulnerability to everything, especially since he had been known for playing some of the lighthearted songs in their catalogue.
Further reading: From The Vault
And when you listen to Carl’s voice outside of his brothers, it’s easier to understand what Brian is talking about. It’s one thing to hear his voice in conjunction with the rest of the band, but hearing him delivering the perfect background vocals to one of Tom Petty’s songs makes you realise that he was an absolute natural when it came to virtually anything he touched in the studio.
Brian may have been the scribe who channelled something otherworldly when writing his arrangements, but Carl was the one who helped breathe life into some of their best songs. IT wasn’t going to be easy for him to compete with his brother, but it was worth it to be the one that had the lead vocal on some of the greatest songs that the 1960s ever spat out.
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