Carl Wilson Appreciation

“‘Pet Sounds,’ what does that mean?’ I asked. Carl: ‘It’s our favorite sounds, our ‘Pet’ sounds.’” - The Beach Boys On Tour 1966 by Bill Yerkes “At first we had a basic sort of white rock sound with Chuck Berry chord changes; simple lyrics. It reflected the way we were living in California at that time. Then in 1966 we did ‘Pet Sounds’… which jumped ahead for its time. You can’t call it symphonic, but it was intricate.” - Carl Wilson, The Charlotte News (July 31, 1971)

The caption reads: “Just like in the days of the gold rush, The Beach Boys have clambered aboard this iron horse — not to push grazing cows off the tracks, but because the photographer chased them up there; after all, he needed a backdrop! They haven’t needed aids like that for their career in a long time, because their Sloop John B pulls better than any locomotive.” “Sloop John B” was The Beach Boys’ only (!) number one hit in Germany.

“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... which I didn’t have or Mike, or the other guys.” - Brian Wilson interviewed by Harvey Kubernik

Brian and Carl interviewed by Ida Blackburn for The Ida B Show in Oklahoma on July 9, 1964. Footage courtesy of The Oklahoma Historical Society.

“I think Blondie is just a great singer. I’ve always listened to him sing… he can really perform. Very inspired. Both Blondie and Ricky are very inspired.” - Carl Wilson, Disc (March 17, 1973)

“And play they did — the Beach Boys, that is — in a special concert for the crew of the USS Iowa that preceded a gala fireworks display in New York Harbor. […] The band played a medley of old-time favorites, most of them written and sung long before the young sailors were born. But it mattered little to the sailors, freshly scrubbed, shaved and in uniforms of the brightest white. They were ready for a party and the Beach Boys were just the ticket. 'It was just awesome,’ said Midshipman Harry Schmidt, 21, of St. Louis. ‘This is the best time I’ve had in a long time. ‘We knew they were going to be here but I never expected it to be like this. This is the best party you could have, especially aboard the back of a Navy ship.’ […] [Secretary of the Navy John] Lehman [Jr.] warmly greeted the band, saying they produced ‘the best vibrations of any rock band in the world.’” - The Napa Valley Register (July 5, 1986)

“When is a Beach Boys album not a Beach Boys album? When it’s a solo effort from Beach Boys Carl Wilson, entitled simply Carl Wilson. Carl’s earnest tenor has been a mainstay of the group’s sound for 20 years, but here it gets new and beguiling support from a fine harmonizer named Myrna Smith. Some of the pieces they wrote together have the air of newly-minted Beach Boys classics — the joyful surrender of ‘Hold Me,’ the simple bounce of ‘Bright Lights,’ the longing ache of the ballad ‘Hurry Love’ and the throat-catching reverie of ‘Seems So Long Ago.’ […] This year it looks like the spirit of endless summer is residing with brother Carl and friend Myrna.” - review by Dale Anderson, The Buffalo News (April 10, 1981)

“And so, with some of their old music and some of their new music (all performed July 3 in concert in Anaheim), The Beach Boys will try to reach that massive TV audience. They’ve waited a long time to do their own TV show, and they think that ‘Saturday Night’ producer Lorne Michaels has the right approach. Carl Wilson is responsible for bringing together The Beach Boys and Michaels (along with other ‘Saturday Night’ staffers director Gary Weis, and writers Alan Zweibel, Danny Aykroyd and John Belushi). During the long flights between concert dates, Carl showed tapes of his favorite TV show, ‘Saturday Night.’ The musical group liked the spontaneity and humor in the show and decided Michaels was their man. Carl Wilson pointed out that during their heyday The Beach Boys appeared on television with Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Jack Benny and Bob Hope, among others, and the shows just weren’t set up to transmit rock groups. There was another problem, too. ‘We were young, and they had trouble relating to us,’ Carl said of the hosts of those TV shows. That problem doesn’t exist with Michaels and the other youthful members of the production team for this special.” - News and Record (August 1, 1976) More about Carl and Dan Aykroyd in an older post.

"We wanted the Beach Boys. We were getting very friendly with Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys, and I said to Carl, 'I want you to play the Sloop John B guitar in the second verse of the song.' He said he'd do it, we were in New York and he came over to the studio - The Record Plant on 44th Street. Carl comes over and says, 'Bruce [Johnston]'s going to come over.' So he comes over. I'd been told by their agent that if you try to get all the Beach Boys, they will not be in the same room together, they don't even make their records in the studio together. So now we've got two of them, then their tour manager calls me in the studio and says, 'Mike [Love] is feeling left out, he's wondering why you didn't invite him.' I told him the story, that I heard if I invite all of them, nobody will come. So the next thing I know, all the Beach Boys are showing up. We worked on it and Bruce [Johnston] goes, 'We're going to show you how to make a Beach Boys record.' They were putting those beautiful 'oohs' on. I was managing Darlene Love, who never mentioned that she helped arrange 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love,' she sang on 'Fun, Fun, Fun,' sang on all those great Beach Boys records during their heyday, because she was one of Phil Spector's voices and she would sing in Brian's pool. So now I have Joan, Carl, Bruce [Johnston] and Darlene Love, and the four of them together sound like the Beach Boys, because there were always females on the Beach Boys records, but people didn't know that - like one girl and all those high voices. They're doing this and I hear, 'Hey, do I have to take a number to get on your record,' and it's Mike Love and he sings the low part. Eventually Al Jardine came and said, 'What are you doing, you're stealing our sound.' We finally called everybody down and made the record ['Good Music‘]. It had all these beautiful Beach Boys parts with Darlene Love." - Kenny Laguna, Songfacts

“‘When the Beach Boys tour,’ says founding member Carl Wilson, ‘all you do is show up. It will be interesting to see how it works when I’m an opening act.’ Wilson, who opens for the Doobie Brothers Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Red Rocks, professes to be starting over. He remembers how hard it was down the years for all those bands who opened Beach Boys concerts and ended up in oblivion. He’d been out on the road for a month or so, playing in 200-seat clubs, he said in a telephone interview earlier this week. Tuesday was to be his first moment of truth. He would be opening for the Doobie Brothers in a 20,000-seat hall in Salt Lake City. Red Rocks will be another moment of truth. […] ‘They just released “Heaven” as the first single from the album a week ago,’ Wilson said. ‘We play in Salt Lake City tonight, and then I go home for a couple of days before we play Red Rocks on the weekend. How’s the weather? I love to get home for a couple of days.’ […] Wilson appears on the cover in monochrome sepia, like a playboy in an old Sunday society page. As one writer observed about this kind of musical product, it is as much like old rock and roll jeans as a new pair of denims with a designer label. But Wilson doesn’t see it that way. He’s nervous, he says. ‘The Beach Boys only tour when they feel like it, and they aren’t real into recording. They just like to do the shows. It will be interesting to see how it works when it’s just me in front of a lot of people.’” - The Rocky Mountain News (June 18, 1981)

"Carl Wilson was the best friend I ever had. I remember the first time we met — it was at the Hollywood Bowl on the afternoon of July 2, 1965, during a soundcheck for the 'Summer Spectacular' (scheduled for the following night) headlining Carl's band, the Beach Boys, arguably the biggest group in the world. My group, Dino, Desi & Billy, was one of the opening acts that included the Byrds, the Kinks, Sonny & Cher, and the Righteous Brothers. [...] Since that time, for the better part of 30 years, Carl was never more than a few feet away from me onstage, not only during my tenure with the Beach Boys but also during his solo tours. He was also my brother-in-law and we remained extremely close until the very end." - Billy Hinsche, Guitar One (2001) "[Carl] had a keen sense of humor and loved a good joke. I often went to great lengths to make him laugh, even if it was at my own expense. I was willing to risk everything just to see him crack up and to hear his wonderful laughter." - Billy Hinsche, Beach Boys Fan Club website "[Billy] is probably the funniest man in the world.” - Carl Wilson, The Beach Boys Today: A 30th Anniversary Special "Carl was a sweetheart of a guy. Soft spoken. He’d look you right in the eye and cared about what you were saying. I was just a fourteen-year-old kid, but he still gave me the respect as if I were a much older person. He was a generous person. There were so many positive things about Carl. There was no one else like him." - Billy Hinsche, Endless Summer Quarterly (2021) "Carl Wilson was a blessing in my life. No one has ever meant so much to me and no one has ever done so much for me, both personally and professionally. He was my best friend, bandmate, employer, confidant, mentor and the brother I never had. Carl was my trusted counselor. I could always go to him when I had a personal problem that I needed advice on. He was wise and would gently guide me in the right direction. Carl was my champion. He would go to bat for me and stand up for me when others turned their backs." - Billy Hinsche, Beach Boys Fan Club website “Met Carl and Billy Hinsche in 1976 in Boston—two angels.” - Susan Crimmins, Facebook comment on the Caribou Ranch Recording Studio page

“The three actual stars of The Beach Boys [eponymous] LP are: (1) the harmonies […]; (2) the digital recording technology […]; Carl Wilson’s singing. The exquisitely ominous ‘It’s Gettin’ Late,’ with its churchy, swelling harmonies, is a superb vehicle for an entreating performance that’s redolent of his fine vocals on Holland. But there’s such an embarrassment of vocal riches from his quarter on ‘Maybe I Don’t Know,’ ‘She Believes In Love Again,’ ‘Passing Friend,’ ‘Where I Belong’ and ‘I Do Love You’ that it’s wrong to lionize any one selection. ‘I wrote the basic part of “It’s Gettin’ Late” last year with Bob Johnson, who’s in a group in Nashville called RPM,’ says Carl Wilson. ‘I met Bob through Jerry Schilling and he came to stay with me for a few days at my home in Colorado, a place about tweety miles outside of Boulder. We started playing that chord progression one evening, around nine or ten o’clock, and adding the little “Midnight Hour” bassline, the mood of the night coming on just took over the music, and we started singing, “It’s gettin’ late, it’s gettin’ late,” and suddenly we had this pretty little core of a tune. The words got polished up with Myrna Smith Schilling, my songwriting partner. ‘I love working with new people — Beach Boys albums have always involved interesting collaborations, and I think the new album reflects that in ways that are both dramatic and subtle. The Boy George song was this surprise gift from George and Roy Hay of Culture Club. They came down to the Red Bus Studio in London where we were working and did a scratch vocal to get me oriented, and then I jumped in. Frankly, my vocal on that track is almost me doing George. The Stevie Wonder song was also an unbelievable present from out of the blue, and we all figured, “This is one tune we can't screw up, it plays and sings itself.” ‘I think there is a feeling with this album that we’ve crossed over into a new realm of well-being after a terribly trying and rocky time. And people are up to hear us.’” - Musician Magazine (August 1985)

“[Carol Deck and Eden (Nikki Wine's pen name), KRLA Beat reporters] proceeded to go to a recording studio down the way where Eden had to ask Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys about something. […] After what seemed like hours Eden found out whatever it was she wanted from Brian and I clued her in that I was going to collapse from pure unadulterated hunger any minute. Well, Eden’s not too bright at times either and she ignored me. However, Beach Boy Carl Wilson took pity on me and took both unsympathetic Eden and starving me out to dinner (never let it be said that these Wilsons aren’t generous people — that was one of the best steaks I’ve ever tasted.) After bidding farewell to Carl, my faithful companion and I dropped over to a local folk type night club where Eden had to set up [another] interview.” - Carol Deck, KRLA Beat (April 9, 1966) The photo included with the article was caption, “Carl Wilson — Thanks for the very delicious steak dinners.”

“‘Nineteen [years]? Sounds impossible, doesn’t it,’ said lead guitarist Carl Wilson, telephoning between workouts at the Century West Health Club in Los Angeles. […] ‘We’re still going on. In fact, ‘Goin’ On’ is our new single.’ […] How come people haven’t tired of that ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ and ‘California Girls’ surging sound? ‘They need it. Look at the news stories. They don’t need heavy music all the time. People need to relax. They really need some simple clear and “up” music,’ said [Carl] Wilson. […] ‘Well, it’s like the old cliche. The more you change, the more you stay the same. Some of our songs on our new “Keepin’ the Summer Alive” album have that old ‘60s sound,’ Wilson said. ‘I guess we kind of have a knack of renewing ourselves.’ […] Love and Jardine have turned to transcendental meditation to help with the pressures of the rock business. ‘And I’m into [MSIA]. That’s the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness,’ said Wilson. ‘It’s a church. It helps you to relax. I was recently involved in insight training. It was a powerful, incredible experience. Even my ex-wife, Annie, took it.’ Wilson is being divorced but says that his life has been full of harmony since meeting Gina, a California girl.” - article by Jane Scott, The Plain Dealer (February 25, 1980)

“[The Beach Boys] appeared in the matching blue and white striped shirts and white pants for which they are famous. They did 13 numbers, which included most of their hits. Some of the numbers were ‘Do You Wanna Dance?’ ‘Fun Fun Fun,’ ‘Shutdown,’ ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,’ for which Denny came down from the drums to sing, ‘California Girls,’ ‘Help Me Rhonda’ and many others. The Beach Boys Summer Spectacular was one of the most exciting events of the year.” - Linda Reithman (16 years old), The Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet (July 15, 1966) “[Says Carl,] ‘We’d been traveling around the world and having our experiences open up for us. So we were kind of humored at that time because people were saying, “You guys are wearing striped shirts and white pants.” And we were going, “Yeah, that’s right. That ain’t us, because the thing we were and are is the experience we create.” We were getting whomped on for wearing a particular kind of clothing, but we still experienced ourselves as valid musically.’” - article by Neal Gabler, New Times (1976)