Brian Wilson spent most of his life revered as one of the great songwriters of the rock’n’roll era, a reputation built primarily on the songs he wrote and recorded with the Beach Boys in the 1960s. Wilson emerged during the glory days of the record business, a time when the composition was inseparable from the recording. He played a crucial role in developing the distinction between a record and song. As the sonic architect for the Beach Boys, he composed the melodies, arranged the vocal harmonies, directed the session musicians, and sought the limits of what could be accomplished in a studio. Some of his greatest achievements, like the mini-suite “Good Vibrations,” found him harnessing all of these skills, but even his simpler material was indelible; pop music rarely is as lovely as “Surfer Girl.”
