The late Brian Wilson and Sly Stone embodied the different places in the Golden State’s musical geography and history.
As news helicopters swirled overhead, demonstrators and troops faced off and smoke rose over Los Angeles, California became the focus of world attention this month.
It seemed bleakly ironic that two musicians who helped define the promise and dream of the Golden State should die within days of each other.
In very different ways, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, both 82, had shaped popular culture’s view of California through the lens of sun, surf, psychedelia and unity.
Wilson’s world was initially one of blonde surfer girls and hot rods: his music on songs like Surfin’ USA a clever amalgamation of Chuck Berry’s storytelling rock’n’roll, doo-wop and close harmony groups such as the Four Freshmen. I Get Around and California Girls distilled teenage sentiments and dreams into little more than two minutes.
Although the Beach Boys’ first three albums had “surf” in their titles (their fourth celebrated hot rods on Little Deuce Coup), Wilson’s writing also offered evocative, inward-looking miniatures with sophisticated arrangements like the slow Surfer Girl and especially the prescient In My Room: “There’s a world I can go and tell my secrets to.”
Within a few years he would write I Wasn’t Made For These Times and the sublime God Only Knows (one of Paul McCartney’s favourite songs) for the Pet Sounds album (1966). He brought a musical intelligence to pop arrangements and writing that hadn’t been heard before.
Wilson painted in delicate colours of sound and Good Vibrations – still a remarkable piece of work – evoked a mystical state of promise, summer breezes and the warmth of the sun.
Wilson’s music – described as “baroque pop” or “cosmic” – could only have come from California.
Like Wilson, multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart in Texas) was a product of his influences. He’d grown up with gospel, and as a young radio DJ in San Francisco, added music of the British Invasion (Beatles, Stones, etc) to the soul station’s playlists.
He produced white pop and rock bands (among them the Invasion-influenced Beau Brummels and pop star Bobby Freeman) and played on numerous sessions (Ronettes, Marvin Gaye, Righteous Brothers). By the time he formed his Family Stone band in 1967 he could draw from a deep well of musical ideas.
He also had an inclusive vision: the band was uniquely integrated – black, white, men and women – playing psychedelic soul, funk and rock.
The album titles were announcements: their debut was A Whole New Thing. The title track of its follow-up, Dance to the Music, delivered their first chart hit.
With bassist Larry Graham (rapper Drake’s uncle) they had a funkmaster on hand for hits like Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).
If Sly gave us a celebratory, psychedelic funk and politically progressive soul that influenced everyone from Miles Davis, George Clinton and Prince to Andre 3000, Wilson’s journey was more inward.
By the time Sly and the Family Stone emerged, Wilson had already retreated after a string of polished pop hits and the seminal Pet Sounds album, with session musicians on songs that rarely required the Beach Boys other than for vocal parts.
No longer a member of the band in live appearances, Wilson’s home was the studio where he created intricate music of layered harmonies and meticulous arrangements well beyond anything in the pop canon at the time.
Pet Sounds shook McCartney into exploring the studio’s possibilities more, hence Revolver then their orchestrated Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.
Wilson was hailed as a genius. But drugs exacerbated his mental instability. He had a breakdown while trying to complete his SMiLE album in 1967.
His country appeared to have a breakdown, too. The multicoloured Summer of Love – soundtracked by Good Vibrations and Dance to the Music – collapsed and gave way to a rapid downward spiral: the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in 1968, cocaine and heroin, the Manson Family, Black Panthers, Weathermen, Symbionese Liberation Army, anti-war protests, body bags coming in from Vietnam, the National Guard killing four students during a demonstration at Ohio’s Kent State University …
The Beach Boys released the acclaimed Surf’s Up album (1971) with Wilson’s sombre ’Til I Die and the title track masterpiece. Surprisingly for a band not known for any political stance other than vague patriotism, it also included Student Demonstration Time: “The winds of change fanned into flames … the pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun.”
It was a timely rewrite of Leiber-Stoller’s Riot in Cell Block #9 by the band’s singer, Mike Love. The hook in both songs is “there’s a riot goin’ on”, coincidentally the title of the Sly and the Family Stone album later that year. It was Stone’s reply to Marvin Gaye’s world-weary classic What’s Going On of a few months before.
By this time, Stone was in a fug of drugs, his music becoming slower, darker and more claustrophobic. Like Wilson, Stone had gone inward: Just Like a Baby is a deep stoner groove, Luv n’ Haight captured his inertia. “Feel so good inside myself, don’t need to move. As I grow up, I’m growing down.”
On Poet, he is resigned: “My only weapon is my pen and the frame of mind I’m in.” It was exceptional but different from his previous music, however, it captured the zeitgeist.
Stone’s descent is as well documented as Wilson’s. Nevertheless, he left an enduring legacy of innovative soul, funk and rock in songs like Dance to the Music, Everyday People and I Want to Take You Higher (from 1969’s political-funk album Stand!), which had its apotheosis at Woodstock.
Wilson’s music following his golden period was uneven but detailed, sometimes glowing and personal.
The Last Song (2015) was moving: “Don’t be sad. There was a time and place for what we had. If there was just another chance for me to sing to you …”
But that time and place was long gone.By the mid 1970s, the sun had set on the vision of California the songs of Brian Wilson and Sly Stone seemed to promise.
Yet even now, despite recent events, their music can still be transporting.
