Reader note: As this post again concerns Murry Wilson, please keep in mind that A Book of Brian Wilson now includes “Murry,” a separate four-part essay devoted to the topic of Murry Wilson. Access the first part of that essay here, in the (virtual) Appendix. Readers are kindly encouraged to take a look at the essay, as it is intended to provide a fuller contextual background for how Murry’s actions are interpreted here in the narrative History of Brian Wilson.
—As always, thanks for taking the time to read these materials.
The preceding installment of this historical narrative, Part 5, dealt with the initial formation of the Beach Boys. The process appears to have been rooted in the summer of 1960, when recent high school graduate Al Jardine sought to record his acoustic “folk trio” professionally. On the recommendation of somebody in the Wilson family—likely mom Audree Wilson—Jardine initiated contact with the music publishing firm of Guild Music.
By mid-1961, Jardine and former high school classmate Brian Wilson had begun discussing the formation of a different singing group. Brian quickly brought in his brother Carl and cousin Mike Love. At the urging of Mrs. Wilson, her middle son Dennis, a fundamentally good-natured 16-year-old delinquent, joined the lineup. These five auditioned for Hite and Dorinda Morgan of Guild Music. Though impressed by the group’s vocal prowess, the Morgans passed, due to lack of originality and marketability. After Dennis raised the possibility of a new song about Southern California’s youthful surfing culture, the Morgans agreed to hear it after the boys had written the song and rehearsed it.
This was happening in the late summer or early fall of 1961, around Labor Day.
Continuing:
According to the most common telling of the tale, the boys had not yet written their surfing tune as of the date of their first audition for Guild Music Co., doing so only after the Morgans expressed interest. (An alternative telling has some combination of Wilsons with Mike Love coming up with the idea for the surf tune, and perhaps going so far as writing it, even before the audition.) Once the Morgans proved receptive to the idea of a song with surfing lyrics, it probably didn’t take long for the boys—mainly Brian Wilson and Mike Love—to write “Surfin’.” The next order of business was to work it into performance shape. What then happened is the central event of the Beach Boys’ origin story: a practice session at the Wilson home at which the new Brian-led group worked up their version of “Surfin’,” only to be unexpectedly confronted by Murry Wilson.
As the story has most often been told by journalists, researchers, and members of the Beach Boy organization (including the Beach Boys themselves), it was still around Labor Day weekend when the boys convened in the Wilson music room to rehearse. Murry was not around—perhaps out of town on business, perhaps elsewhere. Mother Audree Wilson too was absent—perhaps accompanying her husband on some kind business trip or personal vacation. Mr. & Mrs. Wilson could have been in Mexico, perhaps some other distant location.
In any event, they had planned to be absent long enough that they had left their sons cash, with the instruction that it be used only for food and emergencies. The boys needed to rent instruments and gear with which to practice “Surfin’,” and it could have been that the profligate Wilson brothers quickly burned through the cash, because in the end Al Jardine asked his mother to stake them. Al specified what he and his friends were going to use the money for. Al’s mom agreed to the loan. The group practiced over the course of a couple of days, putting together acoustic guitar, bass, percussion, harmony vocals and surfing lyrics. Brian may have recorded portions of these home sessions on his tape recorder. Then Murry and his wife returned home.
For decades, music fans have been spoonfed a syrupy narrative according to which Murry Wilson was an indefatigable champion of the Beach Boys who, in spite of his child-rearing practices, somehow managed to remain their number-one cheerleader and protector in the music business. Beach Boys orthodoxy dictates that the Boys would in fact never have been successful without Murry’s love, protection, business savvy and vaunted “drive.” Whether this is true or not is impossible to know with scientific or even legalistic certainty. However, belief in this version of the story requires a reckoning with a number of disturbing tales, just one of which is what occurred on that day, sometime in the later months of 1961 (it was probably still around Labor Day weekend or soon thereafter) when Murry arrived home to find that that mischief was afoot.
The house was a mess. The money was gone. Musical instruments and gear were strewn about. Had Brian, Dennis or Carl informed their father about the audition with the Morgans and the need to write and practice “Surfin’,” Murry wouldn’t have been so surprised by whatever it was he saw. Yet he was, it appears, taken unawares. The reasonable inference is that Brian and his brothers neglected to tell their father about their activities. There is indeed no evidence that they had done so. And, notwithstanding the fact that the boys were in negotiations with none other than Murry’s own song publisher, there is in fact no evidence that Murry was aware of the boys’ fledgling efforts in the music industry until this moment.
All sources report that Murry was livid. In his book about the Beach Boys, journalist Timothy White (whose interview subjects in the 1970s and ‘80s included Brian and Dennis Wilson) wrote that stocky 44-year-old Murry grabbed the 6’ 3” Brian, threw him against the wall and demanded the money be paid back.
Though he could never view himself this way, Murry was a severely damaged person. Like his own sons, he in effect had been raised as a container into which hate was poured. As a kid, Brian silently wondered why his father would want to beat and degrade him when, after all, Murry had been so mistreated himself. Brian was then too young to understand many things, including that his father was unwilling and unable to summon the courage needed to confront the truth of his own past. Without awareness that he had done so, Murry had capitulated to the cruelty and chaos of his childhood, allowing himself to be governed by the appalling abuse he received under his parents’ roof. Still, even if Murry was not intellectually conscious of how badly he had been treated, he sure felt it in his bones—in his very being. Somebody had done something to him. But who did it? And when? And why had it been done?
Murry’s parenting style (as well as a notorious letter that he would write to Brian in 1965) betrayed his belief that his children were the guilty parties. This was how Murry felt about his boys, and it is a big reason why the Wilson brothers found themselves in the crosshairs.
It must never be assumed that a battered, violated child will do the same to his own kids but Murry was weak. He dove headlong into the generational cycle of revenge, thereby ratifying the brutality of his own upbringing. The deal would be sealed with the most destructive element of any abuse system: the psychology. Brian, Dennis, and Carl were raised in accordance with a set of values under which primeval violence was equated with love, security and morality. But what Murry called love and security was merely, at best, his own need. And a man who needed so desperately could not let his sons go, especially the one who was obviously the most promising and therefore most likely to leave.
It follows that Brian was the only Wilson brother Murry would tie to a tree. That atrocity—which is most likely to have occurred during Brian’s early adolescence or puberty—was a message to Brian (and posterity) that Murry could, and would, only obstruct, restrain, and suppress him. Symbolically, Brian was always meant to remain lashed to that tree. He was never supposed to be an independent, autonomous human being. He wasn’t going anywhere. He would achieve nothing.
Imagine then, how Murry felt upon returning home one day to see the soon-to-be Beach Boys rehearsing in the music room. This group of young men (Dennis and Carl were still boys) was exhibiting initiative and independence, and doing so freely, without Murry’s impetus, oversight or authorization. It was of course Brian who even then was the musical leader. Moreover, Brian was not merely performing or harmonizing, but—with his cousin Mike—now writing his own material. Over in Hollywood, Murry’s song publishers Hite and Dorinda Morgan had assumed Murry would be happy to find Brian following in his footsteps as a songwriter, but they later remembered that Murry didn’t like it at all. The Morgans couldn’t have known that as far back as the early 1950s, when Brian and Mike were just boys of 11 or 12 years and Mike wrote a little song to be sung by Brian at a family gathering, Murry was sufficiently disturbed to hijack the song and revise the lyrics—thereby appropriating it as his own creation.
Now Brian and Mike were at it again, but they weren’t little anymore. To compound the injury, the boys were fast-tracking their showbiz ambition by usurping some of Murry’s valuable property—his Hollywood connection. And they had spent (or otherwise squandered) Murry’s hard-earned cash in the process. Which meant they had disobeyed his orders. And finally, they were doing all this right there under Murry’s roof, in the home he had busted his hump and lost an eyeball to acquire. Murry ruled his castle as a mighty, infallible despot, yet returned home to find the earth shifting underneath his feet. It was an insult, it was an outrage, and on some deeper level, it was terrifying.
As the story has been told, the boys tried to calm their father by performing “Surfin’” for him. Murry listened and softened a little. The song had some merit—there was commercial potential at least—and Murry soon made the first in a series of canny moves that would eventually make him wealthy: he backed off. This meant that in the short run, the group could go forward with less family friction, but also that Murry would be treated as an involved party, offering musical input, advice and whatever show-business knowledge he had. A family music and business venture was incipient.
Continue reading in A History of Brian Wilson, Part 7
Go back to preceding post in the series
Note: This post (and the preceding post, History Part 5) are now supplemented with extended commentary and opinion on the complicated circumstances surrounding the Beach Boys’ formation in 1961. A four-part essay, “The Founding of the Beach Boys,” has been posted to the Appendix. Links:
“The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 1 of 4)
“The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 2 of 4)
“The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 3 of 4)
“The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 4 of 4)
Selected References for Part 6
Doe, Andrew G., and John Tobler. Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys: The Complete Guide to Their Music. London: Omnibus Press, 2004.
Gaines, Steven. Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys. New York: Signet/New American Library, 1986.
Murphy, James B. Becoming the Beach Boys 1961-1963. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2015.
Stebbins, Jon. The Real Beach Boy: Dennis Wilson. Toronto: ECW Press, 2000.
White, Timothy. The Nearest Faraway Place: Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys and the Southern California Experience. New York: Henry Holt, 1994.
Wilson, Brian, with Todd Gold. Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
