Dennis Wilson

The photo Dennis Wilson chose for the cover of "Pacific Ocean Blue" is a close-up shot of him taken by Karen Lamm, the woman he would marry and divorce not once but twice. A rugged, thick beard, long hair, with a serene, pastel-tinted sky in the background. A look that suits him far better than the good-boy image, which never really fit him, sitting behind the drum kit of the Beach Boys with that dutiful smile plastered on his face.

In 1977, the year "Pacific Ocean Blue" was released, Dennis Wilson was a man who had just turned thirty. It's the first-ever album released by a member of the Beach Boys outside the band. It might seem like a gamble, to some even sheer madness.

Looking at the evocative cover shot, it's easy to make out the intense gaze, the stern expression of a man who would have so much to tell, about himself and about others, as if he wanted to say: "Nobody believed in me, and yet look what I was able to do, all on my own." And while our article is naturally focused on a purely musical dimension of analysis, it must be said that the many, complicated private affairs Dennis Wilson was caught up in had serious, significant repercussions on his artistic trajectory. The excesses, the abuse of alcohol and drugs, the company he kept (the infamous Golden Penetrators) enormously undermined his contribution to the group, as well as his talents, which still remain partly overlooked. Despite leaving behind some wonderful artistic statements and writing splendid songs both with the Beach Boys and on his own, Wilson would too often be remembered more for his proximity to controversial affairs and for a lifestyle that was way out of line. For many he remains chiefly "the musician who was friends with Charles Manson". But the sole purpose of this piece is to look at the Inglewood-born singer-songwriter as the magnificent creator of "Pacific Ocean Blue", one of the most iconic records not just of that era.

Let's take a quick but necessary look back at Dennis Wilson's history within the Beach Boys, and at the period immediately preceding his long-awaited solo debut. Unlike his bandmates, Dennis is the only one who genuinely took up surfing. The detail might seem trivial, but for a member of the Beach Boys, a band whose early career was built almost entirely on themes like the sea, girls, cars and surfing, the matter takes on particular significance. Dennis does everything he can to steer the band founded by brothers Carl and Brian (who would always defend him, even in the most painful moments), by cousin Mike Love and Al Jardine, toward tackling and embracing those subjects, which at that precise moment in history were an especially fashionable target and thus a channel through which to make a decisive mark among young audiences. During the '60s, the Beach Boys wrote some pages that rightfully belong to the history of pop music, churning out explosive hits but also legendary albums that went well beyond the classic pursuit of chart singles. In many live performances, Dennis, stationed in the classic spot reserved for drummers at the back, moves about restlessly, stands up, grabs attention, with the clear intent of catching the crowd's interest, which was more easily drawn to his bandmates lined up out front.

Every now and then the microphone is his too. On the covers collection "Beach Boys' Party!" (1965), the songs are "dirtied up" by the chatter and shouting of the people at the party. Dennis, who knows by what coincidence, chooses to cover a song by the "rival" Beatles, the gorgeous "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away". Later on, as we'll see, his contribution within the Californian band would become erratic, and not entirely by his own choice. It's a shame that on the epic "Pet Sounds" the only song on which Dennis plays the drum parts he wrote himself is "That's Not Me". It's the legendary session drummer Hal Blaine (another figure about whom rivers of ink could be spilled: "Hal Blaine Strikes Again...") who plays in his place.

He barely appears on "Smiley Smile" and "Wild Honey" either, both from 1967. On "Friends" (1968) he co-writes the title track, as well as the songs "Be Here In The Mornin'" and "When A Man Needs a Woman". On the second side of the LP the stakes rise: together with Steve Kalinich he writes "Little Bird", on which he sings alongside his brother Brian, and again with Kalinich he writes and performs "Be Still".

The '60s were a triumph for the Beach Boys and they close out the decade more than respectably with "20/20" (1969). On this album the pivotal figure of Brian Wilson is almost entirely absent, he doesn't even appear on the cover photo, showing up only in an inner image with his face half-covered by an optometrist's eye chart. Dennis writes "Be With Me" and the frenzied two minutes of "All I Want To Do", complete with... moans of pleasure at the end. The record also includes "Never Learn Not To Love", the infamous track par excellence, given its ties to Charles Manson.

Dennis Wilson's standing as a songwriter was showing clear signs of growth. "Forever", taken from the following album "Sunflower" (1970), is considered by many to be one of the finest compositions in the entire Beach Boys catalogue, publicly praised even by his brother Brian. The album features three other tracks written by Dennis: "Slip On Through", "Got To Know The Woman" and "It's About Time". In 1970, Wilson released what can be considered, to all intents and purposes, his first solo project. Under the moniker Dennis Wilson & Rumbo, together with keyboardist Daryl Dragon, he made the excellent single "Sounds Of Free/Lady". The songs are marked by a pronounced sense of feeling, strongly inspired by Denny's relationship with his second wife Barbara Charren, his invaluable sounding board and muse during that period. That single was meant (though it never happened) to pave the way for an album, one the American artist wanted and pursued strongly, above all as a way to escape the heavily dysfunctional relationship that had taken hold within the Beach Boys.

1971 arrives, and the now-untamed drummer takes on another debut, this time in the world of cinema, in a film that is nothing short of a cult classic: "Two-Lane Blacktop".

Meanwhile, the dynamics within the band, as mentioned, are starting to fray, and for Dennis too things don't seem to be heading in a good direction. Internal friction increases, and the songs he writes are surprisingly left off 1971's "Surf's Up". That same year he also suffers a serious hand injury, which forces him to stop playing drums. He carries on as frontman and additional keyboardist until 1974. His reckless lifestyle during this period is devastating him, among other things irreparably damaging his singing voice. Dennis now seems an ever more distant presence from his band, from his family. We're at the dawn of "Pacific Ocean Blue".

While the true extent of Dennis's involvement is still being investigated, it seems his contribution to the genesis of Billy Preston's evergreen "You're So Beautiful" (1974) was far more than a minor touch – a song that became hugely successful, turning almost into a stock phrase, with snippets of it often used in everyday life, sometimes even unwittingly, as a dedication or in a tender moment. Yes, that same Billy Preston who backed the Beatles during the recording of "Let It Be" and, above all, during the legendary "Rooftop Concert" of January 30, 1969. The song was an immediate hit, helped along by countless covers quickly recorded by a host of top-tier artists, first and foremost Joe Cocker, whose version climbed the charts in both America and the UK. The only certainty is that between 1975 and 1983 (the year of his death), Dennis occasionally performed the song live, often with rather unsettling results, as documented, for instance, on the Beach Boys live album "Good Timin' – Live At Knebworth 1980".

But now, at last, we come to "Pacific Ocean Blue".

Wilson recorded most of "Pacific Ocean Blue" between the autumn of 1976 and the following spring. By the time of recording, the harsh lifestyle he was inflicting on himself had begun to affect not only his looks but also his voice, which had taken on a rough, gravelly quality, though still deeply full of feeling. Looking back on the making of the album, co-producer Gregg Jakobson recalled that this was the only period in which Dennis Wilson was fully accepted as an artist. His brother Brian had shown him piano chords in previous years, and Dennis had proven remarkably adept at deepening and refining his own musicianship, aligning it with the songwriting ideas increasingly taking shape within him. Of course, having the Beach Boys' own recording studio at his disposal was a huge help in shaping and realizing the American artist's ideas. With all these ingredients in place, Dennis finally managed to take flight. And it's both pleasing and surprising to discover just how many inspired souls lie hidden among these tracks.

Piano is the key instrument on which the whole record is built, starting with the opener "River Song", as with all the most moving moments scattered along the way. Vocally, Wilson is touching, direct, in a way he rarely was, especially in his later years. What comes through is his uncontainable vitality (with results that, admittedly, aren't always fortunate), his fragility, his spirituality, and glimpses of a simple calm he was never able to sustain for long. The celestial, gospel-tinged opening of "River Song" was written together with his brother Carl. Dennis moves from the sea to the river for a new baptism. He weaves his powerful voice together with the choir swirling around him, openly declaring how tired he is of the chaotic, polluted city life, expressing his wish to be reborn away from Los Angeles, specifically in the High Sierras of the Sierra Nevada, within a musical arrangement in which every instrument slots perfectly into place, lending pathos to the atmospheres painted by the Californian songwriter:

You can only see about a block or two

In L. A. that’s the truth

I'm lookin' for some country life

Some kickin' room no more city life

I want the river

The scenery changes completely on the following track, "What's Wrong". The arrangement, buoyed by horns, is impeccable, but the rhythm and mood come across as breezy and festive, almost a throwback to the typical aplomb of the Beach Boys. Backed by his signature rock'n'roll style, Dennis seems to be addressing a girl in a situation that hardly looks idyllic, with veiled autobiographical references:

It ain't very funny

How you spend all my money

I'm gone, I'm gone

Do what you want to but baby don't you do it on me

The enigmatic "Moonshine" opens in a feverish mood, but the entrance of the full instrumentation swoops in to fill the empty spaces with a solemn air, as Wilson, in a lonely nocturnal atmosphere, repeats the lines "Gone", "Gone Away", deepening the scope of a song written over the ashes of a relationship that seems to be crumbling. "Friday Night" has a highly cinematic instrumental intro that gives way, in the tale spun by the Wilson family's second son, to the White Punks show. Here Dennis returns to that uneasy coexistence between the figure of Jesus – with Manson brought forcefully back into play – and the sacred fire of music, not without a few knowing winks:

I believe my Jesus is in my soul

Come on my brother, let’s a-rock and roll

With "Dreamer", one of the best moments on the tracklist, the shift in direction is remarkable. A funk-style opening thanks to the electric piano, ubiquitous in those years, a touch of harmonica to build atmosphere, and the addition of some jazzy horns at the end of each chorus round out one of the finest compositions on the record, lyrically as well. Even the use of synthesizers feels well-judged, hinting at some of the flavors that would become central to the sound of the imminent 1980s.

There's no shortage of variation here, and it becomes one of the album's strengths. On the ballad "Thoughts Of You", the sea air and the ebb and flow of feelings are carried by aching piano notes, perfect for sustaining the thoughts of a Dennis gripped by longing, by the bleeding pain that only love can cause, all within a scene painted to near perfection:

All things that live one day must die, you know

Even love and the things we hold close

Look at love, look at love, look at love

Look what we’ve done

Loneliness is a very special place

To forget is something that I’ve never done

Silently, silently you touch my face

The intensity instead takes on the shape of a genuine confession in "Time":

I’m the kind of guy

Who loves to mess around

Know a lot of women

But they don’t feel my heart

With love, completely free

Ooh, I love you, I really do

A sequence of lines preceded by a scene that perfectly captures the eternal oscillation between irreconcilable opposites, in an arrangement of horns, strings and piano onto which the electric guitar is grafted with great instinct.

On the funky rhythms of "You And I", meanwhile, the song reckons with absence:

I’ve never seen the light that people talk about

You open up my wallet and dust falls out

That’s alright with me

Because the songs that I’ll sing won’t be blue

Brian Wilson called "You And I" the best song his brother ever wrote.

Simple but effective: the way his voice rises in the chorus is lovely. Streaked with guitar touches and playful backing vocals, the title track is a clear, heartfelt declaration of love that Dennis makes to his beloved sea. Description and a light naturalistic undertone courtesy of Mike Love. The friend to whom Dennis says farewell in "Farewell My Friend" is Otto Hinsche. The song was written as a tribute to this figure, father of American musician Billy Hinsche (also a keyboardist for the Beach Boys) and father-in-law of brother Carl, who was married to his daughter Annie Hinsche. Dennis wrote this radiant tribute because Otto had passed away right in his arms. The Californian artist always described this song as a kind of peaceful farewell, a goodbye, or rather, a see-you-again.

The mandolins placed at the outer edges of "Rainbow"'s musical scene work quite effectively in support of a splendid melody, complete with backing vocals and one of the most meticulous arrangements on the whole record. A gentle piano leads into the closer, "End Of The Show". Dennis's lyrics, unlike most of the songs here, don't seem to be trying to communicate anything specific, yet the emotional weight remains very high, built on his raspy voice and harmonic swells that, toward the end, seem to fade sweetly into vocal consonances so close to the inimitable textures of his Beach Boys.

After "Pacific Ocean Blue", Dennis Wilson would go back to the Beach Boys and try to make another solo album, but things wouldn't go as planned, unfortunately. In 1978, in fact, the American musician had begun work that would lead to the sophomore effort titled "Bambu", a record that obviously was never finished, not only because of its author's personal troubles but also due to bureaucratic and financial issues. Only in 2008 were the songs released for the first time, as a bonus addition to the first CD pressing of "Pacific Ocean Blue".

Received fairly positively by critics, even though it didn't climb the sales charts as hoped, "Pacific Ocean Blue" nonetheless had the merit of growing over time, becoming a classic and often turning up on best-albums lists in the genre. In the deluxe edition released by Caribou Records and Sony Music in 2008, used here as the direct reference for this analysis/listen, there are four bonus tracks: "Tug Of Love", the umpteenth pianistic gem "Only With You", the instrumental "Mexico", with a crystalline melody that immediately lodges itself in the listener's head, and "Holy Man". It's tragic and bitterly ironic to note that a recent reworking of this last track - conceived in 1974 and picked back up by Wilson in 1976, but left off the official "Pacific Ocean Blue" tracklist because it was unfinished - bears the touch of another drummer who left us too soon, Taylor Hawkins, the drummer of the Foo Fighters, who, together with his bandmates and members of Queen, finished the work left incomplete. The Beach Boys drummer had in fact drowned at sea on December 28, 1983, in Marina del Rey.

"Pacific Ocean Blue" thus remains one of the most genuine, inspired, pained and unhinged records of that era, but above all one of the most important and accomplished. The flip side of the coin is the bitterness that has always surrounded it, ever since its release. Held back by most of his Beach Boys bandmates/brothers, Beach Boys, "Pacific Ocean Blue" could and should have been the launching pad for Dennis Wilson's career, and nothing can stop us thinking that a bigger following than the one it got at the time might have helped Wilson find more stability and overcome the many fragilities that always undermined his existence.

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14/02/2026