Thursday, 6/12

To put it in words he'd probably himself use, that's a major bummer.

One of the four true musical geniuses of the 20^th century died yesterday. Brian Wilson had not been in good health for a long time, so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but whenever someone of his stature passes away, it is indeed a “major bummer”. I've written in here quite often about not only my love of his music, but for my admiration of what he's gone through in his life and how he overcame it.

So much so, that Loraine and I even flew to Boston for 32 hours back in 2016 to get this picture taken--

(He's the one on the left with his eyes closed, if you're keeping score at home).

Well, actually, we flew there to see him perform with the Boston Symphony and it was, if I may say so myself, quite the night. You didn't go to a Brian Wilson concert back then to hear him sing; after all, his voice was shot by decades of drugs and mental health issues. You were there because you wanted to celebrate both his life and his music.

And what a musical legacy it was.

In fact, there are two overriding memories I took away from the concert. The first was when he, his band, and the Symphony were doing “Good Vibrations” and the cello players in the Symphony kept looking at each other with big smiles on their faces, as if saying “Can you believe we're playing 'Good Vibrations' with Brian Wilson”?

The other was during the encore, when his band (one of the best I've heard live, by the way) were cranking through a medley of early Beach Boys hits, and by the time they got to “Fun Fun Fun” I saw an 80-ish year old lady in the balcony, dressed up in a fur jacket, dancing in the aisle.

You don't get to see many things like that in your life. And I only got to see them because of Brian Wilson.

So while I'm sad that old age and creeping dementia finally got the best of him, I'll always have the memories of that night, and of all of the awe inspiring music that came out of that uniquely creative mind of his.

I don't know that there will be another person quite like him for a long, long, time.

(jim@wmqt.com)