Carl Wilson

Born in Hawthorne, California on December 21, 1946, singer, songwriter, and musician Carl Wilson was best known as a founding member of the Beach Boys. The group came together in 1961 and featured Carl Wilson’s brothers Brian (main songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and leader) and Dennis (drums, vocals) alongside their cousin Mike Love (vocals) and friend Al Jardine (guitar, vocals). Jardine had to leave the group for a year and was replaced by David Marks until he returned in 1963. The Beach Boys became one of the most popular bands in America and were the Beatles’ only real rivals in the mid-1960s. However, Carl was merely their lead guitarist in those early days and wasn’t given many opportunities to show his vocal talents until 1966 when he sang lead on “God Only Know,” which became one of the group’s signature songs. Carl also sang lead on later favorites including “Good Vibrations” (1966), “Darlin’” (1967), and “I Can Hear Music” (1969). When Brian had his nervous breakdown and stepped away from some of his Beach Boys duties, Carl took the reins and became the Beach Boys’ musical leader. The Beach Boys began to fall apart by 1981, and Carl Wilson took a hiatus from the group to release his self-titled debut solo album that year. By the time his second solo album, Youngblood, was released in 1983, he had rejoined the Beach Boys and continued leading the band through the 1980s. In 1988, the Beach Boys scored their biggest hit in two decades with “Kokomo,” which gave Mike Love the opportunity to take control of the band’s recordings. Carl Wilson also began to work on a musical collaboration with Gerry Beckley (America) and Robert Lamm (Chicago), which the three of them would work on throughout the 1990s. The album would not be released until two years after Carl Wilson’s death. Outside of the Beach Boys and his own solo releases, Carl collaborated with other artists and provided backing vocals on recordings by Chicago, Elton John, Carnie and Wendy Wilson, Warren Zevon, David Lee Roth, and many others. On February 6, 1998, Carl Wilson died of lung cancer at the age of 51.

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