Hours before an early 1970s Beach Boys concert, the band?s musical director Jim Guercio remembers drummer Dennis Wilson fooling around on the piano during soundcheck. "I heard these amazing changes and I said, 'Dennis, is that one of Brian's songs?' " Guercio says. "He said, 'No, It's one of mine.' "
By 1977 — just six years before he died — the Beach Boys' drummer had released Pacific Ocean Blue, a stunning, painful solo album that's widely considered the best Beach Boys project of the Seventies. Despite its acclaim, the disc has been out of print for a quarter century. Now it's back in a deluxe edition on Sony — with a bonus disc of songs originally intended for Bambu, POB's shelved follow-up. "Dennis spent all those years with Brian as his teacher," says Gregg Jacobson, who co-wrote most of the songs on Pacific Ocean Blue. "He had the same gene-pool talent as his brothers. He just sat on his until it finally bubbled over."
Brian Wilson based much of much of the mythology of the Beach Boys around his younger brother Dennis, the group's only surfer. He sang lead on a handful of early hits, such as 1965's "Do You Wanna Dance," but he was mostly content to let his brothers steer the ship — until mental problems sidelined Brian and forced the other members to step up their contributions. "By the 1970s being a Beach Boy wasn't as stimulating or gratifying as it once was for him," says Jacobson. "Dennis had more and more things to say and there was always opposition from the other guys. A solo album was the natural way to go, it was the path of least resistance."
Dennis entered the Beach Boys' studio in 1975 and found it the ideal refuge from his increasingly volatile outside world — where he had to deal with a growing alcohol problem, the dissolution of his marriage and constant battles with his cousin and bandmate Mike Love. Dennis poured the pain of his life into every lyric and note of music. "I'm sorry, I miss you," he groans on the heart-wrenching "Thoughts of You," before belting out "Look what we've done!" in a voice of unmistakable agony. "He was baring his soul," says longtime Beach Boys keyboardist Billy Hinsche, who plays on POB. "It's almost uncomfortable to listen to — like what John Lennon did on 'Mother.' " Years of hard living had reduced his once sweet voice to a Joe Cocker-esque rasp, which only adds to the emotional intensity of the music. In many ways the album's multi-tracked harmonies, sweet piano interludes and unusual chord progressions make for easy comparisons to Brian Wilson's masterpiece Smile. "Dennis really started playing the studio like an instrument," Jacobson says. "In the end, you couldn't get him out of there." Brian Wilson was blown away by the final product. "I first heard Pacific Ocean Blue in my house at Pacific Palisades," he says. "I found it very warm and comforting music. His lyrics were very creative and his voice is very comforting."
The album was widely praised by critics and Dennis hoped to launch a brief tour to keep the momentum going. It never happened. "We even had tour T-shirts printed," Jacobson says. "I don't know this for a fact, but many people swear that Stan Love, who was managing the group at the time, told Dennis that if he took POB on the road he wouldn't be a Beach Boy anymore. Whatever the reason, it threw Dennis into a tailspin." Dennis poured himself back into his music and planned to release Bambu, a follow-up based around songs cut for his debut. "The next album is 100 times better than Pacific Ocean Blue," Dennis told an interviewer in September 1977. "I have more confidence now that I've completed one project." Bambu remained unfinished, as Dennis' spiraling addictions kept him out of the recording studio. On December 28th, 1983 he drowned while swimming in the Pacific Ocean.
The only newly recorded music on the new collection is "Holy Man," a haunting melody Jacobson and Dennis wrote but never wrote proper lyrics for. Recently Jacobson found the inspiration for words, and recruited another raspy-voiced California drummer to sing them: Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters. "I was a little apprehensive at first," Hawkins says. "To some people this would be like pissing on a Picasso. I'd like to think somewhere up there Dennis is approving."