Coral Chorale
Dennis Wilson's lost classic resurfaces
By Chris Morris
The surf claimed the Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson on Dec. 28, 1983. The only member of the group who actually rode a board, he drowned accidentally in a Marina del Rey slip while diving for junk in the shallows underneath the moored boats. Some saw Dennis as the golden boy and beating heart of his band, though he labored in the shadow of his brothers Brian and Carl. Certainly he embodied the group’s light and its dark: He introduced the Beach Boys to transcendental meditation, and to Charles Manson.
Until recently, you had to study the margins of the Beach Boys’ work to discover Dennis’s art; casual listeners probably know him best from four exuberant, gorgeous songs he contributed to the band’s’ sorely underrated 1970 album Sunflower. But he has been coming back into focus. Last year, the Criterion Collection released a splendid two-DVD version of Two-Lane Blacktop, which starred Dennis in an iconic role, playing the taciturn “Mechanic” to James Taylor’s equally tight-lipped “Driver” in director Monte Hellman’s great 1971 road picture. And this month, Epic/Legacy issued a long-awaited and equally lavish two-CD edition of his 1977 solo album Pacific Ocean Blue.
Originally released in an era when the Beach Boys were torn by internal problems and in serious artistic and commercial eclipse – and please, fans, don’t tell me how great The Beach Boys Love You is, ’cause I ain’t buyin’ – Pacific Ocean Blue created barely a ripple on the ’70s music scene. Contrary to reissue annotator Ben Edmonds’ claims of “healthy sales,” it peaked at No. 96 on Billboard’s album chart during a meager eight-week run. A CD re-release was only briefly available in 1990.
With the present reissue, the public at large will get a chance to hear what Beach Boys maniacs have been ranting about for three decades. Pacific Ocean Blue is perfectly worthy of its status as a cult love object. It’s a unique and soulful record, and a real personal statement by a fine musician whose voice never received a fair airing in his own band.
Dennis’s forceful piano work dominates the dense instrumentation on the album; his voice, which has that distinctive Wilsonian timbre that will immediately tweak the cortex of any Beach Boys fan, is slightly hoarse and rough but invariably affecting. He wrote or co-wrote all 12 songs on the original album; his collaborators included his then-wife Karen Lamm, fellow Boys Carl Wilson and Mike Love, and co-producer Gregg Jakobson.
It’s an album about the vicissitudes of love, and a longing for transcendence. Dennis Wilson was always painted as the Beach Boys’ wild child, but what’s most noteworthy about Pacific Ocean Blue is its copious spiritual content. Several of its songs mention or allude to Jesus; its best compositions – “River Song,” “Dreamer,” “Farewell My Friend, “End of the Show” – reflect an impatience with the world of the flesh, and a desire to know what’s on the other side of earthly experience. But the sound is never ethereal, but unusually bold and gutsy, propelled by a funky backbeat and lifted by bursts of Stax-like horns.
The original album would be enough, but the present reissue includes several vocal and instrumental tracks previously passed from hand to hand by fans in bootleg form. There are wonderful vocals like the unreleased “Tug of Love”; splendid instrumentals like “Mexico” and “Holy Man” (which is also included in a fine new vocal version by Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins); and, best of all, 16 magnificent songs cut for a never-completed second album, Bambu, which may be even better than the stuff on its predecessor.
Life caught up with Dennis Wilson; few would disagree that he failed to achieve all that he could. But Pacific Ocean Blue is a stupendous testament. This wave hasn’t rolled in for quite a while, and no one who admires great American pop should fail to catch it.
Chris Morris hosts Watusi Rodeo on Indie 103.1 every Sunday at 9 a.m.
Published: 06/25/2008
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