The music world is mourning Brian Wilson, the legendary pop music visionary who co-founded the Beach Boys and helped create the iconic “California sound.”
Mick Fleetwood took on X, writing that “anyone with a musical bone in their body must be grateful for Brian Wilson’s genius magical touch!!”
He continued his post saying that he was “greatly saddened of this major worldly loss!!”
“My thoughts go out to his family and friends,” he said before concluding his message with “Mick Fleetwood and the Fleetwood Mac family.”
Questlove paid tribute to Wilson in a heartfelt post on Instagram. He said he found refuge in The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album when he was in Europe trying to make it as an artist. He said he often avoided the band, but his father, who he described as “this Afro rocking ‘Power To The People’ Black fist pumped cat from West Philly” liked The Beach Boys and The Beatles.
“I know Orbison is the king of emo, but man if there was a human being who made art out of inexpressible sadness….damn it was Brian Wilson,” he wrote. “I hate he went thru what he went thru to create this album (also: ‘Smile Outakes’ in my North Star) but man——without him I dunno how so many that came after felt safe to express a feeling of sadness that most humans would be otherwise ridiculed/punished for.”
Musician Ronnie Wood touched on the loss of two music pioneers in rapid succession.
“Oh no Brian Wilson and Sly Stone in one week ~ my world is in mourning,” Wood said on X. “So sad.”
Personality Peter Rosenberg also touched on this.
“Sly Stone and Brian Wilson dying in the same week is truly wild,” he wrote to X. “As important a duo of American musicians that one can think of. Bad week for California in many ways.”
John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s son, Sean, said: “Anyone who really knows me knows how heartbroken I am about Brian Wilson’s passing. Not many people influenced me as much as he did. I feel very lucky that I was able to meet him and spend some time with him. He was always very kind and generous. He was our American Mozart. A one-of-a-kind genius from another world.”
“What a sad day and sad week for music,” wrote Diane Warren. “Thank U for the songs that will live forever. Write in Power, Brian Wilson, and sing with the angels in beautiful harmony forever.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honored Wilson in a three-part social media post.
“Thanks to the imagination, vision, and production gifts of Brian Wilson, the 1988 Inductees, the Beach Boys reinvented the possibilities for pop music. Wilson combined his love for vocal group harmonies with Chuck Berry-style rock & roll, captured California’s beach culture, and defined ‘surf music’ for the world, while also extending his ambitions with sophisticated arrangements and heart-wrenching ballads like ‘In My Room,'” the museum said. “The Beach Boys’ success pre-dated the Beatles (they racked up seven of their record-breaking 37 Top 40 hits before the Beatles even hit the American charts), and 1965’s groundbreaking ‘Pet Sounds’ album and classic compositions including ‘Good Vibrations’ and ‘God Only Knows’ are widely considered to be among the greatest recordings of all time.”
Wilson passed away at 82 following a dementia diagnosis last year.
The Beach Boys rank among the most popular groups of the rock era, with more than 30 singles in the Top 40 and worldwide sales of more than 100 million. They were known for hits like “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls” and other summertime anthems.
The 1966 album “Pet Sounds” was voted No. 2 in a 2003 Rolling Stone list of the best 500 albums, losing out, as Wilson had done before, to the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
