Rating: 
Summary: Get this book back in print!!!
Review: This is an important book for the rock music scene as it highlights the life of Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Not only does the book do a stunning job laying out the life and times of Dennis Wilson but it dives head first into the world of 60's and 70's rock and determines his role in these crazy years for the music scene.This book does what many rock books fail to do which is to tell an honest to God story saying both the good and the bad but putting it all out on the table so that the tale is properly told. For example, this book examines Dennis Wilson's role within the Beach Boy hierarchy and finds that he was treated poorly by people like Mike Love who didn't have half his talent. The author mourns the loss to the world of music that Love and others in the Beach Boys caused by constantly thwarting Dennis as he tried to get his music out in the public. The book also honestly finds that Dennis was his own worst enemy by using drugs and booze which effectively short circuited his talent causing yet another loss for music lovers as we never got to hear the complete catalogue of his real creativity. Finally, the book looks at what Dennis Wilson did do musicially and finds it amazing. His epic 70's solo LP "Pacific Ocean Blue" will rank as one of the real rock gems as time goes on. The author reviews this LP and tells how incredible it was and how it continues to grow in popularity with rock fans as the years move on. This book is out of print which is sad as there are precious few publications like it. Buy it used and read one of the best rock tales ever but more importantly read it to learn just how profound Dennis Wilson was in his talent and his times. Get this book back in print!
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD BOOK
Review: This is halfway toward being a fine book on one of rock's neglected founding figures. Founding figure? Big claim, sure - but easily substantiated. Alone in a sea of pop mediocrity the Beach Boys stood tall against the Beatles' reinvention of rock in 1964. Their core and catalyst was a progressive "surf-rock" concept - a high resolution projection of liberation from the censorious austerity and parental constraint of Eisenhower-era youth, and it was Dennis Wilson who conceived and embodied that hook. Dennis was the breakneck surfer who came home from Manhattan and Redondo and told his brothers and cousin where it was at. Brian Wilson and Mike Love essayed him immediately in "Surfin'", and a page was turned in American musical history. Brian Wilson quickly overshadowed his siblings and, as has often been said, liberated the recording studio for teen producers. But Dennis remained his muse, and pacer. As the Beach Boys boomed and atrophied and boomed with the vagaries of Brian's health, a vital constant was Dennis's development as a writer. He started with "Little Bird" in 1967 but by the late 70s had written and produced a formidable catalogue of innovative and eclectic music, the best of which remains yet to be released. Dennis's demons were many, some self-fostered, some imposed on him by the disproportionate demands of the surf fanbase, or, more likely Capitol Records' misreading of the band's artistic growth (Capitol was never especially visionary: it turned down the Beatles' "She Loves You"). Either way, Dennis seemed destined for a short, hurried life. Though this book pretends no profound psycho-analytical insights, there is the profile of manic depression in Dennis's life and choices. I remember asking his brother Carl to thumbnail him, and Carl's answer was: "Dennis was hurting so bad, all his life." Writer John Stebbins contends much of the anguish was due to his father's abusive nature - but Murray Wilson too bore the symptoms of manic depression. On the surface Dennis had everything: looks, talent, early fame, loving partners and wives; but depression is an illness, a murderous pathology whose catch is the ease at which we can ignore or downplay it. Like all admirers of rock, I lament his tragic death by drowning (at just 39) and feel resentful on his behalf that so little of his brilliant work was encouraged and disseminated. But the real sadness rests in a suspicion of the uncontrollable nature of his power. Maybe, just maybe, the right nurturing analyst - maybe even Eugene Landy, who saved brother Brian's life - could have sorted Dennis; but Dennis Wilson was headstrong. From his earliest boyhood in landlocked Hawthorne he had his eye on the ocean, on the tallest wave. He got to ride it, for nearly 20 years. No one could talk him home. John Stebbins lyrical book ends with an appropriate mystical note. There is barstool talk, even today, in the eateries of Santa Monica and Venice, that Dennis' ghost still thumbs the PCH to Malibu, where he was happiest. Stebbins ends misty-eyed and hopeful. I would add to that the practical wish that someone at Warners or EMI or Rhino switches on the light and riffles those tape boxes. There is at least a double-cd's-worth of Dennis Wilson gems languishing - songs like "Carry me Home", "Companion", "He's a Bum", all of which are important American art works that should be widely available.
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