Beach Boys to reunite for Grammy Awards extravaganza

The iconic band The Beach Boys will perform together for the first time in 20 years, and the occasion is befitting: the 54th Grammy Awards set to air on Sunday night.

Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, David Marks, Mike Love and Brian Wilson will perform with Maroon 5 and Foster the People in a special performance, according to Grammy organizers in Los Angeles. The announcement follows on the heels of the anticipated reunion album set to be released later this year. The Beach Boys is also going on a world tour to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band.

The Beach Boys were propelled into international fame in the mid-sixties with hits like “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls.” The band’s popularity was doubtless in part the result of its Southern California youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance reflected in the song lyrics.

The band was formed in Los Angeles by brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, their cousin Love and school friend Jardine, and signed on to Capitol Records by the Wilsons’ father. By the mid-1960s, leader Brian Wilson's growing creative and songwriting ability would dominate the group's musical direction; however, his subsequent drug and mental health problems eclipsed his talent, and The Beach Boys would go on through the 70’s and 80’s comprised of different musicians, though always headed by an original member.

The Wilson brothers were particularly marred by tragedy. Of the three, Dennis Wilson epitomized the California lifestyle valorized by the band’s songs. His excessive lifestyle caught up with him finally in 1983, when, after a day of drinking, he decided to dive off a friend’s boat in hopes of recovering some items he had thrown off into the marina some three years prior. He drowned on December 28, shortly before his 39th birthday.

Carl Wilson, the youngest of the brothers, was the most steady emotionally; he continued his musical career uninterrupted throughout the most tumultuous years, and was lead vocalist the band's most recent big chart success, 1988's U.S. number one "Kokomo". He continued touring with the band until the last months of his life. He died in 1998 of brain and lung cancer. Despite his diagnosis and grueling chemotherapy, he continued to tour, even though he needed an oxygen tank at the end of each song.

After a decades’ long struggle with substance abuse and mental health problems, Brian Wilson, arguably the band’s most talented member, made a comeback as a solo artist in 2004. At the 47th Grammy Awards in 2005, Wilson won his only Grammy for the track "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" as Best Rock Instrumental, a poignant moment in light of the fact that many contemporary stars, from Bob Dylan to Neil Young consider him a genius.

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Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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