TWO TROUBLED LEGACIES

Sly Stone and Brian Wilson recently passed away leaving behind a legacy of groundbreaking pop music

- JON PARELES

In a cruel coincidence, last week has brought the deaths of two pop world builders at 82: Sly Stone and Brian Wilson.

Both were exemplars of 1960s California, with Sly & the Family Stone representing psychedelic San Francisco as a diverse, utopian commune and Wilson’s Beach Boys (with members of his own family) bringing the world a Southern California teen mythos of sun, surf, girls, cars, dancing and romance.

As producers and songwriters, both were architects of joy. They devised irresistible pop hits that were ingenious, eclectic and full of vital details. Those studio masterpieces were beautiful, indelible artefacts. But the humans behind them led troubled lives.

Wilson had barely reached his 20s when he emerged as the Beach Boys’ songwriter and producer, commandeering not only his band members but seasoned studio musicians to execute his pop innovations; the pros took him seriously. At first Wilson latched onto a sport he didn’t participate in — surfing — as a peg for his increasingly sophisticated musical constructions. But he quickly outgrew the connection — and bade it a cosmic farewell in Surf’s Up, with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks, in 1966.

Wilson’s early songs lifted guitar licks from Chuck Berry, but they also revelled in vocal harmonies derived from both doo-wop, with its basic chords and its rhythmic nonsense syllables and from the Four Freshmen, who sang intricate arrangements with chromatic jazz chords. With I Get Around, in 1964, Wilson cut loose with multiple key changes, a cappella sections, sudden instrumental interjections and exultant falsetto wails; it was a No.1 hit. His innovative side had paid off.