To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Arts & Entertainment June 17, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/ent/log/1999/06/17/wilson A&E TV documentary revisits Brian Wilson "We have to stop asking him for something." -- Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan. - - - - - - - - - - - - By David Bauder A British writer, Nik Cohn, once described Brian Wilson's peak with the Beach Boys, the album "Pet Sounds," as "sad songs about loneliness and heartache. Sad songs, even, about happiness." Watching A&E Network's two-hour documentary on Wilson (premiering Sunday at 8 p.m. ET) is like listening to some of those songs. It's sad, often unbearably so. While illuminating, even entertaining with all of the music, the documentary is a melancholy account of a life filled with disharmony. Wilson's tale is one of rock 'n' roll's most familiar: the California boy with the overbearing father who sang of sun and fun with his brothers and cousin. He was intensely creative and musically innovative until he fell off a cliff of mental illness and substance abuse. In the 30 years since, he has watched both his brothers die, been sued by his cousin and struggled to regain at least his sanity, if not his creative powers. "Brian is high tragedy," said producer Morgan Neville. "That's why so many people are drawn to the story. I tried to temper it with the brilliance of the music. It's been the one thing in life that has given him solace." The story's attractiveness was also a challenge for Neville, since it has been told before in documentaries and books. Neville plays it straight, avoiding the temptations to wallow in the melodrama or favor one faction's opinion over another's. In a subtle distinction, he starts from the beginning, instead of working back from a picture of how Wilson changed. "I wanted to tell the story in a way that almost suspends the knowledge," he said. "You can see the changes happen, but you don't have that sense of dread. You understand how he got there, you understand that Brian is not some crazy nut, but that there are deep-seated reasons for what happened." Before the fall, it feels like a race against time, a race to get songs like "Good Vibrations" and "God Only Knows" from Wilson's head onto records before he succumbs to the years of playing a piano in a sandbox or staying in bed day after day. Neville said it was like a biblical parable of an innocent man who has been given a beautiful gift to share with others but at the price of destroying him. "It's really hard to convey how wide-eyed he is," he said. "That leads you to do one of two things -- you either want to take advantage of him or take care of him. And most of the people he's run into do one or the other." Wilson's late father sold the publishing rights to his son's songs for a pittance, and Wilson failed in his effort to get them back. His cousin, Mike Love, sued Wilson seeking compensation for songs which he claimed he helped write. Love didn't cooperate with the A&E biography, but Wilson did. He invited Neville into his home and spoke candidly of his life. His daughters, singers Wendy and Carnie, describe in heartbreaking detail their efforts to become a part of their dad's life. Wilson still works, but the two solo albums he has made during the last dozen years are bland and forgettable. In the meantime, his critical reputation for the 1960s work has blossomed. A new generation of artists cite his work as an influence, and the British music magazine Mojo last year declared "Pet Sounds" the best rock album of all time, a distinction that in many polls had gone to the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." He seems happy, remarried and living in Illinois, and is even giving some of his first solo concerts. And yet ... "I had a hard time with the ending," Neville said. "There's no happy ending. There's no tragic ending. It's somewhere in between. And that's the hardest thing to grapple with." So he recounts some poignant conversations. Former collaborator Van Dyke Parks tells how Wilson recently said to him, "My work is done, I think. I did my work. When I was young, I worked very hard." Wilson's wife, Melinda, says she lies in bed some nights as her husband is downstairs playing the piano, singing a breathtaking melody. She'll bound down the steps and ask why he doesn't record the material. He'll shrug. "We have to stop asking him for something," said Billy Corgan, lead singer and songwriter for Smashing Pumpkins, and an unabashed and articulate Beach Boys fan. "He's already given it. If he wants to give more, great. The choice is his." As they all talk, the song "In My Room" plays softly in the background. salon.com | June 17, 1999