June 12, 2025 by brendanmstewart

The Death of Summer: Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, RIP

It’s been a rough week for popular music with the death of two of the most important figures in the culture of the last 70 years. On the surface, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone could not be further apart. Wilson was the sun-kissed, clean cut all-American kid singing pop songs with his family about surfing, girls, and cars. Stone was the perpetually high black hippie singing funk and soul songs with a racially and sexually integrated band about togetherness, self-empowerment, and enjoying life to the fullest. Wilson marked the first half of the 1960s, Stone was a product of the second half of that decade.

On further reflection, several striking similarities are also evident. Both were geniuses. Both bands were built around family members. Both made it into the 1970s with increasingly scattered results. Both were casualties of drugs and mental illness. Both were unbelievably influential on their peers and their descendants.

Sly Stone, born Sylvester Stewart in 1943, was a disc jockey, producer, and musician in San Francisco who led the Family Stone, a funk outfit that had a great love for all types of music and incorporated rock, soul, psychedelia, gospel, and pop into their sound and blew the doors off of the boundaries of the music scene. Beginning with his Top Ten hit, “Dance to the Music” he began a string of classic songs and albums that redefined the music of black America. This was not the hardcore funk of James Brown, nor was it the Memphis soul of Otis Redding, or the gorgeous pop symphonies of Motown. This was, well, all of that thrown in a blender. The result was unique to Sly and the Family Stone, but others were paying attention.

It’s simply impossible to imagine the sound of black music in the 1970s and beyond without hearing and understanding Sly and the Family Stone. Beginning with his first breakout albums, Music of My Mind and Talking Book, and culminating with the magisterial Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder had clearly been paying close attention to Sly. Without Sly, there is no Philly soul, no Jacksons, no Parliament-Funkadelic, no Earth, Wind, and Fire, no Spinners, no War, no latter-day Temptations. Follow the trail into the 80s and beyond and there’s no Terence Trent D’Arby, no Prince, no Red Hot Chili Peppers, no Fishbone, no OutKast, no Vintage Trouble. James Brown can rightfully claim the credit for inventing rap, but one wonders if the more music-oriented rappers would have picked up their instruments without Sly leading the way. All these bands and performers were paying homage to Sly Stone in their different ways. Even Talking Heads’ more funk-oriented songs from the early 80s were directly inspired by Sly.

Stone peaked with 1968’s album Stand! and the three singles that he released to close out the decade. “Hot Fun in the Summertime” remains one of the all-time great summer songs, as good as anything Brian Wilson’s brothers had released. The double A-side that he released at year’s end, “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Everybody Is A Star” pointed the way to the seventies on the first side and summarized Sly’s sixties on the second half.

Brian Wilson, the heart and soul of The Beach Boys, was a fragile genius who turned the California dream into a universal language. Born in 1942, Wilson’s early life was steeped in music but scarred by the abuse of his father, Murry, a domineering figure whose cruelty left lasting marks. It was a smack from the desperate wannabe songwriter Murry that rendered Brian deaf in one ear. Wilson’s genius took a while to become evident. The early Beach Boys, as enjoyable and as fun as they are, were mainly variations on a theme: surfing is cool, and life is best lived at the beach. But the genius was lurking all the time, poking his head up in introspective songs like “In My Room” that hinted at a more melancholy side to the songwriter. The musical and vocal arrangements were also getting more sophisticated. As a kid, sitting in front of the stereo with headphones on listening to the then-new Endless Summer compilation, I was drawn more to the intriguing arrangements of the music on “California Girls” and the vocals on “Help Me, Rhonda” than I was to “Surfin’ Safari”.

Brian Wilson Beach Boys

Still, nothing prepared the music-loving America of 1966 for the explosion of brilliance that was Pet Sounds. Surely the winner of any competition for “Worst Cover/Best Album” in history, Pet Sounds was Brian Wilson’s attempt to pick up the gauntlet the Beatles had thrown down with Rubber Soul. Brian has stated that his album was an effort to create something that had “more musical merit than the Beatles.” For their part, the Beatles flipped over the Beach Boys album. Paul McCartney still calls it his favorite album. It wasn’t the lyrics on Pet Sounds that were revolutionary, though they broke from surfing and cars. Singer Mike Love even complained about that to Brian, telling him to “stick to the formula.” No, it was the musical arrangements that completely upended rock music. This was music that demanded to be taken seriously. Even the brilliant musicians who provided the instrumentation, Los Angeles mainstays The Wrecking Crew, familiar and fluent in every type of music around at the time, were confused by what Wilson was asking for in the studio. Confused, but also in awe of the results. Harpsichords, tympanies, barking dogs, bicycle bells…nothing was off-limits in Wilson’s imagination. Anchored by “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows,” Pet Sounds remains one of the greatest albums ever recorded. And it was such a flop Capitol records rush-released a greatest hits album just two months later. The fact is that nobody (except other musicians) was ready to hear Brian Wilson’s genius yet.

Wilson’s brilliance reached its apogee with the following single, “Good Vibrations,” a song whose intricate arrangement stuns the listener to this day. But Wilson’s attempt at a follow up album, Smile, was mired in a sea of LSD, pot, and mental illness. He’d had a nervous breakdown in 1964 which led to him giving up touring to concentrate on the records, and now he had another, far more serious one. Smile was abandoned. Parts of it were released on the albums Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, providing a tantalizing glimpse into what might have been. While he “finished” Smile in 2004 as a solo artist, the fact remains that the full Beach Boys-treatment remains the great lost album of the sixties.

Wilson’s career was a rollercoaster of brilliance and breakdown. His mental health struggles, compounded by drug abuse and the manipulative control of psychologist Eugene Landy, derailed him for decades. Landy, initially a savior in the 1970s, became a Svengali-like figure, isolating Wilson until a 1992 lawsuit freed him. His wife and guardian Melinda Wilson died in 2024. Brian Wilson lived out his life suffering from dementia, a tragic ending to a tragic story.

Sly Stone’s life mirrored Wilson’s in its descent. Drug addiction, particularly cocaine, and erratic behavior unraveled his career by the mid-1970s. The Family Stone fractured, and Stone became a reclusive figure, his output dwindling as he battled personal demons. His later years were marked by legal troubles, financial ruin, and health issues, culminating in a prolonged battle with COPD that eventually killed him.

While their stories are tragic, the music they left behind stands testament to their genius. As the drugs got worse Sly Stone’s music turned dark, but his work from the sixties remains fresh, sunny, bold, and optimistic. It’s the perfect companion to the hot nights partying after spending the day on the beach, where Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys provide the soundtrack of the endless summer. The musical world is greatly diminished by their loss.

June 9, 2025 by brendanmstewart

Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon, by Peter Ames Carlin

Homeward Bound The Life of Paul Simon The poet half to Art Garfunkel’s one-man band has always been an interesting guy. Like Bob Dylan, he was a rock ‘n’ roll fan who went deep into the folk music scene only to reemerge with a sublime combination of the two genres. He achieved massive levels of fame and fortune, gathering critical hosannas the entire time, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice and now, in his 80s, is still releasing music. All of this, but Peter Ames Carlin’s 2016 biography was the first serious attempt at capturing this life on the page. The story covers Simon’s entire life from his days as a baseball fanatic kid growing up in Queens, New York through his years with Garfunkel and on through his solo career. Simon was not a particularly prolific artist, his solo albums being years apart, but the high quality of the work from “The Sound of Silence” to Graceland and beyond is unassailable.

The musical journey begins in 1957 when an unknown duo calling themselves Tom and Jerry released a standard ’50s vocal group tune called “Hey! Schoolgirl.” Credited to Jerry Landis and Tom Graph, these were pseudonyms designed to obscure the obviously Jewish roots of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. The song became something of a regional hit, allowing Simon to namedrop it when attempting to make his way into the music industry. Simon struggled for years attempting to cash in on the success of “Hey! Schoolgirl” to no avail. He and Garfunkel parted ways as musical partners, though they remained friends.

Much like Bob Dylan had, Simon threw the dice on a career in folk music when that scene exploded in the early sixties, reuniting with Garfunkel. Unlike Dylan, success came slowly, resulting in an album called Wednesday Morning, 3 AM that went nowhere. Disheartened, he made his way to England where he had had success on a solo jaunt the year before. In England he attracted a large following, and even recorded an album called The Paul Simon Songbook, which was not released in the United States at the time but is a fascinating glimpse at many Simon and Garfunkel classics in their early stages.

When Simon achieved success he was unaware. Unbeknownst to him, the producer of Wednesday Morning, Tom Wilson, had decided to add some electric guitars, bass, and drums to the all-acoustic song “The Sound of Silence.” It was released as a single and Simon’s original reaction was anger, which abated once the royalty checks started flowing. From there Simon and Garfunkel were off to the races, scoring hit after classic hit.

The duo split, acrimoniously, in 1970 when Garfunkel decided to try his hand at acting, leaving Simon alone with his thoughts and a guitar. The result of that abandonment was Paul Simon, an excellent collection of tunes that proved Simon didn’t need the crystal-clear tenor of Garfunkel to succeed. As the seventies rolled on, Simon released only two more albums, both of which were extraordinary. One of them, 1975’s Still Crazy After All These Years even featured a reunion with Garfunkel on the brilliant “My Little Town.”

After two more albums, Simon released Graceland in 1986. The album generated an enormous amount of controversy because it was recorded in South Africa using musicians from that country at a time when artists were actively boycotting the apartheid regime there. The kerfuffle was overblown. Simon had fallen in love with the music coming out of Africa and wanted to share it with the world. He used black South African musicians, paying them twice what they normally would make, and brought more attention to the racist government of the country. Graceland was wildly successful and assured Simon’s place in the pantheon of rock and roll greats. His subsequent solo albums, despite critical acclaim, never matched that success.

Peter Ames Carlin’s book does an excellent job of assessing the career and events of Paul Simon’s life. It is comprehensive in its inclusion of detailed discussion of the music and is not afraid to discuss both the positive aspects of Simon’s life and the negative side of his personality (he wasn’t above claiming credit for the work of others). It also spends a lot of time, perhaps too much, on Simon’s relationship with Garfunkel, a lifelong series of reconciliations, reunions, and breakups that seems to have settled on a respectful distance. As Simon said in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, maybe he’d even record with Garfunkel again, before slyly adding, “No rush.”

There are a few obvious errors in the book, but those errors are minor in the whole. For example, in his discussion of the Simon and Garfunkel album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Carlin writes about the brilliance of some of the album tracks and then proceeds to list four songs from the Bookends album. At another point, he has Simon and Garfunkel performing on the same night as Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The errors may be insignificant, but they’re also sloppy and should have been caught in the editing stages. They also call into question the veracity of the author’s other claims.

Paul Simon is something of an anomaly in popular music. A short, balding, Jewish, well-read man who would seem to be most at home in the English department of New York University in Greenwich Village, he nonetheless emerged as one of the biggest, most successful stars of the last half of the 20th century. His work with Garfunkel, his initial splash in the industry, probably reverberates the most because their amazing singles created his legend, but it’s Simon’s solo work that truly transcends. He may never have written songs as good as “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Mrs. Robinson,” or “The Sound of Silence” in his solo career, but he and Garfunkel never came close to putting out albums as consistently remarkable as There Goes Rhymin’ Simon or Graceland. From a lyrical perspective, only Bob Dylan was as literate, and Simon’s words are far, far more accessible.

Carlin’s expansive tome is a well-researched and engaging summary of Paul Simon’s life up until 2015 or so. It misses a few albums, including the beautiful Seven Psalms which Simon wrote, recorded, and released at the tender age of 81, but provides deep looks into everything up until that point. The book aims to be the definitive look at Simon’s life, but can any biography be classified as such if the subject in question is still alive, active, and capable of great work? Regardless, though it may be incomplete, Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon succeeds in giving the reader an in-depth understanding into the life and work of a legendary songwriter.