Beach Boy changed music and lives in his own inimitable way

By Elmer Ploetz
(Image above: Ithaka Darin Pappas, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

It hasn’t been a good week for legends.

First Sly Stone, and now Brian Wilson. Sly died Monday at age 82 and then Wilson’s family announced his death Wednesday (June 11). This is feeling personal.

I’m sure I’m not alone in taking it that way. At its best, music – and the arts in general – can connect people. A million people may buy the record, or these days stream it, but each one can have a personal relationship with that song or that album. The greater the artist, the deeper the connection.

For me, that connection was with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. They were my entry into the world of popular music. Growing up as a outsider of sorts in the hills of Cattaraugus County, the Beach Boys offered a world where I imagined for myself a kind of freedom, a fantasy where being a teen seemed fun and not traumatic. The music had an exhilaration to it that encapsulated that freedom. The first rock record I bought for myself was the 1974 Beach Boys compilation “Endless Summer.”

But there was more to them as I found when I got the “Good Vibrations” compilation of their later 1960s recordings on Reprise Records. Many of those songs, along with much of the “Friends”/”20/20” double album made their way onto a mixtape I made for the girl who would become my partner of the past 40-plus years.

Most of those records were years old by the time I discovered them, yet they were the soundtrack I grew up with and I can’t imagine life without them. There were songs I felt as if they were written specifically for me. And there was nothing like the genius that Brian Wilson brought to the music, whether it was the adrenaline rush of “Good Vibrations” or the gentle beauty of lesser-known songs like “Friends” and “Wake the World.”

But obviously I wasn’t the only one. In many ways, the songs that the Beach Boys did (many with other co-writing with Wilson) were more true to the real lives of regular people than those of their contemporaries.

There are tributes to Brian Wilson all over the internet tonight. If you want, you can check out Rolling Stone’s list of 25 Essential Brian Wilson songs or the New York Times obituary (that’s a gift link that should get you past the firewall).

But to complete this post, I’d like to share the thoughts of someone for whom this is even more persona, coming to know Brian Wilson personally. Jim Laspesa is a Kenmore native and was a drummer for Big Wheelie & the Hubcaps and Green Jell-O in the Buffalo area in the early 1980s before heading to Los Angeles, where he eventually became the drummer in Wilson’s band.

He had these observations on his Facebook page in the wake of Wilson’s death; they’re shared with his permission:

I just looked up at the beautiful California sky and said goodbye. The Beach Boys have meant so much to my life. Sure I was tired of freezing winters but a giant part of why I wanted to move out West after high school was to be near where Brian, Mike, Al, Carl and Dennis created that beautiful music.

Soon after I moved, I got a job working at Tower Records on Sunset. Sure enough, there he was – Brian would come in the store semi-regularly, and I just would talk to him about music. Unbelievably, I wasn’t nervous – he was so nice and his genuine nature put me at ease.

Some time after that, he released his first solo album and we played it to death in the store. Many years later one of my co-workers Chuck Greenland told me that whenever it played he would silently creep up one aisle over and watch me. Paraphrasing: “The album would come on and you’d lower your head and sway back and forth, eyes glazed, as if in a daze.”

They say that in life you eventually gravitate towards “your tribe.” In Los Angeles over time I met lots of fellow Beach Boys and Brian devotees in the Los Angeles music community, and several of them went on to become his backing band!

When “Love And Mercy”, the motion picture about Brian’s life, came along, my friend and Brian Wilson Band mainstay Darian Sahanaja got the job of casting the “Wrecking Crew” musicians. He wanted to use actual musicians that loved the music, and cast me as the studio percussionist! What an experience.

When the film wrapped, Brian wanted to do something special for the cast by playing a set of music at the wrap party. Because it was short notice and several of the Brian band members lived out of state, Darian asked me to play drums at the event! What a trip. At the first rehearsal, Brian strolled in, glanced over at me, and said “Oh, hey!” So casual and cool – I guess he remembers me. During Soundcheck at the party before we played I was setting up my drums and noticed Brian sitting on the side of the stage. I waved hello and he said “Hey man, you play some good drums.” Thanks, Brian!

Sometime after that, life imitated Love And Mercy art, and I became the percussionist and one of the vocalists in his band. What a loving honor to travel around the world with Brian, Al, Blondie, and such a wonderful group of people, many of them already longtime friends.


Jim Laspesa with Brian Wilson

In more recent times with Brian retired, myself and the other local L.A. guys and gals in the band (Darian, Debbie, Rob and Probyn) started going up to his house, often on Tuesday afternoons, to sing with and for him. A few pianos, a few acoustic guitars. We would gather around Brian in his music room and just have a ball singing together – songs by the Beach Boys, Beatles, Bee Gees, Phil Spector, you name it. Brian enjoyed it and I’m so grateful we had those bonus times together – memories I will always cherish.

My condolences to Brian’s family and children, to Mike, Al, David, Blondie and Bruce and their families, and to everyone who loved his beautiful music that will thankfully last forever. He’s in heaven with his family which is a wonderful thought I’m going to hang onto. No more suffering. Eternal paradise. Goodbye, Brian – may you rest in peace.