'I named Brian 'the Stalin of the studio.' ' When Love returned home to work on the vocals with the rest of the group, he was not impressed: 'No sound was too precious,' he writes of the lengthy recording sessions. He began working with outside collaborators, notably a jingles writer named Tony Asher who would help Wilson craft lyrics for 'Pet Sounds.' The album's introspective tone and lush orchestrations were a departure from the Beach Boys' more direct and upbeat style. The years in which Wilson produced his most ambitious recordings, 1966 and '67, also planted the seeds of his physical and mental decline, and fractured his relationship with Love.Īfter a nervous breakdown while on tour in 1964 during the height of the Beach Boys' fame, Wilson retired from the road to write and produce music while the rest of the band played concerts around the world. But Love is most aggrieved that his uncle, who also controlled the band's publishing during its most successful era, gave sole credit to Brian for writing songs such as 'Be True to Your School' and 'California Girls.' In 1994, Love sued Wilson for publishing royalties, and was later awarded millions of dollars. Love describes Murry Wilson as 'a violent blowhard' who mentally and physically abused his sons, particularly Brian, who was the oldest and most musically gifted.

And there is Wilson's second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, who is portrayed as a meddler who scuttled Love and Wilson's attempted reconciliation and cut short a Beach Boys reunion tour a few years ago.

The list also includes Beach Boys biographer David Leaf and music executive David Anderle, who are singled out for driving the narrative that Love undermined Wilson's efforts to expand the Beach Boys sound in the late '60s.

It starts with his uncle and the Wilson brothers' father, Murry Wilson, who managed and produced the band when the family started harmonizing together in Hawthorne, Calif., in the early '60s.

Good vibrations by mike love